Chapter 195

Chapter 195

By the time Gloria pulled the car to a stop, most of the lights in the villa were already on.

She cut the engine and glanced over at Henry in the passenger seat.

He hadn't said a word the whole way.

"We're here."

"The photos and information — I've already had it handled. The source is cut off, the spread was limited, and I've talked to the outlets that picked it up. None of it will make it online."

The exhaustion on Henry's face wouldn't go away. His voice was a little rough. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for."

They walked into the living room one after the other. Marlowe was already on the sofa, and Bianca — no one knew when — had followed them from the hospital.

Henry stood in the middle of the room, his expression dark.

His dark grey suit jacket was gone, thrown over the arm of the sofa at some point.

"Get out."

When she heard Henry say that, her eyes were red, her long hair loose and messy over her shoulders, a few strands stuck to her face. Her tear tracks had dried and wetted over again, leaving her looking completely wrecked.

"Henry—"

Her voice was hoarse, thick with crying, her lips trembling.

"I know I was wrong. But the baby — I really didn't mean to hide it from you."

She was still in the clothes she'd worn at the hospital, only a thin knit cardigan over them, everything disheveled, her face streaked with tears. She looked like a mess.

Henry turned to look at her. In that moment, the expression on his face stopped Bianca cold.

She had been with Henry for years. She had seen him in all kinds of situations. But she had never seen that look on his face before.

She didn't dare leave. She bit her lower lip and held her ground.

"I know nothing I say matters now. But I really had no other choice at the time—"

She raised her head. Her makeup was completely ruined. "Henry, everything I felt for you over these years was real. Every single moment of it."

Henry's eyes were flat with cold contempt. Looking at her any longer felt like a waste.

Marlowe sat on the sofa, her fingers slowly curling tighter. She lifted her head, and those well-kept eyes of hers held not a trace of warmth.

"Enough. What's the point of all this? There's no place for someone like you in this family."

Bianca snapped her head toward her, pupils shrinking. "Mom—"

"Don't call me that."

Marlowe's voice shot up, then pulled back down just as fast — like she was using everything she had to hold on to the last bit of her composure. "I don't deserve that from you."

Bianca shuffled two steps forward and reached out, grabbing hold of Marlowe's clothes. She clutched them tight, her knuckles going white.

"Mom, I know I was wrong. I really do—"

The tears came again, her voice shaking apart. "But I've been in the Tudor family all these years, and what I felt for Henry was real. What I felt for you was real too. You can't throw all of that away over one mistake—"

"What you felt?"

Marlowe looked down at her, the corner of her mouth pulling slowly into a curve. There was no warmth in it. Just contempt, bone-deep.

She looked at the woman at her feet and said, one word at a time: "Is that what you call it — passing off someone else's child as Henry's? Lying to him for all these years?"

Bianca choked. Her lips shook, and the tears came harder.

"I wasn't thinking straight at the time..." Her voice dropped lower and lower. "I was scared Henry would leave me. Scared of losing him."

"So you trapped him like this. Kept him locked in a lie."

Marlowe bent down, bringing her face close to Bianca's, the fury in her voice impossible to contain.

"Bianca, what did you think you were doing? What did you think he was to you? What did you think I was? What did you think the Tudor family was?"

Bianca had nothing to say.

Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound came out. Tears ran silently down her face.

"I never treated you badly. Not once."

Marlowe straightened up and looked down at her. Her voice had gone calm again — and that calm was scarier than any screaming rage.

"All the years you've been in this family, everything you had, everything you needed — when did I ever shortchange you? What did you want that I didn't give you? And this is how you repay me?"

Bianca's face went pale.

She knew Marlowe was right. Every word of it. There was nothing to argue against.

But she also knew she couldn't walk out that door. If she did, it was over. Everything she had built in the Tudor family would be gone by morning.

She would go back to being nothing. The Bianca who got stepped on, who couldn't even lift her head.

She couldn't accept that.

She bit her lower lip and used every bit of strength she had to force herself calm.

She was still on her knees. Her eyes moved from Marlowe, inch by inch, to Henry, and then from Henry to Gloria, standing in the corner.

"It was you."

Bianca pushed herself up off the floor. She moved too fast and her knee hit the ground, making her stumble. But her eyes never left Gloria — red-rimmed, wild with something unraveling behind them.

"You set this up, didn't you?"

She took a step toward Gloria, unsteady on her feet. "You're the one who leaked those photos and that information. You had people waiting at the hospital to watch me fall apart. Every last bit of this was you."

Henry turned his head toward Gloria. A small crease formed between his brows, and something complicated moved through his eyes.

Gloria didn't move. She just asked, calmly: "Bianca, even now, you still can't see what you've done? You shouldn't go throwing accusations around without proof."

Bianca went silent.

Her lips trembled. Anger and bitterness churned in her eyes. She opened her mouth, but not a single word came out.

She still had no idea where those photos and that information had come from. She'd looked. Every trail led nowhere, wiped clean by some invisible hand, like it had never existed.

"If you don't have proof, don't make claims you can't back up. That's basic. You don't know that?"

"Bianca, the thing you should be thinking about right now isn't pointing fingers at other people. It's figuring out how you're going to face what you've done."

Bianca froze. Every defense she had was stuck in her throat. The panic and the rage crashed up all at once, and she turned and locked her eyes on Gloria.

"Henry, can't you see it? Gloria has been playing you from the start. Getting close to you, helping you, acting like she wants nothing in return — but every move she's made has been pulling you into her net. Doesn't it seem a little too convenient? Those photos didn't come out sooner or later — they came out right now, at exactly this moment—"

"That's enough."

Henry's voice wasn't loud. It wasn't even harsh. But it stopped Bianca cold, cut off every word she had left.

He turned and looked at her. Those eyes of his, usually so steady, were nothing but ice.

"I know what kind of person Gloria is better than you do."

Bianca's pupils contracted. Her mouth fell open, her lips shaking. The anger on her face shifted into shock, and then into something closer to hollow, lost despair.

There was something familiar about this.

A bitter feeling settled over her face. So this is what it felt like for Gloria, back then.

Henry took two steps forward and stood beside Gloria — close but not too close, just enough to put himself half in front of her.

"You used my trust and lied to me for years. All that time, I gave you whatever you asked for. I never treated you badly. And this is what you did with it?"

"You trapped me in a lie. Now it's all come out, and instead of owning it, you're going after Gloria?"

Bianca's lips shook too hard to get the words out. "I didn't—"

"I know what you did."

Henry looked away from her and turned to Marlowe. "Mom, have someone take her out."

Marlowe gave a small nod and raised her hand.

The butler waiting by the door walked in immediately, two people behind him.

Bianca watched them coming toward her. The panic finally hit.

"No — no!"

She shook her head and stumbled back, but every step tore at the wound on her knee.

"Henry, you can't do this to me! I don't want anything anymore — not the title, nothing — just let me stay. Let me stay with you. I'll do anything."

Henry didn't turn around.

The two uniformed staff were already in front of her, each gripping one of her arms.

Bianca was hauled toward the door, her body pulling back, her struggling useless against their hold.

Just as she was being dragged past the sofa, she suddenly threw everything she had into one sharp lunge, broke partway free, and grabbed onto Marlowe's arm with both hands.

She pulled herself close to Marlowe's ear.

"If you're done with me, then I've got nothing left to lose. All those things you've kept buried — I wouldn't mind dragging every last one of them into the light. If I'm going down, we can all go down together."