Three years of loving him, three days to erase myself from his world novel Chapter 271

Isabella Gates fell silent over the line.

After a moment, she scoffed. "Yes, I did it! So what?"

Julian Lowell gripped his phone tightly. "Clara is innocent. Don't you think it's too cruel to orchestrate a cyberbullying campaign against her?"

"Cruel?"

Isabella let out a dry laugh as if she had just heard a joke. "Julian, the word 'cruel' sounds hilarious coming from you. Your methods are far more ruthless than mine!"

"What, have you fallen in love with Clara Vance? Is your heart bleeding for her?"

A sudden wave of emotion crashed against Julian's chest.

He furrowed his brows. "I just think you're meddling where you don't belong!"

"I'm not meddling," Isabella sneered. "I'm just afraid you're getting too deep into this charade and won't be able to pull yourself out! Otherwise, I wouldn't have wasted my time pushing that spoiled girl, Seraphina Shaw, into the competition!"

"Since you claim you don't love Clara, I can rest easy. I'll dial back the online smear campaign."

Julian's expression darkened.

After hanging up, a bitter taste lingered in his mouth.

He tossed his phone aside, lit a cigarette, and let a gloomy aura settle over him.

His mind drifted back to the endless arguments between Isabella and Nathaniel from his childhood.

Theirs was a marriage of convenience—all business, zero love.

Both were towering figures in the corporate world, proud to the bone and possessing equally volatile tempers. During the years they were together, they fought almost every single day, only faking brief moments of harmony during galas and public events.

Eventually, Nathaniel couldn't take it anymore and took a submissive mistress on the side. Given Isabella's fierce pride, she completely exploded at him.

They separated after that, barely seeing each other over the years unless absolutely necessary.

Filled with resentment, Isabella projected all her bitterness and paranoia onto her son. From a young age, she drilled a single toxic ideology into his head: never trust love, never trust people, trust only leverage!

He had grown up in an environment suffocated by screaming matches and transactional relationships.

Because of that, he had no idea what love was.

Believing in love was a fool's errand; human nature and leverage were the only constants.

Therefore, he didn't love Clara. His possessiveness over her was merely about extracting what she could offer—a calculated return on investment.

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