Chapter 198
Chapter 198
Claire's tears came again — but this time they weren't an act. This time she was genuinely terrified.
"Miss Seymour, I was forced into this. Octavia threatened me. If I didn't do what she said —"
"Enough."
Leopold's voice came from behind the desk. Low. Quiet. Claire snapped her mouth shut instantly.
He looked at her. His gaze was as cold as a January wind cutting through glass.
"John. Take her back. No one leaves without my permission. No visitors."
John gave a single nod, stepped forward, and pulled Claire up from the floor.
She was hauled toward the door, her heart a tangle of dread and desperate, fragile hope.
Leopold hadn't said where.
If they were taking her back to the Seymour Family estate, then she was still the lady of the house. Everything could still go back to the way it was.
She dug in her heels and turned, looking back at Leopold through a blur of tears.
"Mr. Seymour — I am your wife. Everything should go back to the way it was. Shouldn't it?"
Leopold didn't look at her.
His eyes had dropped to the phone lying face-down on the desk. The expression on his face was something past cold — something that made the air in the room feel thin.
Claire waited. No answer came. She opened her mouth to try again, but John was already pulling her through the door.
At the threshold, she couldn't help glancing back one last time.
Leopold hadn't moved. He was standing exactly where he'd been when she walked in.
But his face was different.
Everyone who knew Leopold feared his anger — and yet Leopold almost never let his emotions show. He was known for that. It was one of the things people found most unsettling about him.
Now, for the first time, Claire saw it.
Something moved through her. Cold and sharp. Her whole body started to shake without her permission.
The door closed behind her.
The hallway. Just her, John, and the two security guards. Her legs had turned to water. She was barely walking under her own power anymore.
She didn't know what Leopold would do to her. Didn't know what was waiting for her on the other side of this.
She only knew one thing: none of this had gone the way she'd planned. Leopold's reaction was nothing like what she'd expected. Nothing at all.
---
The office went quiet.
Monica was still standing where she'd been, staring at the closed door, something unreadable moving across her face.
She parted her lips. Thought better of it. Looked at Leopold's expression. Closed her mouth again.
Even she was frightened.
"Monica. Out."
Leopold's voice was barely above a murmur.
Monica swallowed whatever she'd been about to say. She nodded — the quick, relieved nod of someone who has just been let off the hook — and slipped out without another word.
The office was empty now. Just Leopold.
He stood with both hands braced on the desk, head bowed. The phone was still there in front of him, screen down, exactly where it had landed. He hadn't touched it again. It was almost as if he couldn't bring himself to.
But it didn't matter. He'd only read the message once, and he already knew every word by heart.
[I'm sorry. I've been lying to you this whole time. We should get a divorce.]
His fingers curled against the desk. His knuckles went white.
He thought about the first time she'd come to find him in the study. Blindfolded. Playing the part of the fragile, soft-spoken girl — voice careful, breath careful, every movement careful.
He'd known she was performing even then. He hadn't called her out on it. He'd wanted to see how far she'd take it. Wanted to see what she was really after.
Then he'd figured out she wasn't Claire. And once he knew that, everything else became clear too. She was sharper than Claire, more capable — she could hold her own against every trap laid for her, stood her ground against Monica, against Emily, against anyone who came at her. She didn't flinch.
And yet, with all of that, she'd spent every day here playing a role. Playing Claire in front of Monica. Playing the rival in front of Emily. Playing the dutiful, obedient wife in front of him.
She was that good. There were moments he hadn't been able to tell which version of her was real.
But he knew one thing.
She was not a con artist.
She'd come to the Seymour Family with a purpose. She'd been digging — into her parents, into her uncle, into the Obelon Group. Everything she'd done had a reason behind it. She had never once hurt someone who didn't deserve it.
She was so deliberate that even he had assumed, at first, that taking Claire's place had been intentional. Planned. Maybe even arranged between the two sisters.
He had even let himself think — arrogantly, as it turned out — that if Octavia had schemed her way into this marriage just to use his connections to get to Marshall, he wouldn't hold it against her. He had been prepared to let himself be used.
But the truth turned out to be something different. Something that hit harder than any scheme.
She hadn't wanted this.
She'd lost her parents, same as him — except he still had his brother and sister. He wasn't entirely alone. She had been. And in that state, she'd been betrayed by her own sister. Framed. Handed off to a man with a ruined reputation who couldn't even see her face.
He thought about every charity event and gala they'd attended together — every time the two sisters had been in the same room. How quiet Octavia would get afterward. How the light in her would go dim.
She must have been in so much pain.
And even so — even after all of that — she was the one apologizing to him. Calling herself a liar.
What had this world done to her?
What had he done to her?
Leopold's arm moved before he could stop it. He grabbed the phone off the desk and hurled it at the wall.
It hit with a dull crack. The screen shattered. The pieces scattered across the carpet and settled into silence.
---
Leopold didn't come home until late that night.
Every light in the house was blazing. The brightness hit him the moment he stepped through the front door, sharp enough to make him squint.
He heard Monica before he saw her — her voice carrying from the living room, hot with the particular fury she never bothered to disguise.
"Hold her down! I don't care — I am not finished with this woman today!"
Leopold's stride broke for just a fraction of a second. Then he walked in, John a half-step behind him.
In the center of the living room, Claire was on her knees, two security guards gripping her by the shoulders. Her hair had come half undone. Her makeup was streaked from crying, her eyes swollen, the tip of her nose raw and pink. She looked like she'd been through the worst night of her life.
But there — at the corner of her mouth — was a trace of something that didn't belong. A faint smirk. The quiet, unshakeable confidence of someone who believed no one in this house would actually touch her.
Monica stood over her. Sleeves shoved up to her elbows. In her hand, raised and ready, was a riding crop she'd produced from God only knew where. Her face was flushed a deep red, her whole frame trembling with the effort of containing herself.
"You think a few tears are going to fix this? You lied to me. You lied to Leopold. You lied to every single one of us. You stood in that airport and pointed your finger at Octavia and told me to drag her back — and now you're kneeling here playing the victim?"
Claire tilted her face up toward Monica. Fresh tears spilled over.
She really did cry beautifully. Eyes red-rimmed and glistening, the tip of her nose pink, her lips trembling just slightly — like a wounded animal, small and helpless and afraid.
No one in the room was moved.
"Miss Seymour, I had no choice, Octavia made me —"
"Shut up!" Monica snapped. "You told a completely different story in Leopold's office! One minute Octavia forced you, the next minute Octavia was jealous of you — which one is it? Which single word out of your mouth is the truth?" Her grip on the crop tightened. "You lying, two-faced — I swear I'm going to make you regret every last word."
She raised her arm and brought it down.
Claire shrieked and threw herself back, but the guards didn't let go. There was nowhere to go. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced for the impact.
"Monica."
Leopold's voice came from the entryway.
Monica's arm froze mid-swing.
She turned. Leopold was standing in the foyer — coat still on, tie half-loosened, something around his eyes that looked, for once, like exhaustion.
His expression was not good. It never needed to be.
"Leopold, don't." Monica's jaw tightened. "This woman — I can't even look at her. I need to do this."