Chapter 290 - 0290: Jaxx Is Mine

Chapter 290: Chapter 0290: Jaxx Is Mine

Elena’s Point of View

The conservatory was beautiful, but after thirty minutes of discussing logistics and "gentlemen" with a man who could likely order a hit between sips of espresso, I needed air. Real, uncurated, unfiltered air - the kind that didn’t come with an agenda, the kind that asked nothing of me in return.

I stepped out onto the terrace, where the morning sun kissed my skin with a gentle warmth that made me forget, for just a second, that I was currently the guest of a man who treated obsession like a love language. For one fleeting moment, I let myself simply exist, untethered from the calculations running constantly beneath the surface of my thoughts.

It was a strange kind of luxury, that stillness, one I hadn’t realized I’d been starving for until it settled over me like a borrowed coat. I closed my eyes and let the light do its work, pretending, just for a breath, that I was an ordinary woman enjoying an ordinary morning.

The gardens stretched before me, a sprawling, emerald-green labyrinth that reached toward the horizon. This was the kind of nature that cost millions to maintain, every hedge trimmed to a degree of perfection that felt almost aggressive, as though the plants themselves had been bullied into submission.

I wandered down a gravel path, my flat slides crunching softly against the stones, and let the scent of blooming jasmine settle my frayed nerves. Somewhere beneath the fragrance lingered the mineral coolness of dew-soaked earth, grounding me in a way the conservatory’s polished marble never could. I breathed it in slowly, deliberately, trying to commit the feeling to memory in case I never found my way back to it.

There was a version of me, somewhere beneath the spreadsheets and supply contracts, who might have loved a place like this without suspicion. I wondered, briefly, if that version still existed or if she’d been negotiated away years ago along with everything else.

It had been years since I’d simply walked. No spreadsheets, no supply chain crises, no Graham hovering over my shoulder with his passive-aggressive commentary about quarterly projections I’d already memorized twice over. For a woman who measured her days in shipping manifests and margin reports, the absence of urgency felt almost illicit, like I was getting away with something I hadn’t earned. I let my shoulders drop an inch, then another, surprised by how much tension I’d been carrying without noticing.

Just me and the greenery. Just silence and space to breathe, and for a heartbeat, I allowed myself to believe that breathing might actually be enough.

"Bitch!"

The word sliced through the serene silence like a jagged piece of glass. I froze mid-step, my foot hovering over the gravel. My heart kicked against my ribs, not from fear, but from sheer indignation. I turned slowly, half-expecting to see a disgruntled gardener, but what I found was significantly more high-maintenance.

Standing about ten feet away was a woman who looked like she’d been synthesized in a lab dedicated to 1990s doll aesthetics. She was blonde, the kind of platinum that required a weekly sacrifice of hair health and probably cost more than my monthly rent. She wore a pink tweed co-ord that was trying very hard to whisper "old money" but was screaming "newly rich and desperately insecure."

Even her posture seemed rehearsed, as though she’d practiced looking affronted in front of a mirror until the expression calcified into something permanent.

There was something almost theatrical about her, as if she’d been waiting her whole life for a stage dramatic enough to match her fury. I almost wanted to applaud; it was, in its own unhinged way, a masterclass in performance.

"Excuse you?" The words emerged flat and corporate, the tone I reserved for suppliers who tried to overcharge me. "I’m sorry, did you just call me a bitch in a garden that isn’t yours?"

She marched forward, her heels punching vengeful little holes into the expensive turf. Each step radiated fury, her entire body a weapon of indignation. "So it’s you. You’re the one stealing my man."

I actually had to take a second to process that. I blinked, glancing around at the empty hedges as if a hidden camera crew might materialize at any moment. The absurdity of the situation threatened to overwhelm me, bubbling up somewhere between disbelief and genuine pity. "Stealing your man?" A laugh bubbled up in my throat. "Honey, I don’t even know who you are, let alone who your man is. Unless your man is a hedge trimmer, I think you have the wrong person."

The woman hissed, her face contorting into something far less Barbie-like. Rage twisted her carefully made-up features, cracking the perfect facade she’d constructed, revealing something far uglier and more desperate underneath. "Don’t play dumb with me, Jezebel. I saw the photos from last night. I heard the whispers." Her voice rose, shrill and desperate, climbing an octave with every word. "I’m talking about Jaxx. Jaxx is mine. We have history. We have a future."

The last word cracked slightly, betraying something raw beneath the anger, something vulnerable and wounded that almost made me feel sorry for her. Almost. There was a flicker, just a flicker, of a girl who genuinely believed in the fairy tale she’d built for herself, and watching it crumble in real time was almost worse than the insults.

For a moment I wondered how long she’d rehearsed this future in her head, how many nights she’d spent arranging a life around a man who had apparently never thought to mention her. It was a strange, hollow kind of sadness, watching someone mourn a future that had never existed outside her own imagination.

"And then you show up in some borrowed diamonds," she continued, her voice dripping with contempt, "and think you can just move in?"

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. It wasn’t a polite titter; it was a full-bellied, "you’ve got to be kidding me" laugh that echoed off the stone statues and probably scandalized every perfectly pruned rose within earshot. The sound seemed to bounce off the manicured hedges, amplifying my amusement until it filled the entire garden.

"Oh, wait. You must have been tipped off by one of your little spies at the party yesterday, right?" I wiped an imaginary tear from my eye, enjoying the way her face flushed deeper with each word. "Aww... poor soul. You spent your whole morning driving up here just to claim a man who didn’t even mention your name once last night?"

Her face turned a spectacular shade of magenta that clashed magnificently with her pink outfit. The color crept up from her neck, staining her cheeks and forehead until she resembled an overripe plum about to burst. "You think you’re special?" she spat, her voice trembling with barely controlled rage. "You’re a distraction. A toy." She hurled the words like venom, each one meant to wound, each one landing with less force than she probably intended.

Her chest heaved beneath the structured tweed jacket as she stepped closer, invading my personal space with an aggressive, suffocating aura that smelled faintly of hairspray and desperation.

"Let me make something abundantly clear to you, since your little blue-collar brain clearly missed the memo," she sneered, her voice dropping into a venomous, measured hiss. "Do you have any earthly idea who my family is? My grandfather sits on boards that dictate the economic fate of this entire country. My family’s estate has foundations older than the city you grew up in. We don’t just run circles in high society; we built the damn track. You can’t even compare, do you hear me? You are an absolute nobody... a speck of dust on the polished mahogany tables of the people who actually run this world. Look at yourself! Standing here in flat slides and off-the-rack clothes, talking to me. You are not even worth the shoes I’m putting on right now. My heels alone cost more than your entire wardrobe, and you think you can just waltz into Jaxx’s life and play house?"

I stared at her, my jaw slightly slack, not from intimidation, but from the sheer, unfiltered delusion pouring out of her mouth like a burst pipe that refused to stop gushing. I found myself almost admiring the stamina of her conviction, the way she seemed to believe every absurd word as it left her lips. There was something almost tragic in how thoroughly she’d convinced herself that money could manufacture belonging.

"I made my research about you," she continued, her eyes flashing with a manic triumph as she lifted her chin, weaponizing the private investigator report she’d likely paid a small fortune for. "Elena Vance. Running a chaotic little logistics firm out of a dusty industrial park, trying to play CEO like it’s some cute corporate game. I know about your supplier disputes, I know about your tiny commercial lease, and I know damn well that you crawled out of a completely different social tax bracket than the one you’re standing in right now. You don’t deserve him! You don’t belong in these rooms, you don’t belong at these tables, and you certainly don’t belong with a Moretti. A man like Jaxx requires pedigree, power, and someone who understands the weight of a dynasty... not a grease-stained logistics manager who handles shipping manifests!"

She paused for a fraction of a second, her breath catching in her throat as her eyes burned with hot, frantic tears of sheer entitlement. She wasn’t just defending a man; she was defending an entire identity, a throne she felt was rightfully hers by birthright. The tremor in her hands betrayed just how much this performance was costing her, how desperately she needed it to land.

Beneath the venom, I caught a glimpse of something almost pitiable: a woman terrified that her entire worth had been built on a foundation someone else could simply walk away from. For a fleeting instant, I saw past the designer armor to the frightened girl underneath, and it cost me something to keep my expression hard.

"You think a weekend of playing dress-up in borrowed high society makes you one of us?" she spat, her voice shaking with bitter realization of my mere presence. "It doesn’t. You’re a temporary amusement, a bizarre anomaly that Jaxx will discard the moment he gets bored of slumming it with common trash. I’ve watched women like you try to climb before, and I know exactly how fast you crash back down to earth when the adults step in. I’m warning you for the last time, stay away from Jaxx!"

Something cold and razor-sharp settled in my chest at that threat. The amusement drained completely from my face, replaced by a quiet, lethal stillness that surprised even me. So she’d dug up my corporate profile. Interesting. And more than a little obnoxious.

A small, distant part of me noted how much effort she’d invested in tearing me down, as though diminishing me might somehow restore whatever she feared she’d lost. Another part of me, colder and more practical, simply filed the information away: she was dangerous not because of her money, but because of her desperation.

"First of all," I said, stepping closer until I could smell her overly sweet perfume - something expensive and cloying that probably came in a bottle shaped like a flower... forcing her to tilt her head back just to meet my eyes, "my company is doing just fine."

I held her gaze, refusing to let her see any hint of intimidation, drawing on years of staring down suppliers who thought they could rattle me with numbers. "How did you even track down my company registry? I guess you really did burn through a lot of daddy’s money hiring a PI just to vet a logistics manager. Cute."

I let that observation hang in the air between us, watching her eyes flicker with a sudden flash of panic. Her jaw tightened so hard I thought her teeth might crack, and I knew I’d struck a nerve.

The fact that she’d investigated me down to my business tax filings suggested this wasn’t just a spontaneous outburst; she’d been obsessing over me all night, stewing in her jealousy and insecurity like a toxic brew left too long on the stove.

"Second of all," I continued, my voice dropping to a dangerous, icy calm that made her flinch, "if Jaxx is yours, why are you here screaming at me in a stranger’s garden instead of being wrapped around his arm? Oh, that’s right." I paused, letting a slow, mocking smile spread across my face as the realization of my power in this situation crystallized between us. "Because he spent last night holding me, and right now? He’s probably waking up looking for me."

That did it. The absolute destruction of her fragile narrative snapped the last remaining thread of her self-control.

She lunged. Before I could even register the movement, her hand swung out and caught me square across the cheek. The slap was sharp, stinging like a hornet, and it sent a shock of pure, unadulterated rage through my system. I stumbled back a step, the copper taste of anger filling my mouth. My vision blurred for a second, not from tears, but from the sheer, violent impact of her desperation, my cheek throbbing in rhythm with my pulse.

She stood there panting, her chest heaving, her fingers curled into trembling claws as she glared at me with pure, unadulterated hatred, as though the slap had cost her something she couldn’t get back.

"Jaxx is mine!" she screamed, her voice rising to a frantic, unstable pitch that echoed off the ancient garden walls, her carefully constructed composure shattering with every word. "I don’t want you around him again! Do you understand? He’s a Moretti, and I’m the one who fits in this world, not some girl who plays with trucks and warehouses!"