He Loves Me Right, Finally novel Chapter 163

Wynette lay still and watched the stars drift overhead in their slow, ancient procession.

Beside her, Adriel's voice came low and unhurried. "Noah is back."

Word was that Adam had summoned him personally.

Adam wanted to revise his will and apparently had a new candidate for grooming as his heir, which had Justin in an absolute uproar.

The Shepherd household was anything but peaceful right now.

Wynette's expression didn't flicker at the news even slightly.

She just curved her lips into a faint, measured smile. "Noah is already irrelevant. Justin is another matter entirely. He's managed the Shepherd empire for years and built genuine loyalty doing it. Adam won't topple him just by wanting to.

"Justin's still a few percentage points short of Adam's shares to have total control," she continued, "but the people who back him inside Shepherd Group aren't going anywhere. Even if Adam pulls someone from a side branch to groom, that doesn't mean Justin falls."

Adriel turned his head to look at her. "How do you know the Shepherds this well?"

"Three years with Noah wasn't exactly a waste of time," Wynette said, with a small, private laugh.

Three years was long enough to learn a great deal, if you were paying attention.

Adriel cleared his throat. "I've had a question sitting with me for a while. Can you answer it?"

"What?" Wynette turned her head, and her gaze met the quiet, searching weight of his.

Her heart dropped half a beat. Does he know something?

"Lorelei going back to Noah," Adriel said. "Was it really just about his money?" He watched her without looking away. "After everything Eve put her through, I don't buy that she walked back into that on her own. Lorelei doesn't have that kind of nerve."

He let the pause land before he finished it. "Unless someone pointed her in that direction, that is."

Wynette didn't answer immediately.

Adriel had looked into Lorelei before, and what he'd found was interesting. Edgar had drained a significant amount from her accounts, but Noah had also poured a considerable sum into her over the years, and what remained was still enough for a woman to live comfortably on for the rest of her life if she managed it carefully.

She didn't need Noah. He wondered why she had gone back. Wynette's voice came out easy and conversational. "Something you might not know. Edgar was Eve's man from the start. Eve never intended for Lorelei to have a peaceful life. The abuse, the money, all of it was Eve's idea.

"And you think Eve didn't know exactly how much Noah had spent on Lorelei over the years?" Wynette went on. "Once Edgar cleaned out what was left, Lorelei had nothing. She had to survive somehow."

Eve had wanted Lorelei broken or dead, and she hadn't much cared which outcome she got.

She had the means to clean up after Edgar, after all.

Edgar had known it, and he'd acted accordingly every time he put his hands on Lorelei.

Adriel followed the thread of her words to its logical end. "So you found a way to send Lorelei back to Noah," he said, his voice low and certain. "That's what you did."

With Lorelei back in the picture and Edgar's violence still fresh in her memory, she'd have clung to Noah like he was the only solid ground left in the world.

She couldn't go back to Edgar without risking her life, and that left her exactly one option: holding onto Noah and refusing to let go.

And to hold onto Noah, Lorelei would've had every reason to push Wynette, his girlfriend, completely out of the picture.

Adriel's eyes stayed fixed on her face. "The three times you and Noah almost registered the marriage, Lorelei found out every time. You told her deliberately."

All three were failed attempts.

Wynette had never actually intended to marry Noah at all.

Lorelei was a piece Wynette had placed herself.

Then Adriel's gaze shifted, something quieter moving into it. "Wynette... was registering with me part of the plan too?"

He didn't sound angry. Not even close.

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