I Choose Him, Your Worst Enemy novel Chapter 77

Chapter 77 Beat Us to It

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Finished

Adam fixed Justin with a glare that could’ve curdled steel. “Return the shares to the Jewells. Under no conditions.”

His face had gone a hard, stony grey, and he looked like he was one wrong word away from wringing Justin’s neck.

Justin watched the old man with a pained look on his face.

No conditions? What’s three years of careful maneuvering worth, then?

“Mr. Adam.” Wynette said from beside them, “Let’s do this the right way. I’m grateful for what your family did back then, so I’ll buy the shares back at fair value. Business is business, and the books should stay clean.”

She had her principles, and she wasn’t budging from them.

Adam stared at Wynette, visibly thrown. This girl was cutting her ties to the Shepherds with clean, final precision.

She was grateful for what the Shepherds had done all those years ago, so she’d chosen not to press them on everything they’d pulled since. But her grace only stretched so far.

This money was the Jewells‘ to spend. If she didn’t pay for it outright, any future clash between the two families would hand someone the perfect weapon to use against her.

Wynette’s mind was made up, and Adam read that resolve in her face without difficulty.

He’d clung to the hope that Wynette and Noah might somehow find their way back to each other. Now it was obvious: that door was shut for good.

Adam turned from Wynette and bellowed at Justin. “Stop standing there like a statue! Do what she said!”

In the end, with Adam’s fury bearing down on him like a storm, Justin had no choice. He picked up the pen with rage smoldering behind his eyes and signed his name to the transfer documents.

Wynette looked at Adam with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, Mr. Adam.”

She’d only ever wanted her own back.

Wynette knew perfectly well that without Adam stepping in today, those shares wouldn’t have come back anywhere near this easily.

Adam wasn’t entirely happy with Wynette’s polite, careful distance.

He’d loved this girl since she was small, watched her grow up right before his eyes, and genuinely wanted Noah and Wynette to build something real together.

If Noah hadn’t made his feelings for Wynette obvious first, Adam never would’ve pushed so relentlessly for her to become part of the Shepherds.

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Chapter 77 Beat Us to it

But looking at everything now, some things just weren’t meant to be.

That thought pressed down on him like a stone.

Finished

Adam chatted warmly with Wynette for a little while longer, then his expression went cold and flat as he led Justin and Eve out of the Jewells.

Kaylee had been struggling to piece together what was happening right in front of her from the very beginning.

She turned to Wynette. “You’re the one who brought him back?”

Over the years, Adam had returned to the city only a handful of times. He always invited Wynette to visit, but Noah and the Shepherds had kept a careful lid on things, and Wynette had never given him much to

go on.

Adam had gone on believing Wynette and Noah were perfectly content together.

Now, with everything detonating this spectacularly and Adam having rushed back himself, Noah was in for a very hard time ahead.

But none of that had anything to do with Wynette anymore.

Kaylee studied her daughter, and felt the ground shift beneath her understanding of who Wynette was.

The money for the shares, the transfer contract: Wynette had every piece of it ready beforehand. She’d seen this day coming from far away.

When had the girl I’d raised without a care in the world started becoming this person?

In that moment, Kaylee finally saw her own failure with total, unsparing clarity.

She’d always pictured Wynette as young and sheltered, a little girl who still needed her parents around to keep her safe.

But while Kaylee hadn’t been watching, that little girl had grown into someone who could hold her own ground without flinching.

That realization made Kaylee’s eyes fill with tears.

Wynette caught the look on her face, stepped forward, and folded her into a quiet, gentle embrace. “Making the wrong call isn’t the end of the world. There’s still time, Mom. And you’ve still got me.”

She’d never failed to understand the anxiety Kaylee had carried all these years.

The truth was, Wynette had resented Kaylee’s single–minded fixation at first.

She couldn’t wrap her head around why her mother was so convinced that clinging to Noah was the only way to protect the Jewells‘ future.

Once Wynette learned that someone had been actively working to warp Kaylee’s thinking, it started to make sense.

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It wasn’t Shirley?

Then who was it?

So…

They’d pulled Adam in today and gotten Jewell Group’s shares back. Justin wasn’t the kind of man who sat still and accepted a loss.

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Chapter 77 Beat Us to it

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anished

If Wynette wanted to take over Jewell Group, the path ahead was going to be punishingly difficult.

The instant Shepherd Group withdrew its support, Jewell Group would crater, sliding right back toward the near–bankruptcy it had barely escaped before.

That was the part that kept Shirley up at night.

Shirley had known Wynette long before any of this had started. Back then, she’d just finished high school and secured a place at a top university, only for her family’s pressure to nearly strip that away from her entirely.

Wynette had been the one who stepped in.

When Wynette found out Shirley was being pushed to drop out and get married off, she’d funded the rest of Shirley’s education without hesitation.

After she’d graduated, Shirley had come to Wynette herself and joined Jewell Group. She’d never once given Wynette a reason to regret it.

“Hold steady and watch which way things move,” Wynette said, her voice calm and even. “Make sure every last one of the Shepherds‘ plants inside the company is gone. The people we brought on in the last hiring wave can step right into those roles.”

As far back as last year, Wynette had quietly been building a roster of people whose skills mapped directly onto the company’s operations.

She’d built it as insurance for exactly this: a split with the Shepherds and the staffing holes it would tear

open.

Shirley moved fast, as she always did.

She was back at the company before the day ended, cutting the relevant staff and slotting the new hires into place with clean, decisive speed.

The restructuring sent a shockwave rolling through the entire company.

Word traveled fast: Wynette had cut Liam loose and was taking charge herself.

Every single rumor that followed, Wynette ignored completely.