I Choose Him, Your Worst Enemy novel Chapter 73

Chapter 73 Carry It Around

Finished

Then Adriel smiled, slow and deliberate, his expression carrying the particular satisfaction of someone who knew exactly what he was doing. “You know, the more you talk, the more interested I am in Wynette.”

“You-”

“She’s single now,” Adriel continued, the smile still in place. “I have every right to pursue her. So thank you, genuinely. And when Wynette and I get married, I’ll make sure you’re on the guest list. Don’t forget to send a nice gift.”

He really did know how to land a blow.

The words hit Noah like a physical impact and nailed him to the spot.

He nearly choked on his own rage.

Does Adriel even hear himself? There is no universe in which Wynette would fall for someone as cold and closed–off as him.

Absolutely none.

Noah repeated it to himself in the privacy of his own head, working hard to believe it.

He still didn’t know that Wynette and Adriel had already filed the paperwork.

Every word Adriel had just said was a quiet, deeply satisfying indulgence, a private celebration said directly to Noah’s face without Noah having any idea what it meant.

Noah took it as pure provocation, nothing more.

He opened his mouth to fire something back, but Adriel was already gone, his parting glance carrying a meaning Noah couldn’t quite decode.

Adriel’s step felt lighter than usual as he walked away.

Just knowing that Noah had no idea about the marriage license was enough to put him in an excellent mood.

He pulled out his phone and sent Wynette the recording he’d quietly captured of Noah’s earlier monologue, all that breathtaking confidence about how Wynette was just upset and would eventually forgive him and come back.

He’d started recording the moment Noah had begun his self–assured little speech, not missing a single word.

There was something deeply entertaining about a man who couldn’t see how foolish he looked.

Adriel had thoroughly enjoyed himself.

And naturally, the joy needed to be shared.

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Chapter 73 Carry it Around

Wynette was on her way back to the Jewells‘ home when the notification came through.

Finished

After Justin bailed Liam out, he grabbed Eve and charged straight to the Jewells‘ place to demand an explanation from Kaylee. Just as Wynette had expected.

She opened the app and found the audio file Adriel had sent, tapped it with mild curiosity, and immediately turned the volume down the moment Noah’s voice filled her ear, brimming with unearned certainty.

By the time it finished, her expression had settled into something between disgust and weary exasperation.

She typed back a single question mark.

Adriel texted back, his message carrying an unmistakable note of amusement. “Thought you’d enjoy seeing just how delusional he is. Honestly, I wanted to pull out our marriage license and shove it in his face so he’d stop talking.”

Wynette stared at the message for a moment, then typed back. “Wait. Do you just… carry our marriage license around with you?”

She genuinely couldn’t picture any other explanation for how he’d planned to produce it on the spot.

That was the only conclusion her brain arrived at.

She found herself genuinely curious about what Adriel was doing walking around with their marriage license.

Is he planning to announce our marriage at any given moment?

To random strangers on the street?

Wynette turned it over and gave up. Adriel operated on a frequency she simply couldn’t tune into.

Adriel had no idea what was going through her head.

“That was a figure of speech,” he typed back. “Nobody walks around with their marriage license. I’m not an absolute fool. That’s not my style.”

Wynette read the reply and laughed before she could stop herself.

Neither of them could have known, in that moment, that the universe had a very specific and humbling plan for Adriel’s last statement.

She sent back a short reply and set her phone down.

She arrived home to find her mother’s face set in rigid, iron–hard fury.

Justin and Eve had made themselves at home in the living room. Eve had been there since the beginning. pointing in Kayleel’s face and delivering a sustained indictment of ingratitude, disloyalty, and every variation of biting the hand that fed. Kaylee had received all of it with the expression of someone who had swallowed something corrosive and was still deciding whether to spit it back out.

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Chapter 73 Carry It Around

He reached for that particular wound the way he always did, with the precision of long practice.

Finished

Any time there was friction between Wynette and Noah, that old crisis was the first card on the table.

Wynette’s smile arrived without warmth. “Mr. Shepherd,” she said, her voice smooth and unhurried, “in the three years since that arrangement, the money your company extracted from ours under various pretenses has exceeded your original investment by several times over. I’d think carefully before framing this as generosity.”

She let that sit for exactly one breath before continuing. “You positioned it as an investment. Then you immediately placed your own people inside our company and spent years redirecting funds. So when you talk about goodwill and gratitude, I’d genuinely like to know: how much more did you think you were owed?”

She was done playing the long, exhausting game of careful diplomacy.

She wanted Justin to understand, clearly and without softening, that the Shepherds‘ so–called grace had been repaid a long time ago, in full, with interest.

Standing in her own home and lecturing her about loyalty was not something they’d earned the right to do.

The way Wynette saw it, the Jewells owed the Shepherds nothing. Not anymore. Possibly not ever.

Even if there was a debt somewhere out there, the Jewells had paid it off several times over.

The audacity of it struck her as almost funny.

She let herself laugh, right there in front of both of them, a quiet sound that carried every ounce of the contempt she’d been sitting on.

Justin and Eve had clearly not prepared for this version of Wynette. The woman who had always been careful, deferential, and measured in their presence had apparently ceased to exist entirely.

It was, if nothing else, genuinely unexpected.

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