Chapter 80 was I ever supposed to prove it to you?

Chapter 80 was I ever supposed to prove it to you?
Caspian was not playing around. He was not just trying to scare her. He meant every single word. Fear covered Sienna’s eyes like a film. She would not dare try another lie.

Her face was red and puffy now, a bruised mess. It hurt so much she could barely think. But the slap from Caspian himself… that was different. It was worse than all the others combined. It felt like he had put his whole heart into it, and his heart was full of hate.

“I…” she started, another ugly word forming on her swollen lips.

Caspian cut her off, like he could read her mind. “Be very careful,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “If you call her a bitch one more time, I will forget every rule I have. I will show you exactly what a bitch really is.”

The tears in Sienna’s eyes mixed with the pain, making them burn. So that was it. He had hit her for that. For calling Michelle a name. The understanding of it choked her, right there in her throat.

She could stand anything from him, anything at all, except this. Except him doing it for her.

It hurt in a deep, aching way. After everything she had done, all the schemes and lies, all because she loved him… it was all crumbling to pieces because of that woman. The one who was supposed to be nothing.

If only Sebastian had never come back that night. Then it would be Caspian’s baby she was carrying.

“Now talk,” Caspian commanded, his anger a cold, solid thing in the room. “That message she got. It was just the two of us in that room. How did you get her number?”

No one moved to help her. No one cared about her crying. Her voice shook when she finally spoke. “After you took that call from her butler… at the lounge where you left me… I got scared.”

She stopped, but one more look from Caspian had the words tumbling out again.

“I paid the girl at the front desk. I gave her money for the key card to your room.” She was trembling from the cold water and the fear, making her words hard to hear. “She had seen us together before. She believed me when I said I left the key you gave me upstairs.”

Sienna pressed her lips together, her eyes full of a sour, jealous pain. She wanted to scream every foul name she knew for Michelle, but she was too afraid of what he would do.

“The butler called the room phone. I answered it. I remembered the number he said.” This way, she did not have to say Michelle’s name. She did not have to risk another slap.

Caspian felt like the world’s biggest fool. He had seen the little signs, the odd moments, and he had chosen to ignore them. He had chosen to trust her. For what? “I asked you about it,” he said, his voice rough and broken. “You looked me in the eye and you lied. How did the pictures get to the newspapers?”

“I paid someone,” Sienna whispered, her confession laid bare. “I paid a man to follow us. To take pictures whenever we were together.”

At the other table, Rush and Edmund finally understood. They saw the full picture of what Michelle had lived through. No wonder she seemed so closed off, so hard to reach. Her heart was not just broken; it had been frozen solid.

As for Caspian, they felt no pity for him. He had made his bed. He could lie in it.

“You knew,” Caspian said, the words scraping out of him. “You knew she was carrying a child. And you still did all of this. How can a person be so empty inside? Tell me about the accident. How did you make it happen?”

Michelle’s focus became absolute.

Sienna knew it was over. There was no clever story left to tell. The waitress with the hard hands was still sitting right there, waiting for her chance to earn more money.

“I heard you,” Sienna said, her voice flat. “On the phone with the butler. Telling him to send a car to take her to the hospital. So I made a call of my own. I paid someone to see that the car never made it. The baby… the baby was not the point. She was.”

The pain Caspian had been locking away for years broke free all at once. It crashed over him, so heavy he could not breathe. He could not pretend anymore. He could not hide from what he had allowed to happen.

Michelle had suffered. And it was because of him. He should have been a real man. He should have ended things with Sienna for good the day he decided to marry Michelle, contract or not.

“Why?” The word was a raw plea, full of a bitterness that was eating him alive. “Even after I told you there was nothing between us. Even after I gave you everything you asked for. You did it anyway. You took my child from me.”

Caspian was a storm of rage and grief. Lake, watching, wanted to go to him. If he had not been so buried in his own work back then, if he had been there to see what was happening… maybe he could have said something. Maybe he could have stopped this.

But he was too late. Now Caspian was just trying to clean up a horrible mess, a mess he did not even create. In Lake’s eyes, Caspian was just another victim. A man who tried to be loyal to the wrong woman.

The room was completely silent. So no one was ready for Sienna’s sudden, sharp cry.

“It was your fault!” she yelled, pointing a shaking finger at Caspian. “You were always saying you loved me! But your actions never matched your words!”

Caspian’s expression did not change much, but inside, a dark thought bloomed. He wanted to press a blade right against her neck. He wanted to end this.

But what would that fix? It would not take away Michelle’s pain. It would not bring his child back.

Sienna would pay for what she did to Michelle. He would make sure of it. A smile touched the corner of his mouth, but it was a ugly, joyless thing.

“How,” he asked, his voice dangerously quiet, “was I ever supposed to prove it to you?”