What She Overheard in Her Own Marriage novel Chapter 307

Finnian's lips parted, but no words came out. Unable to meet her piercing gaze, he shoved his hands into his pockets and stared out the window.

"Finnian," Kaia said, her voice dropping, laden with exhaustion. "If you want fairness, you have to be fair first. If I demanded that you throw Noelle out of the Sanders family and fire her from Aethelstan, could you do it?"

Finnian's head snapped back to her, looking at her as if she had just demanded he commit murder.

Kaia held his gaze until her eyes welled with tears.

Five seconds. Ten seconds.

A bitter laugh escaped her lips. "Look at you. You can't."

"Stop listening to rumors. There is nothing between Noelle and me," Finnian said, his voice hard.

Kaia stared at the red handprint fading on his handsome face. He was still defending her, even after taking a hit. He was completely beyond saving.

"You tell me not to listen to rumors? Fine. Why don't you tell me where those rumors started?"

Finnian frowned, clearly frustrated. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't know?" Kaia knew he was playing dumb. It was his signature move—avoidance. But she wasn't letting him off the hook today.

"Let me spell it out for you," she said, wrapping her arms around herself and turning away to look out the window. "The entire conglomerate is whispering about how the CEO and his widowed sister-in-law were childhood sweethearts. How she rejected you, leaving you bitter. But now that your brother is gone, the two of you can finally be together—"

"Shut up!" Finnian's expression turned murderous. "I told you to stop slandering her! Do you have to be this vicious?"

Kaia spun back around, her eyes bright and defiant. The sheer mockery in her gaze made Finnian want to look away.

"If the two of you had an ounce of shame, you'd hide it better. Or do you want Brynlee to grow up, search the internet, and find articles about her father's illicit affair with her aunt? How is she supposed to face that, Finnian?"

Finnian was breathing heavily, his face flushed, his voice ragged. "Stop talking. I will shut down those rumors. But don't you ever spout that garbage in front of Brynlee."

"You've abandoned me for her time and time again. That is a fact, and you can't deny it."

Finnian froze, completely out of ammunition.

Just as Kaia thought he had finally admitted defeat, his voice broke the silence, hoarse and forced out from deep within his chest. "Kaia, if I wanted her, I wouldn't have waited until now. Do you understand that?"

"Kaia..." Layla stepped out of the bedroom, her face full of sympathy.

Kaia quickly wiped her tears. "I'm fine, Layla."

Layla sighed and shook her head. Finnian had broken her heart again. Such a beautiful marriage, crumbling to dust.

Kaia's leg fully healed, and she threw herself back into work. Silas Sanders had stopped sending her the old videos of Finnian and Noelle. He realized that rubbing salt in the wounds of a dying marriage was needlessly cruel.

Early August.

The atmosphere in Aethelstan Biopharma's conference room was suffocating. Over twenty executives sat around the table, looking utterly defeated.

Noelle sat at the head of the table, tapping her manicured nails against the wood. The projector displayed the timeline for the Cytogene AG partnership, flashing with several glaring red warning markers.

"Three months. And you're telling me now that we've hit a wall?" Noelle demanded, her temper flaring at the technical failure.

Dr. Gordon Hayes spoke up hesitantly. "Ms. Lawrence, the target mechanism isn't reacting the way we anticipated. The underlying interactions are far too complex. My team has run verifications day and night, but we still can't match Cytogene's data sets. We consulted their experts, but they claim they've never seen anything like this. They advised us to bring in a more specialized consultant."