The Man Who Never Looked Away novel Chapter 385

Lavinia was wandering through the front courtyard when Julian arrived.

"Lavinia."

"Julian, you made it!" Lavinia's eyes lit up.

"Yeah." Julian looked up at the "The Scholarly Heritage Plaque" hanging above the doorway and fell silent for a moment.

Zoey pushed the main door open, peeked inside, and turned back to Lavinia and Julian.

"They cleared everything out. The courtyard is actually quite nice. There's a pomegranate tree."

Hearing this, Lavinia and Julian walked toward the back.

The courtyard wasn't huge, paved with grey bricks. An old pomegranate tree stood in the corner, its leaves still green, though it had clearly been neglected for some time, with weeds sprouting through the cracks in the bricks.

The main hall was completely empty. Sunlight streamed through the carved wooden windows, highlighting a thin layer of dust on the floorboards.

Standing in the center of the courtyard, Lavinia looked around before pulling out her phone and calling Judith.

Once connected, Lavinia said earnestly, "Grandma, we got the house back. I want to donate it to The Judith Gilmore Charitable Foundation and convert it into an exhibition hall for traditional regional crafts. We'll call it The Judith Gilmore Museum of Traditional Crafts."

The line was quiet for a moment before Judith's warm, smiling voice came through. "That sounds wonderful. I fully support you."

Lavinia hung up and tossed the keys to Zoey.

"Hire someone to clean up the courtyard, but leave the pomegranate tree."

Zoey caught the keys with a grin. "Yes, ma'am."

Lavinia turned to Julian with a smile. "Julian, I've handed in my assignment. How would you grade me this time?"

Julian smiled faintly, his gaze thoughtful.

"The Gilmore family has raised an exceptional daughter, capable of both leading a business and managing a home. Lavinia, when you eventually have kids, one of them absolutely has to take the surname Gilmore."

Lavinia pouted playfully. "Julian, how did you skip right over rushing me to get married and go straight to demanding kids? You're such an old-fashioned patriarch."

Chatting comfortably, the siblings walked through the corridor and pushed open the door to the east wing.

The room was modest with simple furnishings, save for a stunning lacquered wardrobe standing against the wall. A piece like that easily cost tens of thousands.

Driven by curiosity, Lavinia opened the wardrobe doors. Inside hung a single men's suit.

It was a dark grey suit with the embroidered initials "GH" on the collar.

Her gaze lingered on it for a second, but her face remained entirely expressionless.

He hadn't been able to reach Lavinia on the phone that night. He knew she had a phobia of water and was terrified of the dark. Why did he stay here? Why hadn't he rushed straight to her side?

It was only later he found out that the person holding Lavinia that night had been Charley.

He hurried after them. "Lavinia, Julian, please listen to me. At the time..."

Julian stopped and looked back at him, his gaze freezing cold.

"Garnett, you still think all you owed the Sloans was a little compensation. You thought as long as you used that as your excuse, everything you did was justified."

Garnett's knuckles turned white.

Julian continued coldly, "But you never once realized that every ounce of compensation you gave them was carved directly out of Lavinia's flesh."

"You used her dignity, her sense of security, and her most basic expectations of you as a husband to pay off a debt that had absolutely nothing to do with her."

"You call that being loyal and honorable. I call it being utterly backward."

"A man who betrays and fails his own wife has no right to talk about taking responsibility."

After delivering that crushing blow, Julian turned to Lavinia, his tone softening. "Lavinia, there's something you might not know. Back in the day, the Harper family built their fortune using Grandma's resources and our family's connections. Grandma was supposed to have a permanent seat on the Harper Group's board of directors."

"Grandma never made a fuss about it before, and since we had our own businesses, we didn't push it either. But looking at things now, every debt needs to be settled clearly. After all, how can we trust people who betray their own wives to honor a business agreement?"