Resent Reject Regret by Aqua Summers novel Chapter 283

Deirdre remained still as a statue until his yell stirred her. She raised her head and stared at him with what had once been lively, blithe eyes but were now soulless and dilapidated, like two broken mirrors found buried in a casket. Her surface calmness belied intense hate.

“I don’t care.” Her voice cracked and croaked, as her throat had fallen into disuse since she had stopped talking. Her words vaguely resembled a vitriolic jab. “Do you really think I give a damn, Brendan? It’s just incarceration. It’s not even my first rodeo, can you believe that? Been there, done that, I’m used to it. I can live in prison again, but you… You’re not getting away with this. I won’t let you!”

A deluge of hate broke out of her eyes like a dagger going through Brendan’s chest.

“How could you destroy yourself like this, Deirdre?! Because of revenge? What about your dreams? Your future—”

“My future is already in ruins!” She howled, eyes forward, tears pouring out. “And you caused it!”

Did his cheeks not burn in shame when he brought up her dreams and future? She was talented. Musically gifted! Even if playing for a large crowd in grand halls was beyond her, she could have been good enough to work as a music tutor at an academy. She could have lived with her mother just like that, happy and content.

But he had taken everything from her. Her eyes, and then her mother, the only family she had! And now, the same bastard who had ruined her life had the audacity to wax poetic about her future?!

“C-Calm down, D-Deirdre…” Brendan pressed his palm against his abdomen hard and took a deep breath. He flattened his lips in effort until they turned pale. “C-Calm down and t-think. You don’t have hard evidence to prove your accusations. You don’t have the wealth to fight the Brighthall family. There are only two ways out of this r-right now, and that’s incarceration… or working with me. We can settle this in private. It’ll be like… l-like nothing ever happened.”

“Like nothing ever happened?!” Deirdre’s eyes turned blood-red. Tears were welling up in them. “My mom is dead, Brendan. And you’re asking me to pretend that didn’t happen?!”

“I-I was just as surprised to hear about her death! She was already unstable back then. It didn’t matter how much I tried to prevent it! I didn’t expect her to jump from the third floor—”

“So you chose to deceive me and get some f*cking stranger to impersonate her!!!” Deirdre shrieked in hysterical rage. She sobbed, her sickly frame quivering with spasms. “Why would she even kill herself if you hadn’t forced me to go to jail back then, Brendan?! You don’t understand—you’ll never understand. Because you’re a privileged piece of sh*t living in luxury and wealth since you were f*cking born! You’ll never understand the anguish of realizing you’ve been deceived all along, that your only family died in agony while you were blissfully duped! You should f*cking go to hell!”

Brendan closed his eyes as a wave of vertigo assaulted him. He opened them again. “You love me, do you?”