Married to the Billionaire Who Betrayed Me novel Chapter 26

Chapter 26 The Discarded Wife Fights Back

He picked up his metal pen and tapped it against the mahogany desk.

“I almost pity you,” he mused. “You aimed high. I respect the ambition. But you miscalculated. Tristan Johnston marries pedigree. He

does not marry the hired help. And now you are sitting in my office, begging for a forty-thousand-dollar salary.”

I stared at him. The urge to cry hit me. The familiar burn threatened to spill tears down my cheeks. I spent months crying in the

dark penthouse. I cried in the alley behind the hotel. I cried on the bare mattress in Room 402.

But the tears did not come.

A strange sensation washed over me. The burning in my chest vanished. The suffocating humiliation dissolved. In its place, freezing, absolute calm took root. The ice spread through my veins. It locked my spine into place. It hardened the fragile pieces of

my broken heart into something solid. Something dangerous.

I looked at Christopher Winslow. I did not see a powerful executive. I saw a pathetic man using another person’s tragedy to inflate

his own ego.

“Are you finished?” I asked.

My voice did not shake. It cut through the air like a blade.

Christopher frowned. The cruel smile faltered. He expected me to break down. He expected me to beg or run from the room in tears.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“I asked if you are finished,” I repeated. I uncrossed my legs. I planted my feet flat on the floor. “Because if this is the extent of your professional conduct, Kensington Logistics made a massive mistake trusting you with this regional expansion.”

“Watch your tone,” Christopher warned. His face flushed.

“You left the capital because you failed to secure the European contracts,” I said. The details of Tristan’s executive meetings flooded my memory. “Tristan demoted you. He sent you to Port Sterling because you lacked the nerve to handle the Whitmore negotiations. You are a castaway, Christopher. You sit behind this mahogany desk pretending to hold power, but we both know Tristan exiled you.”

Christopher slammed his hand against the desk. “Get out of my office.”

I stood up. I reached across the desk and picked up my printed resume, I folded the paper in half with slow, deliberate precision.

“I will not ask Tristan for money,” I told him. I looked down at his flushed, angry face. “I do not need his charity. And I do not need yours. Keep relying on his press releases to form your business strategies. It is the reason you will always be a mid-level manager

working in his shadow.”

I turned my back on him.

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Chapter 26 The Discarded Wife Fights Back

You are a thief and a whore!” Christopher shouted at my back. “No one in this city will ever hire you!”

I did not flinch. The words bounced off my armor. I walked out of the office. I left the heavy oak door open behind me, letting the

entire floor hear his desperate, echoing shout.

I walked down the frosted glass corridor. The receptionist stared at me with wide eyes. I offered her a polite nod, stepped into the elevator, and pressed the button for the lobby.

The descent felt different this time. I was not falling. I was grounding myself.

The doors opened. I walked out of the Kensington Logistics building and stepped back into the freezing rain of Port Sterling.

The wind whipped my hair across my face. I pulled my coat tight. I possessed twenty dollars. I had no job prospects. The most powerful corporation in the world wanted me erased.

I smiled.

It was a small, sharp expression. I survived the execution. The naive girl who waited for a billionaire to save her was dead. She burned away in Christopher Winslow’s office. I was Minerva Hayes. I carried a Johnston heir in my blood, and I would build an empire with my bare hands just to watch them choke on it.

I walked down the busy commercial avenue. I needed to find a grocery store. I needed to buy food to protect my child.

I approached an intersection dominated by a towering luxury hotel. The Grand Sterling Hotel. A line of black town cars idled near the brass revolving doors. Valets in crisp uniforms rushed to open umbrellas for arriving guests.

I kept to the edge of the sidewalk, avoiding the wealthy patrons stepping out of their vehicles.

A sharp shout cut through the noise of the traffic.

“Let go of me! You have no right!”

I stopped. I turned my head.

Near the edge of the hotel’s side entrance, away from the main cluster of valets, a struggle unfolded. Two large men in dark suits cornered an older gentleman against the brick facade. The old man wore a simple tweed coat. He clutched a leather briefcase tight

against his chest.

One of the suited men reached out and grabbed the old man by the lapels of his coat. He shoved the elderly figure hard against the

brick wall.

‘Hand over the documents, Valdez, the suited man snarled. “The board voted. You are out. Surrender the briefcase, or we will take it

from you.

The old man gasped, his face twisting in pain as his back hit the masonry. His grip on the briefcase did not loosen. He possessed a

fierce, unbroken pride in his dark eyes.

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Chapter 26 The Discarded Wife Fights Back

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