Broken Vows and Buried Twins novel Chapter 125

There was quite a line at the boarding gate, and Hester shuffled forward slowly with the crowd.

Just as she was nearing the front, the sharp sound of approaching footsteps echoed behind her.

Before she could even process it, an iron grip clamped down on her arm.

The man's palm was dry and radiating heat, his fingers strong and unyielding. Strapped to his wrist was a limited-edition watch—the exact one she had gifted Julian Weston on their wedding day.

Hester's breath hitched. She jerked her head up and crashed straight into the man's dark, thunderous eyes.

She froze, her mind instantly wiping to static. She forgot to even try and pull away.

Julian stared down at her, a terrifying fury swirling in his black eyes. His thin lips parted as he delivered a bone-chilling question: "Hester, where do you think you're taking my child?"

Boom!

Julian's words exploded in her mind like a bomb.

He knew about the pregnancy?

No, that's impossible...

Hester was entirely blindsided by this catastrophic turn of events!

She had prepared herself for the possibility that Julian might track her down overseas eventually, but she had never, in her wildest nightmares, anticipated being intercepted at the boarding gate!

"Hey, are you moving or what? If not, step aside!"

The irritated grumbles of delayed passengers brought her back to reality.

Hester snapped out of her daze, taking a ragged breath to force her panic down.

The absolute worst-case scenario had just unfolded.

She pressed her lips together and glared at Julian. "Let go of me."

Julian's gaze was lethal. "Do you honestly think you're still getting on that plane?"

She knew it was over. She wasn't leaving today.

Hester leveled a glacial look at him. "Since you've found me, let's talk. Let go of my arm first. There's no need to cause a scene in front of everyone."

Hearing this, Julian finally released his iron grip.

Hester pulled her arm back and stepped to the side of the line.

Only then did she realize Julian hadn't come alone.

Suddenly, Hester's breath caught as a horrifying realization hit her.

She stared straight into Julian's eyes. "Celeste works for you?"

Julian didn't blink, offering a faint hum of confirmation.

Having her suspicion validated, Hester let out a dry, bitter laugh.

She laughed at her own foolishness for letting her guard down, and she laughed at how sinister Julian's methods truly were.

The clean break and daring escape she thought she had orchestrated were nothing more than a pathetic joke to him.

"Watching me scramble around, desperately planning this whole escape—you must have found it incredibly amusing, didn't you, Julian?"

Julian remained completely unfazed by her biting sarcasm.

His expression hardened, and his voice dropped low. "The mastermind behind the kidnapping still hadn't been caught. I had to use Melody as a decoy to draw them out. For that to work, I needed to officially 'remove' you from my life. The divorce agreement was just me playing along to sell the story."

Listening to Julian's casual explanation, Hester felt a surge of absolute disbelief.

He took it upon himself to put on this grand, fake romance with Melody, essentially handing Melody a loaded gun to humiliate and sabotage her. He let Melody wreck the company Hester had built from the ground up. He let the entirety of Northwood City believe that she had been betrayed for a pathetic charity case. He reduced her, Mrs. Weston, to a pathetic punchline in high society...