“Ah!”
Kirsten let out a shriek as she stumbled back–straight into Lachlan’s arms.
He caught her instantly, his eyes burning when they snapped to me.
“Damn it, Chantelle!” His voice cut through the air like a whip. “You still haven’t learned your lesson, have you? You laid a hand on Kirsten again?! Falling from ten thousand feet clearly wasn’t enough to knock sense into you, huh?”
I stood my ground, though my voice wavered. “She was the one who bullied me. Back then… in school.”
For a second, something flickered in his eyes. Doubt? Memory? But it vanished almost immediately.
“I… I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Kirsten whispered, her voice trembling.
“Why would I ever do something like that?” In his arms, she looked up at him with wet eyes. “I… I really don’t know how else to prove myself, Locke.”
<
Her sobs grew louder, as if on cue. A heartbeat later, the twins started crying too, clinging to her legs and wailing.
Lachlan looked torn for only a heartbeat–then wrapped them all in his arms like some
kind of savior.
“I know,” he murmured gently. “I know you’re not like that.”
When he glanced at me, his voice sharpened. “Chantelle’s clearly lost it. I should’ve taught her a harsher lesson the first time.”
The way he looked at me–it was frighteningly cold.
Before I could move, two bodyguards stepped forward. I barely had time to flinch before they grabbed me by the arms and dragged me down the hallway.
“Take her to the storage room,” Lachlan ordered. “And bring in nine hundred and ninety–nine jasmine flowers.”
He didn’t even glance my way. His voice left no room for mercy.
“You hurt Kirsten and the children, and now you’re trying to pin the bullying on her? Looks like you deserved it back then!”
With that, the door slammed shut behind me with a heavy thud.
Within seconds, the scent hit me–thick and suffocating. My throat closed up almost instantly, panic rising fast.
I staggered back, coughing hard, my lungs refusing to work. My eyes burned. My skin prickled.
Jasmine.
A Job Offer Started My Revenge Against My CEO Ex
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WICHEGO JURES
The one thing I couldn’t be around. My allergy–my worst episodes–started because of the flowers Kirsten used to stuff in my locker every single day in high school.
Back then, the doctors called it stress–induced. Lachlan had called it cruelty when he found out. He banned jasmine from the estate and the company after we got married. Even patterns on curtains weren’t allowed.
Now he’d locked me in with nearly a thousand of them.
Because of her.
My eyes swelled shut. I couldn’t even cry.
Whatever part of me had still been holding onto hope for Lachlan…
It broke.
I woke up in a hospital bed, throat raw, eyes swollen. My chest ached like it had been scrubbed raw.
Lachlan sat at my side, typing something on his laptop. Business as usual:
When he noticed I was awake, a flicker of something soft passed through his eyes.
He set the laptop aside and picked up a bowl of soup.
He brought it to my lips, but I turned my head away.
His hand froze mid–air. That brief flicker of warmth in his eyes? Snuffed out in an instant.
“You went too far this time,” he said quietly, the edge returning to his voice. “I’ve already
been more than tolerant.”
I didn’t answer. Just kept my gaze on the ceiling, refusing so much as to glance at him.
The silence must’ve gotten under his skin, because the next moment, he yanked the pendant from around my neck.
His tone turned cutting, bitter. “You seem perfectly fine to me. From now on, this pendant belongs to Kirsten. You’re not getting it back.”
He stared at me, like he was waiting–daring me–to protest. To react.
I didn’t give him the satisfaction. Just met his gaze and nodded once.
For a split second, something shifted in his eyes. Panic? Guilt? Whatever it was, it vanished almost instantly, replaced by rising fury.
“Chantelle! How long are you planning to keep this up? I’ve already humbled myself enough, and you’re still acting like some victim–still playing hard to get?”
I didn’t answer. Just pointed at his phone on the nightstand.
The screen was lit up.
Kirsten was calling.
His expression changed immediately. He snatched up the phone and walked out without another word, voice soft and coaxing as he answered her call.
It never even crossed his mind that I wasn’t talking because I physically couldn’t.
Chapter 3
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G
11:36 Mon 23 Junonis
It never even crossed his mind that i wasnt talking because i pпysically couldn t
BU%
Back then, he would’ve noticed the moment something felt off–would’ve dropped
everything to ask what was wrong.
Now? Even if I died right in front of him, I wasn’t sure he’d flinch.
Before he returned, I checked myself out of the hospital.
Back at the estate, I moved on instinct.
Seven years of memories with Lachlan–all of them packed into drawers, boxes, albums. I dragged them out one by one.
Photos of us laughing at the beach.
Ninety–nine love letters, all in his handwriting.
The journals I’d filled every single day we were married–tracking the highs, the lows, the quiet mornings where I thought we’d grow old together.
I stood by the fireplace and fed them in, page by page, memory by memory. Watched it all curl and blacken into ash.
I was tossing in the last journal when the front door slammed open. “Chantelle!”
I turned, just as Lachlan walked in with Kirsten and the twins behind him. His eyes landed on the fire–and what was burning inside.
“What are you doing?!”
11:36 Mon, 23 Jun G
Chapter 4
