Chapter 13
Meeting Keith again was in court, with irrefutable evidence. Acelynn had nowhere to
run.
Keith’s face was grim. “Do you really have to do this? She is Lynley’s mother. Do you want him to be scorned and pointed at for the rest of his life?”
I laughed at his brazen shamelessness. “Lynley isn’t my child. Why should I care about him? Keith, let me ask you–when you and Acelynn swapped the babies, did you ever consider that the child being abandoned was also yours? Did you think about the blood of your own running through his
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veins?”
“A bastard child, nothing more. Why should I care about him? Keeping him would only be a stain on my life. Lesley, I didn’t expect you and Jeremy to be so close. Is that child truly mine?”
Smack. I watched Keith turn his face away, my hand tingling.
“Keith, you disgust me.”
Once, I thought iron–heartedness existed only in novels, but Keith, you truly showed me the depths of it.
With a resounding slap, Keith’s face instantly flushed a deep red, and he rubbed his jaw,
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his gaze dark and brooding. “Lesley, do you dare strike me?”
As he reached for me, a sudden hand grabbed his.
“Hitting a lady? Is that the style of Mr. Barber?”
Jeremy, usually gentle and courteous, now glared coldly at Keith.
Keith’s look at me turned mocking. “Lesley, you really are eager to play the stepmother.”
I wanted to slap Keith again but restrained myself. Oliver’s existence was not something Keith needed to know.
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“Keith, it’s Acelynn now. Next, it’ll be you. Watch your crumbling company–without the Mitchell Group’s support, let’s see how long you last.”
Keith’s face was ashen as the gavel came down. Acelynn, however, wore an indifferent expression. As she passed by me, she gave a smug look.
“Lesley, when I get out, I’ll make you pay.”
I smirked, fully aware of Acelynn’s scheme. She thought Keith would bail her out, but with solid evidence and witnesses, no.
amount of wealth can make a difference in
the face of the law.
In the second trial, Acelynn was sentenced
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to ten years. She looked panicked at the audience, but there was no sign of Keith.
I met her gaze with a smile, and Acelynn’s fear became palpable. She pounded on the table, demanding to see Keith, only to be restrained by the authorities.
“Let go of me! I’m Mrs. Barber! How dare you treat me like this? Where’s Keith? I want to
see Keith.”
Acelynn, rarely so shameless, now
resembled a shrew.
After Acelynn went to prison, I visited her once. She had lost her former grace and looked disheveled and unwell. Seeing me, she sprang up and pounded on the glass.
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“Lesley, how did you find out? The past was so well–hidden. You couldn’t have known.”
Her eyes were filled with malice, as if she
wished to devour me.
“Well–hidden? If my son hadn’t appeared, I might never have discovered what you did.”
Acelynn’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Impossible. He’s dead. He can’t be alive.”
I looked at her coldly as she went mad. The nurse, upon seeing me, immediately cried and knelt.
Acelynn had indeed bribed her to kill my child. But the nurse couldn’t go through
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with it and instead placed the child in an incubator, intending to send him to an orphanage. If not for Jeremy, I might never
have known that Lynley wasn’t my child.
