Fake Mate Beta Rises to Alpha Heiress (Natalie and Landon) novel Chapter 198

Chapter 198 Set Her Up

Chloe’s POV:

“I fail the evaluation every year. I’m 24 now. I’m running out of time.” The words came out calm, but laced with a despair I hated. “If I don’t get out of the Kelly family soon, I’ll lose my mind.”

I turned my head away, unable to look at him. I didn’t want to see his expression. Was it pity? Or that same unbearable gentleness he’d shown me in the past?

I knew he was somewhat aware of my situation. He knew about my mother’s massive inheritance and the strict conditions. He knew how the Kelly family had “carefully” raised me to always fall short. He had tried to help me countless times before, but I always shut him out.

He was the one person I couldn’t be indebted to. That was my final, non-negotiable line.

The car filled with a silence heavier than before. I pushed the door open and practically fled. The cold night air hit my face, making me shiver and clearing my head a little. I murmured, “Just let it be, Liam. Don’t come any closer. We were never from the same world to begin with.”

I didn’t look back, quickly walking toward the Kelly Villa-a place that symbolized all my confinement and struggles.

The car’s headlights stayed on behind me, casting a long beam until I turned the corner and disappeared from his view. That light felt like a silent gaze, burning a hot, painful mark into my back.

Liam’s POV:

She said, “I hate you.”

Those words felt like a sharp, painful jab straight to my chest. A cold numbness spread through my limbs. I gripped the steering wheel tightly, as if it could restrain the violent, wolfish impulses raging inside me. What was I even doing? Forcibly taking her and “protecting” her in the clumsiest way possible only made her despise me more.

Her faint, wild-stubborn pheromones filled the car, mixing with my own sharp scent of cedar. It created a contradictory, suffocating atmosphere. She was curled in her seat, giving me only a profile etched with resistance. I couldn’t see her face, but I could clearly feel the solid weight of her hurt and anger.

“You know exactly why I’m working there!” she shot back immediately. Her tone was its usual mix of sarcasm and defense. “Isn’t that why you brought your fiancée there today to…”

“Is Eleanor bullying you?” I interrupted, trying to keep my tone neutral, just curious, not accusing. “Or did you get into trouble? Are you being punished?” I knew the Kelly family’s methods. They always found a justified-sounding reason to “discipline” her.

She fell silent. This wasn’t the angry silence from before. This was the exhaustion of someone crushed by reality. After a long moment, so long I thought she wouldn’t answer, she spoke in a low voice. It was calm, but a thread of raw vulnerability slipped through.

She said, “I fail the evaluation every year. I’m 24 now. I’m running out of time. If I don’t get out of the Kelly family soon, I’ll lose my mind.”

Her head was turned away. I couldn’t see her face, but her words hit me, sending violent waves through me.

I knew her mother’s inheritance was held in trust by the Kelly family. I knew she’d lose her claim to everything her mother left if she didn’t meet the conditions by age thirty. I just never knew what those specific conditions were. On the surface, the Kelly family took her in. But in reality, they did everything they could to set her up to fail, ensuring she could never meet the requirements.