Betrayed by the Father Reborn in His Rival's Arms novel Chapter 206

Quentin had sworn to himself that he would never let Madeline play him for a fool again.

He needed to hold the power in this dynamic, and above all, he could never admit that he loved her.

He preferred to lie to himself, pretending he was doing all of this purely for leverage—using Madeline to reclaim what he had lost, forcing their lives together out of calculated necessity.

He refused to face the truth: he did it because he loved her, because he couldn't bear to see her suffer anymore, and because he was nothing but a fragile, desperate man begging for her affection.

Quentin was a man accustomed to absolute authority, accustomed to controlling everything in his orbit.

But with Madeline, he constantly felt powerless. He bitterly resented this loss of control, the feeling of being completely at her mercy.

"That's impossible!" Madeline blurted out without missing a beat. "How could I possibly do that?"

Quentin's face remained as cold and stagnant as dead water. "When the drugs took hold, you kept calling his name. Were you not begging for his touch?"

He stepped closer, his voice dropping. "If he had been the one next to you, would you have crossed the line and betrayed me?

"If I hadn't made it back in time last night, would you have gone running to him?"

Madeline was entirely bewildered. Even if she had been stripped of her sanity by the drugs, there was no way she would have called out for Lucius.

Lucius meant absolutely nothing to her anymore.

She held no expectations, no lingering affection for him whatsoever.

She couldn't fathom how she could have done something so absurd.

Quentin let out a sharp sneer. "So, Madeline, you think I'm lying to you?"

"No." Madeline gently shook her head. "You have no reason to lie."

"Glad you know that," Quentin scoffed.

Madeline had assumed he was utterly disgusted with her and wanted a moment alone to process. How could she have kept calling Lucius's name right to Quentin's face?

It truly was a damning mistake.

But Quentin suddenly shifted gears. "Madeline, don't tell me you forgot what you did to me last night?"

Her face instantly flushed crimson. "I... I don't remember..."

"Is that so?" Quentin reached out and yanked the silk scarf from her neck. "If you don't remember, why are you wearing this?"

Madeline's blush burned all the way down to her collarbones. With the scarf gone, the chaotic bruises marking her neck were fully exposed.

She lowered her head, her voice dropping to a mortified whisper. "I didn't do this to myself. Did... did you do this?"

Seeing her shredded clothes that morning, combined with the fragmented, scandalous flashes of memory, had left her almost certain they had engaged in something deeply intimate.