Abandoned by All I Took It All Back novel Chapter 24

Just as she turned to leave, her foot caught on something, and she lost her balance, stumbling forward.

Instinctively, Janina shielded her stomach, breaking her fall with her hands.

"Hiss!" A searing pain shot through her palm.

Her fingers brushed against something hard.

She looked down.

It was a piece of a shattered flowerpot, likely left behind by a careless maid.

Her left hand was bleeding from a deep gash left by a ceramic shard. The pain was so intense it brought tears to her eyes.

"Oh, ma'am! Are you hurt? Please don't do anything foolish!"

A maid came running over, her face a mask of panic. She saw Janina's bloody hand, her tear-streaked face, and the broken piece of ceramic still clutched in her other hand.

To the maid, it looked like Janina was trying to kill herself after seeing her husband intimately holding another woman.

The maid had seen the whole exchange between Julius and Yvonne, so captivated by the scene that she hadn't noticed Janina standing nearby.

As a woman, she felt a pang of sympathy for Janina. "Ma'am, please, throw that shard away," she pleaded. "Master Aurelius does care about you, he…"

Hearing the maid's frantic tone, Janina looked up and saw Julius and Yvonne walking towards her.

The man was tall and imposing in his perfectly tailored suit; the woman was gentle and elegant.

They stood side-by-side before her, a perfect couple.

"Janina, if you're going to throw a tantrum, at least pick a better time and place. Have you no shame? Is this what you've become, so consumed by jealousy?"

Julius looked down at the weeping woman, his voice laced with an anger that ignored the facts of the situation.

He assumed Janina had followed him, seen him with Yvonne, and, with no other outlet for her rage, resorted to staging a dramatic suicide attempt to get his attention.

He also suspected she wanted to draw the other guests over to witness the scene and condemn him.

Janina was utterly classless, resorting to such a cheap trick to embarrass Yvonne.

The accusation was so ridiculous it was almost funny.

But now, apart from the pain in her hand, she felt nothing at all.

Janina gave a dismissive laugh, her eyes sweeping over the two of them with undisguised sarcasm.

"With imaginations like yours, you two should be screenwriters."

It was the exact line Julius had once used on her. Today, she was giving it right back to him.

Yvonne's smile faltered.

Where was the anger?

Where was the hysterical scene?

In truth, Yvonne had noticed Janina standing there a while ago.

She had wanted to provoke her, to make her cause a scene in front of Julius and make him despise her even more.

She clearly hadn't expected Janina to be so calm.