He Lost Me to His Best Friend novel Chapter 523

Yardley's eyes widened in disbelief. He pointed a trembling finger at her. "What? Even you... you're betraying me?!"

Leah narrowed her eyes, completely unfazed. "Sir, I really have no choice. My son is grown. He's getting married, and soon they'll have kids. Once the baby comes, I need to be there to help them out. I hope you can understand."

She paused, then twisted the knife a little deeper. "Back in my village, all the elders do the same. When the younger generation gets married and starts a family, we pitch in. We support the new mother through her postpartum recovery period and help take care of the baby. So, honestly? The way your family does things... even a simple housekeeper like me finds it baffling."

"If it were me," she continued, "and I had a daughter-in-law as capable as Scarlett, I would cherish her more than my own flesh and blood. I would make sure she and her child were taken care of perfectly so she'd never have to worry about a thing."

With that, Leah turned on her heel and walked into the kitchen, leaving Yardley stunned.

He sat at the dining table, a dull ache radiating through his chest as if he had just been shot with an ice-cold arrow. Was that really how outsiders saw the Flynn family? As monsters? Even a housekeeper from a rural village was disgusted by their behavior?

His breathing hitched. The red wine suddenly tasted too bitter to swallow.

Leah's casual remarks about Scarlett wiping his ass behind the scenes felt like a physical blow. Over the past few years, Scarlett had always been the one following him, learning about the business world from him. When did the dynamic flip? When had she started secretly cleaning up his messes and forbidding anyone from telling him?

He racked his brain, finally convincing himself that Leah was just an ignorant woman talking nonsense. He had never relied on Scarlett; it was the other way around. She had relied on him for everything.

But when he threw it open, it wasn't his wife standing there. It was a heavily intoxicated Veronica Thorne.

Veronica had been grounded for three days by her father, Quentin Thorne, who had tried to force her to personally apologize to Julian. When she stubbornly refused, her father confiscated her phone, cut off her internet access, and locked her in for another four days. During that week, she was completely isolated, unaware of the chaos erupting in the outside world.

Driven half-mad by the confinement and refusing to yield, she threw every tantrum in the book—she went on a hunger strike, threatened to jump out a window, and faked taking sleeping pills. Finally, the old man caved and let her out.

The moment she got her phone back and tried to contact Melanie and Sylvia, she saw the massive scandal that had rocked Bay City. To her shock, the very friends she had busted her ass to get out of jail had gotten themselves locked right back up. Meanwhile, she discovered that Scarlett had somehow found crucial evidence to clear her mother's name and got her out of prison in less than two days.