While My Husband Cheated I Married His Powerful Brother novel Chapter 33

Chapter 33: Chapter 33 Blame, Blood, and Betrayal

The slap came out of nowhere.

Veyra did not see it coming. One moment she was standing in the doorway, facing Eleanor’s accusations. The next moment, a hand connected with her cheek so hard her head snapped sideways.

Her ears rang. Her vision blurred. She tasted copper.

Beatrice Hawthorne stood in front of her. Lily’s biological grandmother. Her hand was still raised. Her face was twisted with grief and fury.

"You," Beatrice said. Her voice was shaking. "You lost her. My granddaughter. My little girl. You took her out and you lost her."

Veyra touched her lip. Her fingers came away red.

"I’m sorry," Veyra said. "I didn’t mean for—"

"Sorry?" Beatrice’s voice rose. "Sorry doesn’t bring her back. Sorry doesn’t tell me where she is. Sorry doesn’t tell me if she’s scared or hurt or—"

She could not finish the sentence. Her face crumpled. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

Veyra’s own cheek was throbbing. The cut on her lip was small but deep. Blood dripped slowly down her chin.

She looked at Beatrice. At the grief on her face. At the tears.

She did not defend herself. She did not explain. She stood there and took it because Beatrice was right. Lily was gone. And it was her fault.

Beatrice turned away. Her shoulders shook. Harold Thorne put his arm around her. His face was hard.

Veyra stood alone in the middle of the room. Her lip was bleeding. Her cheek was red. Her eyes were dry.

She thought about the night she had married Dorian. The courthouse. The seven-minute ceremony. The marriage certificate she had signed without reading it.

She had married a stranger. A man she did not know. A man whose family hated her.

She had thought she could handle it. She had thought she could endure the accusations and the slaps and the whispered insults.

But standing here, bleeding, surrounded by people who blamed her for something she had not done—

She wondered if she had made a mistake.

Eleanor’s voice cut through the room.

"It’s exactly as I said." She stepped forward. Her arms were crossed. Her smile was sharp. "She was too busy meeting her ex-boyfriend to watch the child. She used Little Lily as cover. A prop. Something to make her look respectable while she went off to rendezvous with her lover."

Veyra turned to look at her. "That’s not what happened."

"No?" Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "Then explain it. Explain why you took **little Lily** to a café in the middle of the day. Explain why your ex-boyfriend just happened to show up at the same café. Explain why you were holding hands with him while my niece was being kidnapped."

"We weren’t holding hands. He was reaching for me. I was pulling away."

"It didn’t look that way in the photograph."

"The photograph was one moment. One second. Frozen out of context."

Eleanor laughed. "Context. That’s rich. A woman like you doesn’t get to hide behind context."

Beatrice spoke from across the room. Her voice was raw. "Is it true? Were you meeting your ex-boyfriend?"

Veyra shook her head. "No. I was meeting Dr. Harrison. About my medical formula. The Old Madam gave me permission to take Lily."

"The Old Madam didn’t give you permission to lose her."

Veyra had no answer for that.

Phillip Thorne stepped forward. His face was red. His voice was loud.

"This is what happens when you let strangers into the family," he said. He pointed at Veyra. "She has no loyalty. No morals. She’s carrying a child that might not even be my nephew’s. And now she’s cost us Little Lily."

Harold nodded from beside Beatrice. "She’s depraved. Completely depraved. Meeting her ex-boyfriend while supposedly watching a child. Using that child as a cover for her affair."

Veyra’s hands curled into fists. But she did not speak. She had learned that speaking did no good. They had already decided. They had already judged. Nothing she said would change their minds.

Eleanor walked to the Old Madam’s wheelchair. She bent down. Her voice was low and conspiratorial.

"Auntie," she said, "I’ve been thinking. What if this wasn’t an accident? What if it was planned?"

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify