Nelson sat beside her, radiating a freezing aura.
"Juniper, you actually brought up Kieran. I thought you were going to avoid talking about him for the rest of your life."
Juniper's brow furrowed, and a cold smirk touched her lips. "I certainly didn't want to."
She wanted absolutely nothing to do with anyone connected to the Saint family.
Nelson slowly closed his eyes, desperately trying to suppress the surging irritation, but the fury boiled over anyway. "My brother met you several times. He treated you to dinner. He was nothing but kind to you..."
"Was he? I forgot."
Mirabelle Thorne had treated her to dinner once, too. In anyone else's eyes, Mirabelle had been incredibly kind to her, but the woman's only goal had been to humiliate her.
Juniper truly didn't remember much of the few times she interacted with Nelson's older brother. His face was nothing but a blur now.
"Juniper!!"
Nelson's breath hitched violently. He had never outright asked Juniper if she felt even a shred of guilt!
Did she even have a heart? The Thorne family had funded her education, and she considered it an insult to her pride.
His brother had driven her to Cillian Xavier's grave, and when they got into a car crash, she bolted out of pure fear of taking responsibility.
That was when he realized he had never seen the ugly side of Juniper Lane. She wasn't just cowardly and weak; she was infected with the same vile trait as the rest of the Lane family—an absolute terror of accountability.
Neither Walter Lane nor Brooks were men who could shoulder responsibility.
And Beatrice was so obsessed with money she probably would have sold Juniper to the highest bidder if she could.
Nelson had always believed Juniper was a pure, stainless flower blooming out of the mud, but everything that happened later proved him wrong.
Look at the family, look at the environment. A person's upbringing shaped them entirely.
There was no way Juniper could remain untainted by the Lane family's toxicity.
His rose-tinted glasses had simply been too thick back then. He had been so obsessed with protecting her that he deliberately ignored the red flags.
Or perhaps he had just been young and naive enough to think love could conquer everything.

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