He Humiliated Me, I Married His Powerful Guardian

Chapter 3

My body went rigid. The incident Mia brought up happened on the night of my coming-of-age party.

That day, she and Jace had one of their rare fights. To cheer her up, Jace made a reckless decision behind everyone's back and outsourced a Blake Group project to the Vance family.

In the end, the Vances pocketed the money, and the project fell apart.

When Jace's grandfather Alistair Blake found out, he flew into a rage and ordered Arthur to investigate the matter thoroughly.

But instead of taking responsibility, Jace pushed everything onto me.

"My family likes you anyway," he had said shamelessly. "It's not like they'll really do anything to you."

After days of him wearing me down, I finally agreed to take the blame for him. But the truth still came out in the end.

When Arthur personally carried out the family discipline, Jace still refused to back down.

"You're not even my real father," he snapped. "What gives you the right to control me? If my dad were still alive, do you really think this family would be yours to run?"

Arthur did not lose his temper after hearing that. He simply ordered Jace to kneel in the family study for another three days and nights without food or water.

After that, Jace could barely get out of bed for an entire month. And from that moment on, he became convinced that I had been the snitch.

I tried explaining myself to him over and over again, but every attempt ended with a slammed door in my face. It took nearly half a year before our relationship finally eased.

Now, with Mia bringing it all up again, the grievance I had swallowed back then rose straight into my throat.

"I already explained this countless times," I said, unable to hold back anymore. "I never told anyone."

Mia rolled her eyes. "What I can't stand most is the way you always act like the victim. Jace covered everything up perfectly. If you hadn't snitched, how could Alistair possibly have found out?"

Jace's expression darkened further with every word she said, his voice turning colder and sharper. "If you didn't want to help me, then you shouldn't have agreed in the first place."

"But agreeing first and stabbing me in the back afterward..." He let out a harsh laugh. "Ivy, you make me sick."

I was exhausted. For the first time, I dropped the careful composure I had spent years maintaining and defended myself without holding back.

"Jace Blake, why are you so convinced your childish little tricks could fool someone like Alistair? A man who survived decades in business doesn't get played that easily. I never owed you anything. So stop showing up and disrupting my life."

Maybe because I had lost control so rarely, my hands were still shaking after I forced them out of my house.

I leaned against the door and took several deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. Picking up my phone, I almost texted Arthur about what had just happened. But the word "snitch" kept echoing in my head.

I hesitated for a long time. Just as I was about to put the phone down, a message from Arthur suddenly popped onto the screen.

Arthur: I saw you typing for a while. Did something happen?