Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 125

Chapter 125 The Mole Was Real

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feel of her was still going through Julian like a live current, all the way out to his hands and feet.

And then she said that, and the warmth in his palm turned into something sharp that went straight to his

chest.

There really was nothing in her for him.

Julian looked at her, then drew his hand back a little at a time, and his voice cooled. “Fair enough. You’re perfectly good business partner.”

“Then here’s to a good partnership, Mr. Weston.” Nora turned to look out the window.

“A good partnership, Ms. Sinclair.” Julian gave it back just as cold.

The rest of the drive put the two of them back exactly where they’d started.

When the car stopped at the Weston Estate, neither of them got out right away.

Nora spoke first. “The bid is today. Adrian will still go for it, so change your strategy and let him win it by a hair. He’s suspicious by nature, and anything easier and he’ll walk away.”

Julian answered coolly, then asked, “After tonight, are you sure Adrian is still going to bid off my proposal?”

Nora had no doubt about it. “He will.”

The first time around, after the Westons took Orion, there had been a stretch where it made money, and Mandy had still been living in the Weston Estate then.

She would talk Adrian into bidding. There was no question about it.

Nora was about to get out when she turned back to him. “By the way, I do have a red mole on my left breast. I saw Trevor was there, so I covered it with something beforehand and got the truth out of him that way.”

Julian went still, and the sight of her came back to him whether he wanted it or not, and his face went hot along with his pulse.

Nora watched that frozen face of his go red in a second, and the switch was a pleasure to see.

She blinked at him. “Do you want to check again? Make sure Trevor never laid a hand on me?”

“No… no need. I believe you.” His eyes went to her anyway, without meaning to.

Nora saw him stammering with something hopeful still in his face, and she laughed softly. “I’m teasing you.”

Julian looked at her laughing at him and had nothing at all to say.

At the Wyndmere, Adrian sat in a chair with the Orion proposal from 3208 in his hands, turning the pages over and over.

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15:39 Thu, Oct 10.

Chapter 125 The Mole Was Real

The door creaked open.

Adrian looked up and found Mandy in a dress with a wrap over her shoulders, and he frowned. “What are you doing here? I told you to rest.”

She came over. “Dr. Blithe ran the tests overnight. The report came back and I brought it for you.”

Adrian pointed at the chair across from him. “Sit there.”

Mandy had been walking toward his side, and her step stopped. She sat down across from him with the color gone out of her face and put the report in front of him.

“Read it. A report doesn’t lie, Ace. You have to believe me.”

Adrian’s eyes went to her arms.

She caught the look and pushed her sleeves up fast, explaining as she went. “This one is fingernails. This one I bit myself. This one I cut with a piece of glass. And this…”

That last one was a mark from somebody’s mouth.

Mandy pulled the wrap across it in a hurry and covered it. “All of it came from the stimulant. I was fighting to protect myself, and these are what I got.”

Her eyes filled, and she looked at him, pleading. “Ace, you have to believe me.”

Adrian glanced down at the report, then looked up and gave her a smile. “I do. I believe you.”

“Ace…”

Mandy reached for his hand, and his hand moved out of the way before she got there. Hers stopped in midair, the color left her face, and the tears came down one at a time.

His mouth said he believed her, and his body still got away from her.

He couldn’t believe her the way Julian believed Nora, all the way through, in his head and in his body.

Adrian watched her cry without a sound, and it pulled him both ways. “I’m sorry. It isn’t that I don’t believe you. It’s something in me. Give me time. Let me be quiet for a while.”

Now, looking at her made him sick, straight down to the bone.

The only reason he could still sit across a table from her was that she had saved his life.

Mandy knew crying wouldn’t get her anything, and neither would talking.

Better to go after Nora and watch her cry instead!

She wiped the tears off hard and looked at the Orion proposal on the table, her voice still thick. “The proposal is right here. Are you still bidding, Ace?”

Adrian looked at it. “No. The Weston proposal is very good. Bidding above what they’ve priced it at makes it

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