Chapter 363
Audrey’s POV
“Damn right I’m happy. Teaching entitled brats a lesson would put anyone in a good mood.” I spotted a maple leaf on the path and picked it up, twirling it between my fingers as I walked.
“Let me guess you’re calling to make me apologize to your family?”
‘Well I won’t. I hit them and I’m not sorry about it. If Parker Group wants to come after me or Knox Corporation because of it, bring
it on.”
The line went quiet before Blake finally spoke. “I never said anything about retaliation.”
I kept walking, sunlight filtering through the leaf in my hand.
“Mrs. Knox, Blake sounded tired. “They’re all demanding I make you pay. Rachel and I have been trying to calm them down. After causing this much trouble, don’t you think you should say something?”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Wait – you’re not asking me to apologize to them?”
“I saw the security footage. They cornered you first. Why would I ask you to apologize?”
I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“Do you really think I can’t tell who’s in the wrong?” Blake asked.
I wanted to say yes, that’s exactly what I thought. For three years, he’d never once taken my side against his family. But I bit my
tongue.
“No, of course not,” I lied. “I just assumed since they’re your family, you’d automatically take their side.”
‘I’m not holding you responsible for what happened,” he said. “But there seems to be a misunderstanding between you and Rachel.”
‘I’d like to invite you and Mr. Knox to dinner tomorrow night. Partly to smooth things over between you two.”
“And I want you to show Rachel how to care for my grandfather.”
“What?” I nearly crushed the leaf in my hand.
My mind raced. Why would he ask me to teach someone else how to care for William? Anyone with basic human decency could figure out how to keep an elderly man company. Besides, William was Blake’s grandfather – shouldn’t he know what the old man
needed?
But then I pictured William in that hospital bed, confused and alone, thinking his beloved Audrey had abandoned him. My chest tightened.
“Fine. Adrian gets in tomorrow morning. We’ll come together.”
I hung up without waiting for his response and kept walking.
Blake’s POV
1/2
Chapter 363
I stared at the security monitor as the dial tone buzzed in my ear. She stood motionless for a moment after hanging up, then wiped her face. Was she crying? Or just brushing something away?
She started walking again, faster now, toward the main gate. The lightness in her steps was gone.
I’d killed her good mood.
A knock interrupted my thoughts.
“Blake?” Rachel sounded exhausted. “I calmed down Elizabeth and Olivia, but your mother and Thalia are still demanding blood.”
I kept my eyes on the screen, watching Audrey shrink into the distance.
“They look terrible,” Rachel continued. “Their faces are so swollen they might not even make it to our wedding. I offered them designer bags, jewelry worth thousands nothing worked.”
–
I waited until Audrey disappeared completely before cutting Rachel off. “Let them throw their tantrums. If they push it, I’ll freeze their accounts.”
“They’re your family!” Rachel looked stunned.
“Exactly why I know how they operate.” I turned my wheelchair to face her. “Every time Mrs. Knox hit them, they provoked her first. They wanted a reaction and got one.”
Rachel inhaled sharply. “On Long Island, you nearly lost your leg saving that woman. Now you’re taking her to see William, defending her after she attacked your family, threatening to punish them instead… What’s really going on here?”
“Do you still think she’s Audrey? Or are you just using her as a replacement because she has the same face?”
I gave Rachel a cold once-over. “Weren’t you the replacement? When my grandfather was dying, you played Audrey for him. No one’s competing for that role.”
Divorce Me Before Death Takes Me, CEO
