The Spiteful Bride, Marry to Rival's Son-Chapter 189
HE’D PLANNED IT, YOU SEE. PLANNED ALL OF IT.
Mia felt sick. "That’s why they hate each other? Over some woman from decades ago?"
"It wasn’t just the woman," Elizabeth said. "It was everything that came after. Jeremiah didn’t just marry Annabelle - he took the business they’d built together.
He used information Samuel had shared with him in confidence to secure contracts and investments. He basically stole everything and left Samuel with nothing."
Elena’s eyes narrowed. "So Samuel wasn’t the one that started it?"
Sianna spoke up, her voice quieter than usual, her eyes on her mother. "So my dad started it, but Samuel became worse, didn’t he? He killed people, tried to kill Mia, how do you explain that?"
Elizabeth’s gaze dropped, her fingers tracing the edge of her knitting. "Samuel changed after the betrayal, became harder, colder, but he wasn’t always a monster," she said, her voice soft, almost pleading.
Elizabeth’s hands unfolded slowly in her lap, fingers trembling just enough that Mia noticed.
"Who were affected too, weren’t you?" Mia asked with a sad look.
She nodded her head with a smile but Mia could see the pain buried in it.
They were all victims of Jeremiah’s games.
The older woman’s eyes had gone somewhere distant, somewhere decades back, and when she spoke again her voice carried the weight of years she’d kept locked away.
"The night before everything fell apart," Elizabeth began, "I was with Jeremiah in his apartment. It was late, past midnight, and we were lying in bed talking about the future.
He had his hand on my stomach... I was three months along then, just starting to show—and he was saying all the right things. About how we’d get married in the spring, how he wanted a boy but would be happy either way, how he’d already looked at houses with big backyards."
She paused, her jaw working. Stefan’s hand tightened around Mia’s and she could feel his pulse through his palm, quick and hard.
"I remember thinking I was the luckiest woman alive," Elizabeth continued, and there was something raw in her voice now, something that made Elena lean forward and Sienna press her hand against her mouth.
"He kissed my forehead and told me to get some sleep. Said he had an early meeting but he’d be back by lunch and we’d go look at rings. I fell asleep believing him."
The fireplace crackled. Outside, wind pressed against the windows. Nobody moved.
"When I woke up the next morning, he was gone. I didn’t think anything of it—he’d said he had a meeting. I made coffee, got dressed, was planning to surprise him at his office with lunch."
Elizabeth’s voice cracked and she stopped, pressing her lips together hard. Stefan shifted in his seat, his free hand curling into a fist against his knee.
Ethan’s book lay forgotten on the floor. His eyes were fixed on Elizabeth with an intensity that made his whole body still, like he was afraid if he moved he’d miss something crucial.
"Then the phone rang," Elizabeth said. "It was my cousin Mary. She was breathless, excited, talking so fast I could barely understand her. She kept saying ’Did you see? Did you hear? It’s in the morning paper!’ I asked her what she was talking about and she said..."
Elizabeth’s voice broke completely. She covered her mouth with both hands for a moment, eyes squeezed shut.
Stefan made a sound low in his throat, something between anger and pain, and Mia turned to look at him. His face had gone pale, his jaw so tight she could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.
"She said congratulations were in order for Jeremiah Sterling’s surprise wedding to Annabelle Cross. That it had happened the night before at a private ceremony. That the society pages were calling it the wedding of the year."
"Jesus," Mose breathed.
Sienna made a choked sound. "My mother," she whispered. "My mother married him while you were..."
"Pregnant with his child," Elizabeth finished. "Yes."
The silence that followed felt like something physical, pressing down on all of them.
Mia’s hand went to her belly instinctively, protectively, and she felt Stefan’s eyes on her even though she wasn’t looking at him.
Elena stood up abruptly and walked to Elizabeth, kneeling beside her chair and taking the older woman’s hand. "I’m so sorry," she said quietly. "God, Elizabeth, I’m so sorry."
Elizabeth nodded but didn’t speak right away. When she did, her voice was steadier, harder. "I called him. Called his apartment, his office, every number I had. Nothing.
Finally his secretary answered at the office and I could hear it in her voice, pity, embarrassment. She said Mr. Sterling was on his honeymoon and wouldn’t be available for two weeks."
"That bastard," Ethan said, and his voice was cold in a way none of them had heard before. "That absolute bastard."
"I threw up," Elizabeth said simply. "Right there in my kitchen. Then I got in my car and drove to Samuel’s house because I didn’t know where else to go.
We weren’t close, I only knew him through Jeremiah, but I knew he was supposed to marry Annabelle. I thought maybe he’d know what was happening, maybe he’d have answers."
She looked at Mia then, really looked at her, and Mia felt something twist in her chest at the expression on Elizabeth’s face.
"When I got there, Samuel was sitting on his front steps with a newspaper in his hands. Just sitting there in yesterday’s clothes, unshaven, staring at the wedding announcement.
I got out of my car and I could see his hands were shaking so hard the paper was rattling. He looked up at me and I saw something in his eyes I’d never seen in anyone’s eyes before, like someone had reached inside him and torn something vital out."
Stefan stood suddenly, walked to the window, pressed his forehead against the glass. His shoulders were rigid, his breathing audible even from across the room.
Mia wanted to go to him but something told her to wait, to let him have this moment of distance while his mother spoke.
"’She married him,’" Elizabeth said, her voice taking on Samuel’s flat tone. "’She married Jeremiah. Last night while I was asleep thinking about our wedding, she married him.’ And then he looked at me, and he said, ’You’re Jerry’s girl. The one he got pregnant.’"
Elena’s hand flew to her mouth. Sienna was openly crying now, tears streaming down her face while Mose rubbed circles on her back.
"I told him yes. I told him what Margaret had said, what Jeremiah’s secretary told me. And Samuel just nodded like it all made perfect sense. Like this was exactly the kind of thing that happened in the world.
Then he said, ’He took the contract too. The Riverside development deal. Signed his name on my work and walked it into the investors’ meeting this morning while I was waiting for him to show up as my partner. He’s claiming he did it all himself.’"
"Both of them," Mia said to herself, and her voice was thick. "They both lost everything in one night." She couldn’t help but imagine how they’d both felt.
"We sat there together for hours," Elizabeth continued. "Two people who’d been torn apart by the same man. Samuel kept saying he should have seen it coming, that there were signs.
The way Jeremiah had been distant lately, the way he’d asked too many questions about the contract details, the way he’d insisted they keep separate files ’for organization.’ He’d planned it, you see. Planned all of it."
