Chapter234 What Arthur Really Wants
Arthur stood directly behind them.
He was wearing an expensive, well-cut suit, the kind that was supposed to make a man look polished and successful. But his eyes were full of undisguised contempt.
When the two of them turned, his gaze snagged on Miranda's face for just a beat too long, and something in him burned hotter.
He thought of his sister Isabella, suffering alone in some backwater town overseas.
Yes, Isabella had made her choices. But she was still his sister. His blood.
He wasn't just going to stand back and do nothing.
And every bit of what she was going through could be traced straight back to the woman standing in front of him.
Arthur curled his lip and looked Miranda up and down.
"This isn't the kind of crowd you're used to. Gatherings at this level aren't a place to do your fishing." His voice dripped with scorn. "Can't hide what you are, I guess."
It was a filthy thing to say. Like a bucket of sewage thrown directly at her.
Both Miranda and Harrison went cold at the same time.
"Arthur." Harrison's voice dropped, carrying a clear warning. "That was out of line."
"Out of line?" Arthur let out a short laugh, like he'd heard something ridiculous. "I don't think so. Compared to what my sister is going through over there, two words is nothing."
So this was about Isabella.
Miranda had already figured that out.
She stepped forward and met his poisonous stare head-on, her voice as cold as winter concrete.
"Your sister is suffering because of choices she made. Did I put a drug in her hand? Did I force her to drug anyone?"
Her gaze sharpened. "And for the record, what your sister was trying to do was insert herself into someone else's marriage."
She let that sit for a moment, then let the corner of her mouth curve into something that wasn't a smile at all.
"Makes me wonder. The way you're so worked up about this... do you have a thing for going after people who are already taken? Does it run in the family?"
The words hit like a slap.
Arthur felt the blood rush to his head so fast his vision blurred. His face went red to the roots of his hair.
"Shut your mouth! That's slander!"
"Which part wasn't accurate?" Miranda crossed her arms and looked at him with open contempt.
"I..." Arthur opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Especially that last line. It had hit something he kept buried deep, and the impact showed all over his face before he could stop it.
He found himself thinking: why had Miranda gotten so sharp? The first time they met, she had seemed so gentle. So... appealing.
The thought he'd been suppressing pushed its way up before he could catch it.
She and Clifton had been forced together by Mr. Prescott anyway. There was nothing real between them.
Wouldn't it be better if she left Clifton, and Isabella married him instead?
And Miranda herself... he wouldn't hold a divorce against her.
Because from the moment he first saw her, Arthur had known she was exactly his type. Every detail of her.
If she had just agreed to the divorce back then, none of this would have happened. Isabella would still have both hands. She wouldn't be stuck overseas.
It was Miranda's fault for not knowing what was good for her.
But then, Arthur remembered, he had only ever suggested the divorce to her once, privately. He had never said anything else. Never given anything away.
So how did she know?
The thought barely finished forming when he looked up and found Miranda's eyes already on him. Clear. Steady. Seeing straight through him.
Under that gaze, Arthur had the unsettling feeling that every ugly secret he'd ever kept was sitting out in the open.
The cold edge of Miranda's smile made his stomach drop.
She knew.
That last line hadn't just been an insult. It had been a test.
And she had just gotten her answer from the look on his face.
Miranda felt nothing but ice.
From the very first time they met, Arthur had reached out through mutual contacts, found her privately, and spent the whole conversation nudging her to leave Clifton. She had assumed at the time it was purely for Isabella's benefit.
But later, at the camping trip and at other occasions, whenever their eyes happened to meet, she always caught something in his expression. Something that made her skin crawl. An interest that had no business being there.
Miranda was not a naive girl. She had been in relationships. She had been married.
She recognized that kind of look. The one that held possession in it.
She had noticed it and filed it away.
Today, she finally had the chance to test it.
She was right. Arthur wanted her.
The smile that settled on Miranda's lips now had no warmth in it. None at all.
She looked straight at him. "You keep telling people you're his close friend. Does he know his close friend has been eyeing his wife?"
Beside her, Harrison's brow snapped together.
That cop was Arthur's friend?
The Martinez family had serious connections. But what would someone from a family like that have to do with a man who looked like an ordinary police officer?
Before Harrison could work through the question, Arthur's face had already gone red with humiliated fury.
"I don't know what you're talking about! And you're the one who should be explaining yourself, standing here with your ex-husband at an event like this. That's what's inappropriate!"
Miranda almost laughed.
So that was how it worked with him.
She understood now. Some people expressed their obsession by tearing you down constantly. They couldn't have you, so they made sure to drag you through the dirt, as if that somehow gave them the moral high ground.
Arthur was exactly that kind of man.
Because he couldn't have her, seeing her standing next to another man made him lash out and call her shameless. As if grinding her down was the only way to make himself feel righteous.
Miranda let out a short laugh, clear and sharp with mockery. "My husband hasn't said a word about it. What exactly gives you the right?"
Her eyes went cold and direct. "And standing in someone else's space? Harrison and I haven't so much as touched. We've been standing here talking. That's it."
She let her gaze travel over him slowly. "By your logic, you walked over here and planted yourself next to me on purpose. Doesn't that make you the one trying to get close?"
"You..." Arthur choked on it. He had nothing.
Miranda didn't give him a second to recover.
"I don't care what's going on in your head," she said, her voice ice cold and final. "I will never forgive your sister. Not in this lifetime."
She held his gaze and finished it.
"And I will never, ever be interested in you."
Arthur had always known Isabella wanted Clifton. But instead of ever confronting Clifton directly, he kept showing up to make Miranda's life difficult.
When you stripped it all away, that said everything. He looked down on women. He thought they were easier to push around.
Men like that? Miranda wouldn't waste another second on him.