Chapter 180

“How did you find out where we were having dinner?” Quennel’s voice was ice.

The line went silent as Sandra scrambled for an answer.

“Sandra, you’re getting bolder p>

“No, that’s not it, Mr. Rosenberg. Today was just a coinc p>

He hung up before she could finish. Sandra stared at the dark screen, her fingers hovering over the keypad, wanting to call back but lacking the courage. If he found out about the informant she had planted in his circle, her fate would be p>

A shiver ran down her spine at the thought.

Quennel ended the call and looked at the young woman kneeling before him.

She was trembling, her hands pressed to the floor, too terrified to look up as she confessed how Sandra had orchestrated her “chance encounter” at the restaurant.

“Mr. Rosenberg, what should we do with her?” his assistant, Louis, asked.

Quennel’s gaze was dark and calculating. “Keep her for now p>

Louis nodded and had the woman taken away.

“Sir, according to our investigation, Ms. Green and Mr. Lionel Rosenberg only signed a divorce agreement at the hospital. They never filed it with the civil affairs bureau,” Louis reported, handing him a photograph.

“He was so blinded by anger he forgot the proper procedure,” Quennel murmured, his thumb stroking Hannah’s image in the photo. A fond, exasperated smile touched his lips. “Have you spoken with the Woods family p>

“Yes, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Woods have agreed. They will meet with us in two days to discuss the details p>

Hannah arrived home shortly before Lionel. He came straight to the master bedroom.

“Hannah!” he called out as she was gathering her clothes to take a shower. “About what happened… I wasn’t just sitting back and doing nothing. I had my people investigating it too p>

His team was simply not as efficient as Yves’ or Quennel’s, and a few missteps had delayed them. He certainly hadn’t expected the two of them to get involved in what was clearly a private matter.

Hannah took a deep breath and pulled her arm from his grasp.

“It’s over now. What’s the point of saying all this?” She blinked slowly, a humorless smile playing on her lips. “At least the outcome was positive. I wasn’t successfully framed by Sandra this time, so I suppose that’s enough p>

If Mr. Lancaster and Quennel had been even a day later, Lionel would have believed Sandra’s lies-that she had been raped and was now seeking revenge. The situation would have become infinitely more complicated.

“Sandra was just “

“I don’t care what she was just doing,” Hannah cut him off, her patience wearing thin as he tried to defend Sandra yet again.

“What I care about,” she said, her voice rising is that your first instinct was to believe that video. To believe I had been gang-raped. And then you had the audacity to act

magnanimous, saying you wouldn’t hold it against me. Lionel, don’t you forget, the person who arranged my kidnapping was your mother’s

subordinate. You knew about it from the beginning, and you chose to hide it p>

“When Sandra suggested I might have been violated and was now framing Zack out of revenge, you believed that too p>

Lionel’s face went rigid. He opened his mouth to explain, but the words wouldn’t come.

Hannah let out a long, weary sigh. She had known for a long time that their love was shattered, but she hadn’t realized it had been ground to such fine dust. Her hands, hanging at her sides clenched into tight fists, her nails digging into her palms, but she felt no pain.

“I don’t need your apology. It’s meaningless, she said, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Just be honest with me. Put your hand on your heart and tell me if Mr.

Lancaster and Quennel haunt stepped in, would you have believed Sandra p>