Chapter 473
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Chapter 473:
“She had the audacity to stand in my office and call me a PR decoy!” Jocelyn cried, the tears finally breaking free and streaming down her cheeks. “A shield with the same eyes as your real obsession! I know she was lying, Gaston — I know you destroyed her brother’s firm for me! But the fact that your past is being used as a weapon against my trauma, using the exact same replacement narrative Kieran used to torture me — that is unacceptable. I am not a shield p>
For five seconds, the only sound in the cabin was Jocelyn’s ragged breathing.
Then Gaston made a sound — not a sigh, but a dark, incredulous, almost manic exhale of a laugh. He dragged both hands down his face and stared at his wife as though she had just told him the sky was green.
“Isabelle Sterling,” he muttered, his voice saturated with slow, homicidal disgust, “is a dead woman walking p>
He didn’t reach for words to argue with. He had watched the security footage from her office hours ago — had seen the precise moment Isabelle delivered her poison — and he had prepared the antidote the moment he got into the car. He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, withdrew his encrypted smartphone, unlocked it with a sharp swipe of his thumb, and dropped it directly onto Jocelyn’s lap.
“Watch it,” he said.
Jocelyn looked down through her tears. A video was already playing.
It was security footage from the Collins Group lobby, dated three days earlier. It showed Chloe Monroe standing before Gaston’s desk. It showed Gaston rising from his chair and looking at Chloe with a level of cold contempt that made Jocelyn’s breath catch.
𝖶𝘦e𝘬l𝘺 𝗋е𝘭𝗲𝗮𝗌еs o𝘯 𝗀𝖺𝘭ո𝗈𝘷𝘦𝗹ѕ.𝖼𝘰𝗺
Then the audio came through.
“If you ever use that medical pass to step foot in this building again, I will personally ensure your medical license is shredded p>
Jocelyn watched in silence as two large security guards took Chloe by the arms and removed her from the room as though disposing of something unwanted.
The video ended.
The gaslighting narrative Isabelle had so carefully constructed inside Jocelyn’s mind shattered into pieces.
Gaston took the phone from her lap and tossed it onto the opposite seat. He moved closer, and his large hands came up to cup her face, his thumbs moving gently across her wet cheeks.
“Listen to me,” he said. His voice had dropped into a raw, unguarded register she had never heard from him before. “I have psychological trauma because I watched my mother die. Chloe Monroe was a greedy, opportunistic doctor who tried to use my grief to climb the social ladder. I fired her. I despise her p>
He pressed his forehead against hers. His breath was warm against her lips.
“I married you,” Gaston said, his voice unsteady with the force of what he was saying, “because I have been obsessed with you for ten years. There is no white moonlight. There is no decoy. There is only you, Jocelyn. You are the only woman I have ever wanted p>
Jocelyn looked into his dark eyes and saw the absolute, undeniable truth burning there.
The guilt struck her like a physical blow. She had let her old wounds from Kieran cloud her judgment. She had allowed a jealous enemy to manipulate her into punishing the man who would burn the world down to keep her warm.