Dumped My Cheating Ex. Now I'm Sleeping Next to a Billionaire CEO novel Chapter 171

Emmy shot him a strange look. “I’m changing my mom’s clothes. How exactly are you going to help with that?”

James hurried to explain. “No, not with that. I meant other stuff.”

Steve was right. She really was a pampered princess—if she couldn’t handle this, he couldn’t just stand by and watch her suffer through it.

But Emmy just shook her head, looking serious.

“You’ve already done more than enough for me. I feel bad for taking up so much of your time.”

“You should go take care of your own things. You don’t need to come by every day.”

She turned away and got back to what she was doing.

James stayed where he was, his fingers curling slightly at his side. She really didn’t want to rely on him? He should have felt glad, but all he felt was this weird ache in his chest.

Then someone patted his shoulder.

He turned to see Andrew, who was grinning with a knowing look.

“Looks like your wife still doesn’t see you as her husband yet. You’ve got a long way to go, man. Better keep at it.”

James pressed his lips together, said nothing, and headed back toward the hospital room.

Inside the attached bathroom, Emmy frowned at the all-in-one washer-dryer, trying to figure it out. She just wanted to get her mom’s dirty clothes clean.

There was a knock at the door.

Thinking it was James, Emmy didn’t even look up. “Do you know how to work this machine?”

Footsteps came closer, bringing with them a strong smell of disinfectant. A slim hand reached past her shoulder and pressed a couple buttons on the machine’s control panel.

Emmy saw the hand. It was thinner than James’s.

Her heart skipped. She spun around.

“Dean, can you stop clinging to me? You’re only making me lose respect for you.”

Dean let out a cold laugh. “Clinging? That’s what you think I’m doing?”

“I’ve always treated you like a little sister. When Forward Technology was about to go under, I threatened your dad with the Southside project so he’d make the company a priority—just to keep you living like a princess!”

“And those millions I dumped into Starlight Corporation—what did you think that was for? In the end, I’m just some pathetic clown to you?”

Emmy’s face turned dark.

She didn’t believe for a second that Forward Technology survived because of Dean.

She’d threatened Cooper herself using Mr. Nelson’s name. Her wonderful father probably just wanted to keep both sides happy—avoiding trouble with Mr. Nelson and taking advantage of Dean’s project at the same time.

She gave a sharp, mocking laugh, her eyes full of scorn.

“I never needed your help. But let me ask you—when you bought up all the A and O blood plasma in this hospital, were you just hoping my mom would die on the table? Was that your revenge for your mom’s death? Because what if—what if my mom had nothing to do with it at all?”