Revenge Wears My Ring novel Chapter 147

The thought startled her, and she almost laughed at how ridiculous it was.

After all, what she had with Bennett was just an arrangement—nothing more.

Yet she couldn’t shake the guilt gnawing at her, nor the weight of Bennett’s gaze pressing down on her shoulders. The feeling left her restless, her cheeks growing warm again despite herself.

Just then, Bennett’s low voice cut through the uneasy silence at the table. There was a trace of coldness and mockery beneath the calm, almost impossible to catch unless one was listening for it.

“Drink some more water, Gwyneth.”

His tone was so bland, it sounded almost like a manager giving a mundane task to his employee—polite, detached, maybe even a little caring. But the way he pronounced her name—Gwyneth—was deliberate, each syllable crisp and sharp.

The sound of her own name, spoken like that, felt almost like a spell. The itch in her throat vanished instantly, as if his words had chased it away.

She straightened up abruptly, jolted into clarity by the chill in his voice. Even the lingering urge to cough was suddenly gone, snuffed out by the tension.

The air in the dining room grew tighter, more brittle, after he spoke.

At the head of the table, Yale’s deeply lined face betrayed no emotion, but in his shrewd eyes, a glint of something cold flickered.

He laid his spoon down with a crisp clink, breaking the silence at just the right moment. His voice was deep and commanding, carrying the unspoken authority of a patriarch as he deftly steered the conversation away—only to throw another grenade into the mix:

“All right, let’s eat.” Yale’s gaze swept to Bennett, his tone brooking no argument. “Bennett, you’ll go to Harvest Group tomorrow.”

He turned to Julian, his words shifting into the stern yet encouraging cadence of an elder pushing a younger man to do better.

“Julian, last quarter’s results at Harvest Group were less than impressive. Nowhere near what we expected. I want you to pay more attention—put in more effort.”

He paused, his eyes flicking between Bennett and Julian before delivering the next line like a knife, aimed straight at Julian’s most sensitive spot.

“It’s perfect timing. Your brother can go over and take a look, give things a checkup. When brothers work together, nothing’s impossible.”

Brothers working together?

Julian almost laughed at the absurdity.

Sending Bennett to “help” at Harvest Group? It was a clear sign that their father wasn’t satisfied with his performance—a public slap in the face, a rejection of his abilities.

A rush of cold blood surged into Julian’s head, exploding in his chest, burning through his insides. Beneath the table, his hands clenched so tightly on his knees that his nails dug deep into his palms, the sharp pain barely helping him maintain his polite, deferential mask.

That pair of words, so icy and final, seemed to drop the temperature in the room by ten degrees. The atmosphere went brittle, ready to shatter.

In the suffocating quiet that followed, Yale spoke again. His tone was steady, carrying the unchallengeable authority of a family patriarch, as if the earlier silent skirmish had never taken place.

“Julian,” Yale said, eyes fixed on him, leaving no room for argument, “make sure your brother has an office at Harvest Group. You handle it yourself—and do it properly.”

Being put on the spot, Julian’s smile grew even more artificial.

A poisonous, “perfect” thought slithered into his mind, sharp as a viper.

His lips twitched for just an instant, too quick to catch, before he plastered on his most humble, considerate expression—complete with an extra dose of brotherly concern.

“Of course, Dad, I’ll take care of it right away.”

Julian’s voice was smoother than ever as he turned to Bennett, his glance now hiding a cocktail of calculation and malice.

“Brother, how about this? Over at Harvest Group, when Gwyneth was consulting on projects, she had a private office—top-notch, quiet, excellent location. After she transferred to Locke Group, it’s been sitting empty. Maybe… you could use her old office for now?”