A Lifetime With You

Chapter 23

A date?

It turned out that he wasn’t entertaining the company’s shareholders. Instead, he went on a date with a woman. Ava watched as the phone screen slowly dimmed, and there was an upheaval of emotions in her chest.

Heh, she had just told him that she wanted a divorce the day before, and he had already gone on a date with a woman today. He acted swiftly indeed.

He was in such a rush to get rid of her, wasn’t he?

As she looked at the man beside her, who was sleeping soundly because of how drunk he was, she felt tremendously disgusted. If she had seen his true colours back then, she wouldn’t have ended up in this state today. It seemed that their marriage was really over. She forcefully pushed him away, but he tightened his grip around her waist. He was hugging her tightly. It was a warm embrace, but it disgusted her to no end.

She suppressed the nausea in her chest all night.

At dawn the next day, Damien finally woke up.

As soon as he let go of Ava, she shoved him away and ran into the bathroom.

Damien heard her retching. Damien sat up slowly. He was dizzy from the hangover, and he felt extremely uncomfortable. He should be the one retching instead He had really drank too much. He didn’t even remember how he got home the night before. A few minutes later, Ava walked out of the bathroom. The moment she opened the door, she bumped into a sturdy chest. Damien stood at the door and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing much. I just feel disgusted,” she said coldly. Damien subconsciously sniffed himself. Did he reek that much of alcohol? Ava sneered. “Every single second you hug me, I feel absolutely disgusted.” Damien’s expression immediately turned dark. “In that case, you don’t have to sleep in my bedroom anymore. Or you’re just going to get disgusted whenever I’m in the mood to come back.”

“Right. I’ve been meaning to do this too.” Ava smiled and said, “Bring the divorce agreement over. I’ll sign it and move out immediately.” “You want to escape after making a mess, huh? Ava, life isn’t so easy.” “What happened with Beth is your mess, not mine.” Ava entered the walk-in wardrobe to get changed. She then went out.

It was a Saturday, so she didn’t have to go to work. After thinking about it for a moment, she decided to go and see her mother.

However, before she could reach her mother’s place, she received a call from her father. “Where are you? Hurry up and come back!”

Ava sighed softly. She was almost at her mother’s place already, but she had no choice but to ask the cab to go to the Nagel family’s residence instead. The atmosphere in the living room was extremely dreary. Beth was sitting next to her mother, Cecelia Jerrison, and she was crying profusely. Meanwhile, her father, Keenan Nagel, wore a dark expression on his face. “What have you been doing at the Radbury family? How did you allow your sister to end up like this?” As soon as Keenan saw Ava enter the house, he questioned her sternly. Ava saw the situation in the living room and immediately understood what was going on. After it was exposed that Beth had faked her pregnancy, the Radbury family had probably stirred up trouble with her family members. “Dad, Beth is the one who was obsessed with Damien and tried to snatch away my husband. Now that she failed to make my husband cheat on me and got into trouble instead, you’re questioning me for what happened. Why? Do you want me to cry in front of you too?” “You…” Beth stood up and sobbed as she said, “If you didn’t deliberately push me downstairs that day, I wouldn’t have fallen. This only happened to me because of you!” Now

that it had been exposed that she was faking her pregnancy, Beth had totally lost all dignity in front of Damien. And Damien’s mother, Karen, was no longer taking her side.

Now that all her efforts had been in vain, she was naturally venting all her anger and hatred on Ava.

“You’re so good at escaping responsibility. So, was I the one who asked you to seduce my husband? Or was I the one who asked you to fake your pregnancy and miscarriage so that I would get myself into trouble?”

“You… It’s all because you aren’t able to give the Radbury family an heir. I was worried that the alliance between our two families would be destroyed, so I had no choice but to come up with something!” “You’re making yourself sound so noble. So, you’re saying that you did all these for our family? Haha.” The more Ava thought about it, the more she found it hilarious. Beth was the one who stirred up trouble, but all the members of the Nagel family were sitting in a row and looking at Ava, as though Ava was the one who did something wrong. Beth’s mother, Cecelia, stood up and said, “Your sister didn’t handle this well, but why would you make things worse? Now that our family has offended the Radbury family, does it do you any good?” “Since when did I make things worse?” “If you didn’t belittle me and slander me in front of Damien’s mother, why would she hate me so much? She used to like me! Well, look at what you’ve done. Now, the entire Radbury family is angry at our family. They even withdrew the investment they had promised to make. Are you happy now?” Beth said.

Ava was taken aback. The Radbury family withdrew their investment? What was going on? Seeing that Ava didn’t know what was going on, Keenan said coldly, “Yesterday, during Radbury Group’s shareholders’ meeting, they canceled two major projects that we were supposed to cooperate on. Nagel Group suffered quite a huge loss because of this.” “How could this be?” Ava never had the right to inquire about whatever was going on in Radbury Group. Hence, she had no idea about this.

But she knew that her family put in a lot of effort so that they could have a marriage of convenience with the Radbury family. Now that Radbury Group had suddenly withdrawn their investment, it meant that they no longer cared about maintaining their relationship with the Nagel family. “If you had behaved well in the Radbury family, Beth wouldn’t have caused such dire consequences by doing something so minor. Ava, I’m very disappointed in you,” Keenan said with a cold expression on his face.

From the beginning to the end, he had never cared about Ava’s feelings. All he did was blame her.

Ava’s heart sank. 2

She had always known that her father liked Beth more.

Back when she insisted on marrying Damien, her father was actually reluctant. In his opinion, Beth deserved such a rich and successful man more. However, Ava’s mother resorted to dirty tricks, which resulted in Ava marrying into the Radbury family. Ever since then, to her father, she was nothing more than a tool that enabled the Nagel family to do business with the Radbury family. When he needed her, he would treat her well and smile at her. Whenever things went wrong, he would treat her with disdain. This time, it was obviously Beth who had gotten the family into trouble, but the blame fell on her. “Dad, I will try to ask Damien for help regarding the withdrawal of the investment.” She gritted her teeth.

Although Damien wouldn’t listen to her at all, now that the Nagel family was in trouble, she had no choice but to bite the bullet and ask Damien for help. In her opinion, what Damien wanted the most was to divorce her, and she had already agreed to it. Hence, he might be nice for once and help her out. Beth sneered. “You’ll ask him? He’s busy going on dates with a woman he met during a blind date. He obviously doesn’t care about you at all. You’ll probably get chased out of the Radbury family soon. Who are you to ask Damien for help on the Nagel family’s behalf?” “What are you talking about? A blind date?”