Crowned by the Man They Feared (Amelia and Jeremy) novel Chapter 664

It was her final straw.

Regina's words were deliberately cruel, a weaponized dismissal meant to wound and exile.

Gianna stood frozen, her entire body trembling as if struck by a physical blow. Her face drained of all color. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged; her throat was sealed shut by a surge of humiliated rage.

She had never been spoken to like this in her life. She had always been told she was beautiful and exceptional.

Now, phrases like "useless" and "hopeless" pierced her like poisoned needles, embedding deep in her heart, making it hard to breathe.

She stared at the woman in front of her, at the twisted expression and glacial eyes, and suddenly felt as though she were looking at a stranger.

She couldn't stay another second. She fled the room, her exit nothing short of abject.

"Amelia. Amelia! It's always Amelia!"

Once in the hallway, Gianna's eyes filled with a dark, festering malice.

She funneled every ounce of her misery, including her own downfall and her mother's grotesque transformation, into a single target: Amelia.

It was all her fault!

If not for Amelia, she would never have been cast out by the Nygards. Her three brothers and her adoptive parents wouldn't despise her.

She wouldn't be here, despised even by her own mother!

It was all because of Amelia!

"Amelia Nygard... You never should have been born. You never should have existed in this world!

"If you were gone, everything would go back to the way it was. If you disappeared forever, I could be the Nygards' only beloved princess again."

Backed into a corner with no escape, Gianna's whispers took on a deranged quality.

A single, obsessive thought took root in her mind. Amelia must vanish. Permanently.

If she were gone, everything would revert. The world would right itself.

This thought, once planted, coiled around her heart like a vicious vine, constricting and suffocating, yet delivering a perverse, exhilarating thrill.

Why? Why did Amelia get to have everything?

The Nygards' affection, her brothers' protection, everything Gianna had ever coveted.

Only with Amelia erased would that spotlight swing back to her.

Gianna's eyes grew darker, colder, swirling with venomous schemes and a desperate, do-or-die madness.

She began to meticulously plot how to make Amelia disappear from the face of the earth without a trace.

This time, she wouldn't tell her mother. She wouldn't ask for help.

She knew that monstrous woman was no longer a viable ally.

She was on her own.

Like Marcelo, Vincent had his moment of clarity about Gianna's true nature, albeit later. The blinders were off.

He hadn't seen the full picture then, but whatever fondness he once held had long since curdled.

He just hadn't realized she could be quite so repulsive, manipulative, and fake.

It was an open secret in their circles that Vincent was a bit of a mama's boy, and Diana was fiercely controlling, especially over his marital prospects.

"Mom, I told you ages ago Gianna was no good. We never should have agreed to that match in the first place!"

Vincent now turned on his mother, blaming her for the initial decision.

If she hadn't forced this engagement, perhaps he and Amelia could have reconciled by now.

"The situation then was completely different! How was anyone to know what kind of person she truly was, or that her rift with the Nygards would be so absolute?"

Diana felt a pang of defensiveness.

She had intended to find her son a suitable partner, someone who could be an asset to his career and status.

Who could have predicted such a dramatic, catastrophic turn of events?

"If it weren't for you, I might have won Amelia back already."

Vincent's tone turned firm, almost warning. "Now that I'm free, I'm going to pursue Amelia again.

"And this time, you are not to stop me. Do not interfere in my personal life anymore."