Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 43

Chapter 43 The Handover

Asix foot two of him came down on her at once, and she nearly went over with him.

Nora gritted her teeth and got a shoulder under him. “Up. Stop playing dead, you’re not that weak.”

Julian went weaker of cue. “There’s poison left in me. I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble my wife again.”

Color came up in her face, and she glared down at him. “Keep it up and I’ll put a few needles in you that’ll have you out of commission for a month.”

Some of the marks on her arms had come from his mouth. The rest she’d pinched into herself.

Upstairs, once she’d cleared the poison, the other effect had kicked in, and he’d come close to eating her alive. She’d been faster with the needles than he was with his hands.

Julian straightened up slowly. “There. I’m all right now.”

Constance watched him stand on his own and let out a long breath. “That’s all I needed to hear. That’s all I

needed.”

She turned to Nora. “Is the poison out of him? Is there anything we should watch for?”

Nora put a hand on her stomach. “It’s out. And whatever’s for dinner, hold the cilantro.”

Clearing poison with needles took as much out of her head as it did out of her body. She’d barely eaten while they were getting her ready that morning, and by now her stomach was loud enough for the room to hear.

The cheek of it made Constance laugh, and she waved a servant off to the kitchen for food.

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In the director’s office at the Blithe Institute, the lights were still on.

Olivia had been waiting a long time.

Cordelia came in wearing her white coat, worn out and smelling of antiseptic, straight from an operating

room.

“How is Julian?” She took the coat off and hung it up.

Olivia answered with no life in her voice. “He’s fine. The poison’s out.”

Cordelia sat down across from her and took in the scrape by her eye and how badly her face was swollen from crying.

“What happened to your face? Have you been crying like this all afternoon? Did Nora do it?”

The tears Olivia had gotten under control came back. “Grandma, was it you? Did you poison him?”

Cordelia had just reached for a cotton swab to clean the scrape, and her hand stopped.

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Chapter 43 The Handover

“No.”

via didn’t believe her. “It really wasn’t you? Then why did you have the ghostbloom antidote sitting in a drawer?”

“Olivia.” Cordelia said it low and hard.

Olivia saw the anger and dropped her eyes. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I shouldn’t have doubted you.

“I just don’t want anything to happen to him. Anyone else in the world can go. Not him.”

She loved him, and she had for years.

Cordelia sighed and stroked her hair. “I know that. You’re the dearest thing in the world to me, and what matters to you matters to me. Why would I hurt him?

“As for the poison today, the maid who went out the window is awake, and she’s already confessed.

“She trained as a nurse, so she knew what those compounds do. She dosed him because she wanted his bed and his name, and if she couldn’t have that, she’d have settled for being kept.

“Then she lost her nerve, sent me an anonymous message, and that’s why I had the antidote ready. That’s the whole reason today went the way it did.

“Once it came apart on her, she couldn’t face prison, so she went out the window.”

Olivia looked up. “Will Grandma Weston believe that?”

Cordelia laughed softly. “I didn’t do it, so of course she will.”

As long as the poison in Julian went uncured, Constance would choose to believe her.

And it was true enough, as far as it went. Cordelia had never intended to kill him.

Olivia decided she believed it too, even though the story had holes in it wide enough to walk through.

The next morning, once Nora had Julian settled, she drove out to Starfall Media to take the company over.

She ran into Mandy in the lobby.

Mandy had been humiliated in front of everyone in the Weston ballroom the day before, and her mother had torn into her for it the moment she got home. Julian hadn’t collapsed and died the way she’d promised, and Yvette had started questioning her daughter’s gift for seeing what was coming.

I’ll prove it to her.

Nora wanted this company. Let’s see whether she can stomach it.

Mandy put a hand out and smiled at her. “Congratulations, Nora. It’s all yours now.”

Nora didn’t take her hand. “You’re handing it over awfully fast. How deep is the hole you dug for me?”

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Chapter 43 The Handover

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