Chapter 169

The moment Verena's name was mentioned, fury surged through Danica. "Verena, Verena, Verena-do you think of no one else anymore? You weren't always like this. Where did the steady, rational Isaac I once knew go? She humiliated you overseas with her betrayal, yet even after such disgrace,she's the only one you hold in your thoughts?"

Her words grew louder until they turned into a near shout,her throat strained and her body trembling from the force of her anger.

Isaac's expression remained unreadable, though the chill in his eyes was unmistakable. He responded with biting sarcasm,his words cutting through the air,"You believe insulting my wife will make me abandon her?No,it only fuels my resentment toward you. She is my wife. If my thoughts are not with her, then who else deserves them?"

Stunned into silence, Danica could only fume, her rage momentarily choking her voice.

Meanwhile, Katelyn's face darkened, her jealousy twisting into something venomous. Kaia had already told her lsaac always defended Verena,but hearing it firsthand was far more unbearable, filling her with hatred she could barely contain.

From the instant Isaac had appeared at the door, his eyes had never once rested on her. To him, she might as well have been invisible.

All her life, Katelyn had been spoiled and adored,every whim catered to by those around her-everyone except Isaac. They grew up together, and from the moment she first saw him, her heart had been lost.She chased him relentlessly through their school years,slipping love letters into his bag, trailing him home,and driving away any girl who dared show interest. For nearly a decade, she believed her persistence was wearing him down, that he would eventually return her feelings. But the day news came that he was married, it felt like the earth itself betrayed her. The man she had fought so hard to possess had become another woman's husband.

A wave of injustice consumed Katelyn. Watching something she longed for defiled by another was unbearable. She rushed back home and even went so far as to undergo surgery to restore her hymen before returning. Though she had embraced the freer lifestyle of her years abroad, for Isaac, she intended to present herself as pure and untouched. Yet the careful scheme she built collapsed under his cunning.

The romantic evening she pictured with Isaac twisted into a cruel nightmare when he sent another man,a mere bodyguard, to her bed. Nothing could have been more insulting.

What once was admiration curdled into resentment and loathing. She hated Verena, convinced that without her, she would have been the one married into the Bennett family. And she hated Isaac too, for crushing the devotion she had carried for so long.

Whether Isaac ever accepted her no longer mattered.What mattered now was revenge-she would rather destroy their marriage than see them content.If they wished to parade themselves as a loving couple, then she would be the one to make them enemies, trapped in endless bitterness.

Katelyn's grip tightened on the bedsheet until her nails bit into her palm, but the sting was nothing compared to the hatred swelling in her chest.

She rose from the bed, her eyes burning with fury, and blurted out through clenched teeth, "Isaac, now l finally see who you truly are! I'll never forget the humiliation you've put me through tonight!"

Even as her words rang with fury, a small, desperate part of her still longed for him to admit fault, to soften,to comfort her. But Isaac gave her no such thing. His glance was cold,his tone harsher still. "The only person you can blame for this is yourself."