Niamh glanced up at the sky without thinking, certain that the clouds mirrored her tangled mood.
“Niamh…”
Jonathan took a step forward.
Even weakened, his presence was undeniable.
“I admit, back then I didn’t put you first,” he said, the confession thick with regret.
“But-”
“Do you have any idea how disgusting it smells inside those abandoned dock warehouses?” Niamh’s voice was suddenly sharp and eerily calm.
Jonathan’s face went pale.
She stood so close, her expression unreadable. But the quieter and steadier she sounded, the more vividly Jonathan could picture the hopelessness she must have
felt.
“Do you know how much it hurts to be slapped in the face?”
“Do you know how terrifying it is to hear some fat old man say you’ll belong to him
from now on?”
“Do you know what it’s like to jump off a smuggler’s boat into the ocean?”
“Do you know how cold the water is?”
Each question landed with chilling precision, cutting Jonathan to the bone.
He didn’t know.
He truly hadn’t known what Niamh was enduring then, how close she’d come to dying.
But she was right about one thing-
He had never even tried to know.
And now, with nothing left to say in his own defense, he could only stand there in
silence.
In fact, the mere fact that Niamh was still willing to visit him, to look out for him after everything she’d been through, was already more grace than he deserved.
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Chapter 528
Suddenly, Jonathan started coughing violently.
It was the kind of cough that sounded like it could tear a person apart.
Once, Niamh would have rushed to his side, anxious and upset, feeling his pain as if it were her own, desperate to ease his suffering.
But now, her heart was cold and still.
Jonathan’s coughing only reminded her: the woman who survived that night at Blackspire was no longer the old Niamh.
The Niamh he once knew had drowned in that icy sea.
“You should go home and rest,” she said, her tone as frosty as marble. “Tomorrow’s board meeting is important. Whether your family gets a seat at the table depends on your performance.”
With that, she turned and left.
Jonathan was left coughing, unable to call her back.
Even if he hadn’t been choking on his own breath, he knew he had no right to ask her to stay.
The Thomas Group.
As the company’s largest shareholder, Niamh called a meeting of the board that morning.
Jonathan was there.
She remembered he’d seemed better when she left Jade Peak House yesterday, his fever finally broken. But now, seeing him in the boardroom, dressed in his usual sharp suit and radiating that ironclad confidence, she was struck by how ill he looked–wan and drawn, like a man with one foot in the grave.
She couldn’t help but wonder if Jonathan had made himself sick all over again just to win her sympathy.
The boardroom was crowded with Thomases and Sprague’s loyalists.
Replacing them with her own people would be no easy task.
Sprague, as expected, pushed back hard at every turn.
But Niamh had come prepared.
She’d pored over the company charter and organizational structure. Back when
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Chapter 528
Jonathan had wanted total control, the bylaws had handed near–absolute power to the majority shareholder.
Which meant Niamh had the authority to appoint or dismiss board members at will. She stood, ready to speak–when Jonathan cut in.
“There’s something you might not know…”
His tone was measured, his gaze fixed on her with an intensity that was almost tender.
Niamh frowned. Now of all times, she thought. She couldn’t afford not to be on guard.
“What don’t I know?” she asked, meeting his eyes.
She was standing; he was sitting. Yet somehow, she felt his shadow stretching over
her.
Jonathan saw the wariness in her eyes and gave a faint, knowing smile.
“You’re not the only majority shareholder of The Thomas Group,” he said softly. “Your shares are marital property. Which means they’re mine, too.”
