How a Dying Woman Rewrote Her Epilogue

Even Eaton was momentarily stunned.

He knew all too well what kind of person Patricia was.

Raised in privilege from birth, pampered and spoiled, her background had shaped her into someone headstrong and willful. There was nothing she wanted that she couldn't get. She'd never tasted a day's hardship. Wherever she went, people fawned over her.

And now, they were going to force her into... a rehab clinic?

That would be a devastating blow, shattering her pride and spirit alike. It was no different from grinding her face into the mud.

Jarrod understood this perfectly.

If it weren't for him, someone like Patricia would have coasted through life without

a hitch. A place like that never would've touched her, not in a million years. Even if someone else had exposed her, her family would have whisked her out of the mess without a single stain on her reputation.

But Jarrod had no intention of letting her off easy.

If you're going to wield the knife, you go for where it hurts most.

He ignored Watts's protests, focusing on Eaton instead. "Of course, there are additional conditions. For the next three years, neither the Aldridge family nor the Barnes family is to show Miss Aldridge any special treatment. She needs to undergo real... rehabilitation."

her any

merciless steel beneath Jarrod's

grind

are you really willing to make enemies of both the

here to threaten them, all because of what happened with Elodie. He

this for

in his chair and lifted his gaze, expression cool. "After all Miss Aldridge has done, did the Aldridges or the Barnes ever consider what it would mean to cross the Silversteins? What I'm doing is protecting your families' reputation and...

you, Mr. Silverstein?" Watts shot back,

could afford to

Silversteins weren't

this

l.n'

even further before his grandfather

Jarrod's connections were deeper than anyone could

on his mother's side, in Goldspire, his grandfather's

of these resources were at Jarrod's

a battlefield; Eaton knew full well

daughter, but the orphaned child of a close friend

not, he bore responsibility