A Widow's Poison, A Wife's Rebellion novel Chapter 1186

Starla gave him a piercing look. "Don't you think that's a ridiculous question?"

How deeply did someone have to be hurt to ask something so cutting? Worry about Fairfax? That was an absolute impossibility in her heart now. They had destroyed each other too many times. Forget the recent bloodshed—the entire disaster with Brinley back in Marina City had completely annihilated whatever feelings she once had for him.

To worry about someone meant you still loved them. But for Starla, there was no love or hate left.

Having finally untangled herself from their toxic web, she now watched the chaos like an outsider viewing a tragic play. Let them fight. Let them lose their minds. She felt completely detached, as if the wreckage of their lives had nothing to do with hers.

Hearing her icy response, Herbert offered a bitter smile.

"If it were me facing off against Yardley right now, you wouldn't worry about me either, would you?"

She was truly ruthless. She and Fairfax had once been so deeply in love, but she was the type of woman who, once her heart was broken, would never look back. Because she had been hurt so profoundly, she had severed all emotional ties. They were just ghosts to her now.

And as for him? Did everything he had done to protect her in Marina City mean nothing?

It meant absolutely nothing.

Starla looked at him without answering, her silence screaming louder than words.

The bitterness in his smile deepened. "Nothing matters to you anymore, does it?"

His chest felt tight, a suffocating weight pressing down on his ribs.

"It's good that you understand that," she replied coolly.

Truly, nothing mattered. If she hadn't known how unhinged Herbert could be, she would have already left. But if she ran now, he might expose the fact that he was still alive and tear the world apart looking for her. That would make all her past suffering worthless, which was the only reason she was still trapped in Smaro Town.

"Just look at me. Please?" Herbert's voice broke, stripped of all pride. He was begging her to see him, begging her to stop drowning in the past. The scars they left her were too deep, and carrying that weight was destroying her from the inside out.

"Do you know how many times I was selectively abandoned?" she asked quietly.

Herbert's chest seized at the raw pain in her voice.

"After being discarded that many times, you want me to look at you? You want me to trust your feelings?"

"Starla..."

"Forget you and Fairfax. At this point, love means absolutely nothing to me."