Chapter 437
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Chapter 437:
He pulled his phone from his pocket with shaking hands, desperate for any distraction, and opened a social media app.
At the very top of his feed was a leaked paparazzi photograph.
It was blurry, taken from a boat far offshore. But it clearly showed Jocelyn and Gaston standing in the shallow water of a pristine white-sand beach. Gaston had his arms wrapped tightly around Jocelyn’s waist, lifting her. Jocelyn’s head was thrown back, and even through the blur, Kieran could see she was laughing — a real, joyous, uninhibited laugh.
The contrast was unbearable. It broke something inside him that was already beyond repair.
The phone slipped from his numb fingers and shattered on the concrete.
Kieran’s knees buckled. He collapsed onto the dirty, freezing sidewalk beside a wrought-iron park bench, his body curling inward as a horrible, agonizing sob tore from his throat.
Pedestrians walked past, casting disgusted glances at the man in the expensive suit weeping in the dirt. Kieran didn’t notice. He wept for the love he had murdered, and for the empty, miserable life he was now condemned to live.
𝖳h𝘰𝗎ѕ𝘢ո𝘥𝘀 о𝖿 r𝖾𝘢𝗱𝖾𝘳𝘀 𝗈𝗇 ѕ.с𝗼𝗆
The morning sun over the Caribbean Sea was blindingly bright.
Jocelyn lay on a plush white linen lounger on the sprawling terrace of the private island villa, wearing a simple silk slip dress. The warm, salty ocean breeze gently lifted the hem of the fabric, cooling her sun-warmed skin.
She held a glass of freshly squeezed guava juice in one hand and an encrypted iPad in the other.
Gaston walked up the stone steps from the infinity pool, water dripping from his broad, tanned shoulders and catching the sunlight. He grabbed a towel, dried his hair, and crossed to her lounger. He leaned down, bracing his hands on the armrests, and pressed a cool, wet kiss to her lips. He tasted of salt and mint.
Jocelyn smiled against his mouth. She pulled back slightly and handed him the iPad.
“The morning brief from your Wall Street team just came in,” she said, her voice calm.
Gaston took the tablet. His dark eyes scanned the dense financial data.
The report was a bloodbath. Because of Victoria Stein’s highly publicized arrest for grand larceny and the leaked audio of Edward Stein attempting to bribe Jocelyn to drop the charges, the Stein family’s core holding companies had plummeted by seventy percent in the days since the story broke.
Attached to the bottom of the email was a link to a New York Times article. Gaston tapped it. A high-resolution photograph filled the screen — Victoria Stein, stripped of her designer clothes and wearing a baggy orange jumpsuit, handcuffed and pale as she was escorted into a maximum-security transport van. The headline read: Heiress Sentenced to Five Years Without Parole.
Gaston’s jaw tightened. A dark shadow passed over his eyes.