"I trusted you!" Alia roared out. "And you stabbed in the back for it! If I knew you were this sort of person, I would never have spent even a second more with you― in fact, you know what?"
Alia took in a deep breath, attempting to calm herself down while her heart continued to race like a horse set free.
"I quit. I’m out of here. I never want to see you again. You can run X’el to the ground, or wait for Matteo to swallow up this company in three months and give it to our future child."
Aiden looked stricken, and he reached out for her again. This ti, Alia snarled back, revealing all of her teeth. If she was an animal, she would have clawed out his throat.
"Don’t touch !" she scread.
Then, she felt soone slam into her back, causing her to fall forward. Aiden imdiately caught her in his arms. Before she could twist away, or turn around to see who was responsible, she heard a playful chuckle that caused goosebumps to erupt all over her arms.
Pain enveloped her head as her hair was gripped tightly and tugged without any care. Sharp jabs of pain coursed through her body, causing her to wince. Her face was lifted so she could see the culprit responsible― and of course, it was Emline. No one else would dare to lay a hand on her.
"Yes, Aiden, you heard her," Emline’s voice was a wicked smirk. "Don’t touch her," Emline echoed her words, mockery in every syllable. "It’s like she thinks she’s really soone precious."
Emline had promptly taken this chance of distraction to saunter out of the office with a small ornantal vase in hand, her eyes narrowed with a determined focus on Alia’s belly.
She would get no better chance― since Alia wanted to call her precious husband so much, she would make it so that the first thing Matteo would hear were the cries of pain as she bled to death in her own office.
But of course, Aiden foiled that plan. He really couldn’t do anything right. His only success was having sperm healthy enough to impregnate her― and in the end, Emline was still the person responsible for gestating the little terror that would tie her to Matteo’s heart.
She chanced a glance at him and then turned her gaze back to Alia. The fear in that wretched woman’s eyes lit a fire in her heart.
Emline wondered how she would look if she lost the child. The very thought made her grin with dented glee. It would be awfully exciting. But first, she had to lord it over the both of them. They were simply not good enough to beat her in this ga, and Emline had always been a sore winner.
"To think my cousin would act like she wasn’t the one that egged you on, dangling you on the edge of a string, living together with a third wheel. Did you like playing house with her, Aiden? You must have felt so sad when the illusion shattered, but the only one pathetic enough to be taken by it is you. Were your mommy issues so severe you had to go for the one woman that didn’t fall for your bullshit?"
"Emline, shut the fuck up!" Aiden roared, his hands nearly shaking with anger as an ugly humiliated flush crawled up his face.
There were many reasons why he could not get along with Emline and one of them was this: her ability to be simply nasty with her words as she used them to carve deep into every insecurity he had was near unparalleled, an ability made all the more powerful by their long history.
The grown-ups never realized how vile Emline could be because she was great at acting in front of them. However, years of pretense still couldn’t erase the true woman Emline Hawthorne was.
"Only telling it like it is," Emline said, but to her surprise, Alia had twisted away from her hold, her fingers quickly going to jab the panic button she kept in her pockets. She needed Sean to co up right now.
Thankfully, Emline had fallen into the pitfall every villain tended to make. She monologued, and all Alia had to do was wait for the mont when she was distracted, her grip slacking off for the briefest of seconds to pry herself free.
Realizing her mistake, Emline snarled in anger and slamd the vase straight at Alia’s stomach, cursing when Alia dodged out of the way. The vase shattered into many shards littering the floor, but Emline would not give up. If Alia did not lose her baby here, she would have co for nothing.
She reached forward and made another attempt to punch her stomach, but this ti, Aiden got in the way, shielding Alia from her. Emline scoffed in utter disbelief.
Alia could only watch, stunned at his display of protectiveness. What was Aiden playing at now? Was this guilt rearing its ugly head?
"Aiden, get out of the way! You’ll never have her love, so stop this foolish attempt at playing the hero right this instant!"
"You stop this, you’re behaving like a lunatic!" Aiden shot back, trying to hold Emline off without hurting her.
He didn’t care for her, but he also didn’t want her to injure herself and the fetus. He needed her to see sense and get the fuck out of X’el right this instance.
But Emline had her eyes on the prize. There was nothing that could make her leave now.
She grabbed knickknacks from the cubicles, where their owners were too terrified to interfere in the fight, and flung them at Aiden, causing him to wince and flinch. A particularly heavy paperweight caused him to bleed from his forehead, and blood flowed into his eyes, causing them to water.
He lifted a hand to rub his eyes, and Emline ducked past him to grab Alia again.
This ti, Alia barely managed to fend her off as their arms were locked, neither yielding an inch. In the past, she could have taken down Emline, but with her recent lack of exercise, it was proving difficult to even fend off one spoiled heiress fueled by the power of hatred!
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