Chapter 359: What You Say Doesn’t Count

Chapter 359: Chapter 359: What You Say Doesn’t Count

"What?" Cassandra Lynch blurted out before she could stop herself.

The two families at nearby tables also perked up their ears, listening with bated breath.

"You made a point of asking me out today, rambling on and on, all just to drive a wedge between me and my sister, wasn’t it? You want me to blame her for all the years I was separated from my family, lonely and helpless. Then, you hope I’ll lose my head and go fight her for our family’s affection, for the family fortune, until we tear each other to shreds and take each other down. Only that would finally satisfy the hatred in your heart."

Cassandra Lynch hadn’t expected Arabella Donovan to see through her petty schemes so easily, much less that she would lay them all bare so bluntly.

"I... I didn’t."

"Oh, what you say doesn’t matter. If I say you did, then you did."

Cassandra Lynch was completely thrown. ’What the hell? Why isn’t she following the script? Does she have to be so damn tyrannical?’

"But the truth is, if I so much as opened my mouth to deny her identity, she’d leave on her own—my parents wouldn’t even have to kick her out. If I said I wanted her assets, not just what the Donovan Family gave her, but even the inheritance from her biological parents, she would generously give me half."

As Arabella Donovan spoke of Eloise Donovan, her eyes filled with a smile of absolute trust and the smug satisfaction of being the favorite.

But when she turned back to look at Cassandra Lynch, all that remained was cold mockery.

"But you? If I even dared to suggest kicking you out of the family and making you return the privileges you’ve enjoyed and the assets you’ve acquired all these years, you would do everything in your power to kill me. You’d move heaven and earth to make me disappear from this world, just so I wouldn’t be in your way. That’s the biggest difference between you two."

Arabella Donovan couldn’t help but laugh as she finished. "So, tell me, why would I give up a sister who loves me with all her heart for a two-faced, treacherous snake like you? Come on, I may be young, but I’m not stupid."

Cassandra Lynch’s face was ashen. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand why Arabella Donovan trusted Eloise Donovan so much, even defending her without the slightest resentment. They had known each other for less than a year, and Eloise had, in fact, occupied her place for over a decade, enjoying the familial love and financial support that should have been hers.

In her eyes, the relationship between herself and Eloise Donovan, and between Eloise Donovan and Arabella Donovan, should have been a life-or-death, fight-to-the-bitter-end struggle.

Even when Arabella Donovan had appeared at the Lynch Family banquet with Eloise Donovan, leading The Lynch Family to notice Eloise, Cassandra had interpreted it as a deliberate act to completely expel Eloise from the Donovan Family so Arabella could reclaim her original position.

From this, she deduced that there must be conflict between the two of them. She believed that if she could just act as a catalyst for that conflict, she could make them turn on each other and fight to the death.

It can only be said that those with a guilty conscience are the best at judging noble people by their own petty standards. Because they know better than anyone that their own actions are immoral and crooked, they try to drag everyone else down to their level.

That way, they can feel at ease, convinced that their own actions aren’t wrong.

Unfortunately for her, she was dealing with Arabella Donovan and Eloise Donovan, so all her fantasies were ultimately doomed to fail.

In the private room, just a wall away, Eloise Donovan had heard her younger sister’s words. Her cheeks flushed with emotion as she softly asked everyone present, "Uncle, Auntie, Zane, Second Sister, if I gave Serena half of the inheritance my parents left me, do you think she’d accept it?"

Zane Lynch and his sister shared a look. ’...’ ’We’re doomed. That girl’s sweet words have our little cousin completely wrapped around her finger. She’s really planning to give away half the assets Second Uncle and Second Aunt left for her.’

But then he remembered how he himself had just given away five percent of his shares not long ago. ’Well, talk about the pot calling the kettle black,’ he thought. ’Looks like the whole family has been bewitched by a Succubus, and we’ve all walked into it with our eyes wide open!’

When Eloise Donovan saw that no one had spoken for a long moment, the smile on her face faded slightly, and she asked in a low voice, "Is that not okay?"

"It’s not that you can’t. The things your parents left you are yours. You’re an adult and have a mind of your own, so you can do whatever you want with them. We just think that even if you offered, she probably wouldn’t accept it."

Eloise Donovan’s expression stiffened. After a moment, she said in a deflated tone, "That’s true. Serena’s assets are worth more than everything I own combined. She probably wouldn’t give a second thought to these few scraps of mine."

’I’m her older sister, yet I’m a total embarrassment!’

Arabella Donovan was unaware of the little interlude next door. After exposing Cassandra Lynch’s shameful little schemes in just a few words, she didn’t let up, but chose to press her advantage.

She stood up, moved closer to Cassandra Lynch, and said with a smirk, "Of course, what I really don’t understand is how you have the nerve to come to me with all this specious, high-sounding nonsense. If it weren’t for your mother’s greed back then, my sister and I would never have been separated from our family for over a decade.

"When you get down to it, your mother who died young is the real culprit here, and you are the sole and greatest beneficiary of this entire mess. It would be one thing if you just felt no shame, but to run to one victim and slander another without batting an eye? It just goes to show you’re cut from the same selfish, hypocritical cloth as your birth mother."

Reeling from Arabella Donovan’s merciless accusations, Cassandra Lynch could only retreat, stammering, "No, it’s not like that."

"Then what is it like? You keep saying my sister usurped my family during the decade-plus I was lost, enjoying the good treatment that should have been mine. But you seem to forget, if your mother hadn’t maliciously swapped the babies back then, my sister certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed the high-quality life and resources the Donovan Family provided. Instead, she would have enjoyed the love and care of The Lynch Family, and her life wouldn’t necessarily have been any worse than it is now. But you, on the other hand..."

Arabella Donovan looked Cassandra Lynch up and down, her gaze filled with the exact same contempt and disdain that Cassandra Lynch had been secretly shooting her earlier.

"The daughter of a human trafficker, conceived out of wedlock. Born with a heart defect, father in prison, mother a fugitive. You’d have been dumped with two sharp-tongued, mean old people, forced to endure the constant disdain and mockery of the villagers. No money, no connections, no advanced medical resources... it would have been a toss-up whether you even survived, to say nothing of living a good life.

"The Lynch Family fed you, clothed you, educated you, spent a fortune to give you the best medical care and resources, letting you live comfortably to the age of eighteen. And in the end, they get your pointless slander in return? You bite the hand that feeds you, scheming to harm the person they care about most. I really don’t know what terrible deeds they must have committed in a past life to deserve meeting a pair of ’geniuses’ like you and your mother in this one."

Then Arabella’s tone shifted as she let out a sneer. "And let’s not even talk about me. You keep telling me to go cause trouble for my sister, to resent her. Did you forget? All the hardships I endured should have been yours. All the suffering I went through was on your behalf."