My Great Escape Led Me to You (Emily Blair) novel Chapter 37

Emily Blair clutched the top of her evening dress with one hand, desperate to keep it from slipping, while using the other to shove Ethan Lane’s hand away. “Let me go! I want to get down—let me go!” she demanded, her voice shaking.

Suddenly, Ethan seized her chin and forced her head to turn.

Her eyes landed on Andrew Lane and Isabella Austin standing together across the room.

Andrew held a wine glass in one hand, the other arm looped casually around Isabella’s waist. Isabella leaned into him, her eyes drifting in Emily’s direction as she offered a sweet, victorious smile.

Andrew’s gaze slid over Emily with indifference, lingering just long enough to register her presence before he looked away, as if she were something distasteful.

Isabella took Andrew’s half-finished glass, and without a second thought, pressed her bright red lips to the rim where he had drunk, sipping the wine as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Emily’s limbs felt frozen. “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered.

She opened her mouth, desperate to call out to Andrew for help.

But Ethan clamped a hand over her mouth, leaning in to murmur softly in her ear, “Emily, maybe you should be asking me—do you really think Andrew doesn’t know what’s happening?”

Her whole body began to tremble.

A chill seeped straight into her bones.

Ethan let out a cold laugh. “I’m not going to lie to you. Andrew’s known about this from the very start.”

“He’s condoned everything I’ve done.”

With a smile, Ethan added, “Why don’t you guess why Andrew never stepped in to stop me?”

Her throat was dry as sand. “Why?”

“Because you wouldn’t leave Isabella alone—” Ethan said.

No, that wasn’t true, she hadn’t—

“Isabella is Andrew’s darling. Of course he’d stand up for her, no matter what.”

He accepted it. Stood up for her. Emily realized then just how little she meant to Andrew Lane, how easily he had cast her aside.

After that, things grew hazy in her memory.

His expression turned thunderous, his jaw clenched tight. “I am not.”

Just the mention of it seemed to set him off, his eyes wild as he snapped, “I’m not in love with her, you’re making things up!”

Emily watched him coolly. Before Ethan could react, she raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face.

Ethan’s furious words caught in his throat.

She met his eyes head-on. “Ethan Lane, stop losing your mind at my expense.”

He jerked his head up, glaring at her. “You dare hit me?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I? When you hit me, was it for Amelia Lane or for Isabella Austin? You know the answer.”

Ethan’s eyes blazed. He lunged, grabbing her by the throat and pinning her against the wall, his voice raw and threatening.

“If you dare say a word about this to anyone, I’ll throw you and your mother out of the Lane family!”