Chapter 293: Quentin Blackwood: Call Her Auntie
After two agonizing days of waiting, Silas Blackwood finally managed to book a room at the mountain resort. He rushed over by himself, unable to wait a moment longer.
’Ivy Sherwood and Quentin Blackwood shouldn’t have left yet.’ For the past two days, they were all he could think about.
He was simmering with resentment. His own life was a mess, and he refused to let those two be happy.
The feeling of betrayal tortured Silas, leaving a constant, unbearable ache in his heart.
Upon arriving at the resort, he went straight to the small villa. His intuition told him that was where Ivy and Quentin were staying.
But they didn’t seem to be there. After searching for a bit, Silas heard that Julian Grant and the others were in the billiard hall.
Silas immediately rushed over. Even from a distance, he instantly spotted the woman who had haunted his dreams for two years.
That face...
’No makeup, yet so beautiful... It’s her!’
Silas felt his heart flutter again. ’She’s just too beautiful. One glance is all it takes to get lost in her looks.’
But there was something familiar about her figure, too.
Just then, he heard one of the men say, "Ivy, you win! I give up, I give up!"
The name "Ivy" struck Silas like a bolt of lightning, dousing him like a bucket of ice water.
’Ivy... Ivy Sherwood?’
Even though the thought had crossed his mind before, hearing someone else call her by that name felt like a knife twisting in his heart.
The image of Ivy Sherwood in his mind merged with the woman before him. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t see them as the same person. And yet, the truth was undeniable: they were one and the same.
Silas recalled the other times he had seen this beautiful woman. The first time, she was with Nina Scott. The second was at the Scott family’s banquet.
’How could I have never connected her to Ivy Sherwood? Their faces are just too different.’
So that explained what happened at the hotel. Anna Nash had sworn she saw Ivy Sherwood enter a room with a man, but when he opened the door the next day, he found Quentin Blackwood with *his* woman instead.
Quentin had even set a trap for him then, tricking him out of his Blackwood Group shares.
He had assumed the woman wasn’t Ivy, but it turned out he was being played for a complete fool by Ivy and Quentin all along!
Silas’s hands balled into tight fists. No wonder Quentin had said that if he didn’t confirm by the deadline, the deal was off.
’Those two are absolutely despicable!’
Silas was consumed by rage. He’d been made a fool, and Ivy had been lying to him all along!
’If Ivy had just shown me her real face from the start, I never would have broken off the engagement.’
’And I’ve been searching for that face for so long... No wonder I couldn’t find her. She was right beside me the whole time!’
’Ivy knew all along, but she never said a word. Did she think this was some kind of game? When she looked at me, did she just see a fool?’
’If I had known this was Ivy, I never would have called off the engagement! I never would have gotten involved with Anna Nash! Things would never have ended up like this!’
Silas couldn’t take it anymore. He stormed over furiously. "Ivy Sherwood!"
Ivy turned to see Silas Blackwood striding toward them.
He looked like a vicious dog, his rage palpable even from a distance.
"Silas Blackwood? What are you doing here?" Ivy was genuinely surprised to see him.
Neither Julian Grant nor Graham Sherwood had expected Silas to appear. They subconsciously glanced toward Quentin and Ivy.
Quentin’s expression, however, was unchanged, though his eyes were filled with ice.
"So you admit it! You are Ivy Sherwood!"
"I..." Ivy then remembered she wasn’t wearing any makeup.
Ivy’s heart sank. Silas knew.
"Silas Blackwood, if you have something to say, let’s talk privately. Don’t make a scene here." Ivy knew that with his temper, he was bound to cause a huge ruckus and wouldn’t back down.
"Why should we talk in private? Are you afraid of everyone finding out about the shady things you two have been up to?" Silas’s voice was booming.
There was no one else in the room. Quentin shot the others a look. "Get out."
"Ah, okay." Julian Grant and Graham Sherwood hurried out.
With Quentin here, nothing serious could happen.
Compared to Quentin, even Julian Grant was a nobody, easily crushed to dust.
"Quentin, don’t you two go too far!" Silas felt the pent-up rage in his chest had no outlet. "Getting together behind my back is one thing, but Ivy, why did you have to lie to me too!"
"I never lied to you," Ivy said coldly.
"You knew I’d been looking for you all this time, but you never told me! I liked you so much! You knew I liked you!"
"And you ganged up to cheat me out of my shares! Give them back! Give them back!" As he shouted, Silas looked ready to get physical.
Quentin stopped him with a single hand. "Can you blame others for your own stupidity?"
"Ivy has always been Ivy. You don’t like *her*, you’re just infatuated with a pretty face. As for the shares, that was your own doing. Consider it a lesson: don’t take things at face value, and don’t be so impulsive."
"What right do you have to lecture me, Quentin? I hate that high-and-mighty act of yours! You’re just a bastard. You were the one who insisted on joining the Blackwood family. Do you really think having the surname makes you one of the Blackwoods? Even if you scheme your way through everything, the Blackwood Group will never be yours! And you, Ivy—my dad has your mother’s ashes. You have to marry me. You’re mine!"
Silas roared like a madman. Now that he knew Ivy was the woman he had been searching for all along, he was even more determined not to let her go.
Even if it meant living a miserable life, he would drag Ivy down into the abyss with him and make her suffer by his side.
The color drained from Quentin’s eyes, leaving them filled with an icy chill. The sharp coldness was like an unstoppable undercurrent. A single glance was enough to send a shiver down Silas’s spine.
One moment, Silas was filled with righteous fury; the next, he felt as if he’d been plunged into a freezing abyss.
Ivy noticed the shift in Quentin’s mood and quickly grabbed his arm, afraid that Silas might end up dead without ever knowing what hit him.
"Quentin..."
"What I hate most is this surname, Blackwood." The loathing and sharp chill in his eyes were like a newly honed blade. The oppressive atmosphere was suffocating.
The only reason he hadn’t changed it was because of his mother.
At the thought of his mother, a crimson storm surged in Quentin’s eyes.
"The Blackwood Group only still exists because I can’t be bothered to lift a finger, not because Caleb Blackwood has any ability. How laughable, you little frog in a well. But since you think being a Blackwood gives you the right to be confident, let’s see just how much longer you can keep that up."
"And another thing—Ivy will never marry you. However..."
Quentin pulled Ivy into his embrace. When his gaze fell on her, some of the ice in his eyes melted away, replaced by raw possessiveness. "I wouldn’t mind if you called her ’Auntie’."