Chapter 154: Chapter 154 When You Realize What You’ve Lost
Author
Nancy thought she’d misheard, until Yardley repeated each word deliberately, "I could use someone in a similar situation. Why don’t we help each other out?"
She forced an awkward smile. "Mr. Wolfe, you don’t need to be polite. We’re not right for each other."
"What makes you think we’re not compatible? I think we actually work well together."
Faced with such a direct man, Nancy felt flustered. "Well, we barely know each other. And I don’t believe relationships should be about convenience or practicality. You... understand what I mean, right?"
Yardley’s jaw tightened slightly.
"Besides, I don’t want to overstep, but I know Orion’s mother passed away. Maybe there’s some resemblance there, but I’m not her. And I don’t want to be anyone’s replacement. You understand, right?"
"I understand," Yardley’s voice was low and rough. "But who said you’d be a replacement?"
Nancy froze. The man’s dark eyes fixed on her steadily, and she couldn’t read the emotions swirling in their depths.
In those suspended seconds, his gaze felt intense enough to see straight through her.
Nancy shook her head to clear it. "Look, this isn’t going to work. Sorry, Mr. Wolfe, I have to go."
She practically fled back to her car, her heart racing.
She gripped the steering wheel and took several deep breaths before gradually steadying herself.
[A man like Yardley wasn’t someone she could afford to get tangled up with.]
Nancy couldn’t help but second-guess herself.
[Had she been sending mixed signals? She’d need to be more careful about boundaries from now on.]
Once her pulse returned to normal, she started the engine.
Yardley remained beside his car, quietly watching her pull out of the parking space before turning to his driver: "Louis, we can head home now."
--
Alpha Enzo blamed everything on Nadia. All their problems traced back to her bringing Elara into their lives.
Nadia had been getting the deep freeze treatment at home lately.Her son barely acknowledged her existence. Selina had completely cut off all communication.
And Alpha Enzo had started working late, coming home after midnight, and sleeping in the guest room. They might as well have been strangers living under the same roof.
Nadia was panicking. Even during her roughest adjustment period as a new stepmother, the hostility hadn’t been this brutal.
The comfortable life she’d carefully built over the years was crashing down because of one disastrous wedding.
With desperate determination, she left the house and instructed the driver to take her to Park Hotel Group.
If her daughter had banned her from the corporate offices, she’d force a meeting at the hotel.
Nadia planted herself in the Park Hotel Group’s elegant lobby and cornered the hotel manager.
"Get Elara down here immediately. Tell her that her mother is in your lobby, and if she doesn’t show up, I’ll cause enough of a disturbance that your guests will be checking out early."
The hotel manager shifted uncomfortably. "...I’ll... try to reach Miss Park."
The manipulation worked. Half an hour later, Nadia saw Elara.
"Luna Nadia , why are you ambushing me at my workplace again? I believe we established clear boundaries."
Nadia’s composure cracked, but she doubled down with desperate aggression. "Elara, can you really live with yourself knowing you’re destroying my marriage? Will ruining my life satisfy you?"
"Everything’s falling apart because you sabotaged Selina’s wedding. Now Selina refuses to speak to me. Anthony treats me like I’m invisible. Enzo blames me for your existence."
"Why couldn’t you just stay in your lane? Why did you have to blow up everything I’ve worked for?"
"Why couldn’t you just leave Zack alone? You’ve pushed them toward divorce now. How do you live with that guilt?"
Elara watched those perfectly glossed lips move with ice-cold detachment. "Actually, I sleep like a baby."
"Let me ask you something. We’ve already cut ties, so what gives you the right to keep trying to guilt-trip me?"
"You’ve had it pretty easy, haven’t you? You had a daughter but let someone else do all the real parenting. When your husband died, you just found yourself a rich Alpha widower. “
“You didn’t care about the damage you were doing to a kid who was still grieving. And you definitely didn’t care that your precious stepdaughter was treating your own daughter like pack trash."
"Being a mother as selectively blind as you takes real talent. And now you want to keep using your daughter as a stepping stone for your comfortable lifestyle. Does that even register as wrong in your head?"
Each of Elara’s words hit like a precision strike, targeting every buried shame Nadia had spent years avoiding.
"Elara, how... how can you be so cruel to your own mother?"
"I stopped having a mother the day you remarried for convenience," Elara delivered the words with surgical coldness. "Just pretend I died in that car accident with Dad. Please don’t contaminate my life with your drama anymore."
"Next time you try to blackmail me in public, I’ll have security remove you and press charges. Want to bet whether Uncle Enzo will come bail you out of jail?"
Nadia stood frozen as the words sank in like poison.
She could feel her daughter’s pure, crystallized hatred radiating like heat from a fire.
[Her own child actually despised her.]
Nadia felt something break inside her chest - whether it was her heart or just her last illusion, she couldn’t tell.
Only now did she understand exactly how completely she’d destroyed the most important relationship in her life.
