The Billionaire Ex-Wife and the Beggar He Became novel Chapter 291

"Surprised, weren't you? After sharing a bed with me for almost seven years, I managed to hide it pretty well, didn't I?" Winona's smile was cold and composed, yet it carried an unexpected weight, an aura of pressure that Julian had never seen in the decade he'd known her.

"So it was all an act?" he demanded, his expression turning frigid.

"Think I have a future as an actress?" she shot back.

His hands clenched into fists, his tone laced with a murderous rage. "You deceived me for all this time. You used that meek, worldly, unconditionally-in-love-with-me facade to fool everyone until now!"

The powerful head of The Nicholson Group, played so thoroughly by a woman. In front of the entire city, she had made a complete fool of him. The financial loss was secondary; even if she took a hundred times his personal assets, it was a drop in the bucket for the Nicholson family. The real blow was to his pride. He, Julian Nicholson, had been so utterly outmaneuvered. He could already imagine the headlines that would follow him out of the courthouse—the great Mr. Nicholson, played for a fool by his own wife. And he would deserve it.

"My actions are for you to interpret as you wish, Mr. Nicholson. If, as you say, it was all an act, then what did I get for pretending to be that meek, loving woman?"

"Did I get your endless indifference and your cold shoulder? Your flagrant affair with another woman? Did I get to watch you and your mistress steal my daughter's affection? Did I get your supreme confidence that when I asked for a divorce, I was just trying to get your attention?"

"So, could I not argue that it was because you knew how much I loved you that you felt free to ignore me, abuse me emotionally, cheat on me, and then turn around and blame me?"

"You don't need to concern yourself with that, Mr. Nicholson. I imagine the public's opinion of me has improved since yesterday. I have no doubt The Nicholson Group can suppress any negative press about you, but what does that have to do with me?"

Julian was silent.

She was sharp. Crisp and decisive. Not a hint of hesitation. It was a quality he had never noticed in her before. It was a strange human failing, he thought. When he saw her as a doormat, he treated her like air. Now that he saw she could fight back, he found himself lowering his own pride.