Betrayed by the Father Reborn in His Rival's Arms novel Chapter 281

"Are you out of your mind?!" he snapped, his patience entirely decimated.

"You put on a live pornographic broadcast at our engagement, and you have the sheer audacity to call yourself my wife? Are you trying to permanently cement me as the city's biggest laughingstock?

We never signed the papers, so I won't sue you into oblivion for ruining the ceremony.

Get the hell out of my sight. There is absolutely no universe where I keep a filthy tramp like you."

Years of suppressed resentment finally detonated.

He had firmly stated he wouldn't go through with it, but Arthur and Liliana had ruthlessly cornered him.

And now, they had successfully turned him into a national punchline.

God only knew how viciously the tabloids were tearing him apart right now.

He figured dumping an incredible woman like Madeline to marry a shameless streetwalker.

Would leave him permanently crucified in the court of public opinion, a subject of eternal mockery.

All that festering rage needed a target, and she was the architect of his total humiliation.

Tears streamed flawlessly down her cheeks at his brutal words.

She said, "It's not what it looks like, Lucius! I'm innocent, I was a victim! How could you say such cruel things to me?"

"Innocent? A victim?" He let out a harsh, incredulous bark of laughter.

"If you were so innocent, why didn't you dial the police the second it happened?

If you were a victim, why the hell did they arrest you? Speaking of which, how exactly did you break out of holding?"

His interrogation was savage, but grounded entirely in basic logic.

And based on the graphic footage, she hadn't looked coerced in the slightest.

"Set up by who?" he demanded, highly doubtful but morbidly curious.

A deeply venomous glare twisted her features.

"It was Madeline! She orchestrated the entire thing! She tied me up, pumped me full of aphrodisiacs, and lured those six men to the suite!

She seduced them, told them she was waiting in bed, and when they walked into the trap, the airborne drugs completely took over their minds, driving them to assault me!

I was completely powerless, Lucius! You can't look at me like that, I was brutalized! And if you hadn't abandoned me at our engagement, none of this would have happened!

What kind of woman invites a gang-rape while pregnant? I hemorrhaged and nearly bled out on that bed! Do you really think I'm that utterly stupid? Use your brain!"

Her frantic logic actually managed to throw a wrench into his certainty.

She had a valid point; even a raging nymphomaniac wouldn't organize an orgy under those circumstances.

She was highly pregnant, a time when women were instinctively protective of their bodies.