Page 57 of King of Pride

“Are you fucking serious?”

Her voice rose again.

“I thought you were just angry and venting when I heard about it, but you’re actually sitting here acting like you did nothing wrong. You haven’t even apologized!”

“She did something wrong,” Ivan snapped. “That’s why she was punished.”

Zoe stared at him as if she could barely believe what she was hearing.

“Punished?”

She laughed bitterly.

“You actually think you had the right to punish her?”

Ivan’s expression remained cold.

“It was her fault. She broke something important to me. She knew exactly what she was doing.”

Zoe shook her head, disgust written plainly across her face.

“You know what? You are not an asshole. No. You are a fucking abuser!”

Ivan dropped onto the couch, his face icy, breathing heavily with fury burning through his veins.

No one in the room had expected Ivan to ever hit Rose. Even though it had always been obvious that his heart belonged to Jessica Morgan, Rose had still been the woman he was supposed to marry. Yet now he had slapped her and seemed to have no remorse whatsoever.

Ivan leaned back, his expression hardening.

“Think whatever you want. I don’t give a damn about your opinion. She’ll come back to me on her own,” he said dismissively. “She knows it was her fault. She broke something important to me. I lost my temper. That’s all.”

Zoe stared at him for a long moment.

Then she let out a disbelieving laugh.

“You really think she’s going to come back to you?”

Ivan said nothing, but the confidence in his expression made his answer obvious.

Zoe let out a bitter laugh.

“Keep dreaming, Ivan Carrington.”

Her voice dropped, each word turning colder.

“She’s not going to need your fucking apology anymore. So don’t bother wasting your breath. She already has a husband who loves her.”

She remained standing in front of him, her eyes fixed on his with open disdain.

“She doesn’t need an asshole like you for a husband anyway.”

Terrence, Brian, and Adam all froze.

Their expressions shifted to shock as they exchanged stunned looks. Ivan’s head snapped toward Zoe, the color draining from his face as her words finally sank in.

Zoe noticed his reaction and gave a bitter laugh.

“Did you really think she was going to keep waiting for you?” she asked, shaking her head. “How stupid do you have to be to believe Rose is going to come back to you after you hit her? Don’t worry about it. She’s never coming back.”