Chapter 446 The Night That Started It All

Chapter 446: Chapter 446 The Night That Started It All

“Has Rose woken up?”

Rose didn’t wait for Ryan’s reply when the door opened.

James stepped inside.

The moment he saw Rose sitting safely on the bed, he visibly relaxed.

He hurried over.

“Are you feeling better?”

He bent down, studying her face anxiously.

“Do you want me to call the doctor?”

Rose could see the worry in his eyes.

She shook her head.

“I’m fine.”

Only then did James’s shoulders loosen.

Perhaps it was only now, after finally learning the truth about what had happened to his mother, that he understood just how much she’d suffered.

And perhaps that was why he had become so afraid of losing Rose too.

Every little sound made him turn his head.

Every change in her expression made him worry.

But the tension in him didn’t last long.

James looked toward Ryan.

“I’ll take care of my sister from here.”

His tone was polite, but there was an unmistakable edge beneath it.

“So, there’s no need to trouble yourself, Mr. Knight.”

He paused.

“After all, you two are strangers now.”

Ryan knew exactly what James was doing.

He didn’t argue.

He simply closed his laptop and stood.

“You two talk.”

There was no intention of making things difficult.

He picked up his laptop, glanced at Rose once, and walked out.

With everything that had happened between the Taylor family and the Knight family finally coming to light, James and Rose undoubtedly had things they needed to say to each other.

The door closed behind him.

James sat beside the bed and picked up an orange.

He began peeling it slowly.

“Sometimes I hate myself.”

His voice was hoarse.

“I was too young back then. There was so much I couldn’t change.”

His fingers trembled slightly.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you and Mom suffered because of it.”

The truths they’d uncovered were too cruel to process all at once.

James couldn’t simply pretend they didn’t hurt.

Rose swallowed.

“All we can do now is be grateful that the truth wasn’t buried forever.”

She looked down.

“At least it finally came out.”

If the recent events hadn’t happened...

If Morgan hadn’t miraculously regained her memories...

There was a good chance the truth about Sophia would have remained buried for the rest of their lives.

And Daisy certainly hadn’t confessed out of kindness.

She had already been sentenced for her crimes.

Exposing Victoria had only made her situation worse.

Yet she’d still done it.

Perhaps there was something about people who lived entirely for themselves.

When pushed to the extreme, selfishness could become its own kind of cowardice.

James lowered his head.

“If I’d been old enough to protect Mom back then, maybe things would’ve been different.”

His voice cracked.

“And if I’d protected her, you wouldn’t have spent all those years alone.”

Rose looked at him.

“I wouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

He paused.

“There were times I said things to you that I shouldn’t have.”

His hand stopped moving.

“I know I hurt you.”

James couldn’t forget it.

The guilt had followed him for years.

Especially during Rose’s divorce from Ryan.

She’d already been hurting, and he’d still said things that only made it worse.

Ryan had been right.

James had no right to blame anyone else.

And he certainly had no right to use other people’s mistakes as an excuse to avoid facing his own.

Rose watched him quietly.

A tear slipped from the corner of James’s eye and landed on the back of his hand.

The man everyone knew as the dignified Mr. Taylor was crying.

Rose opened her mouth.

Then slowly exhaled.

“Back then, we weren’t close.”

Her voice was quiet.

“So, it wasn’t surprising that you believed Ryan.”

She had resented James for it.

She wasn’t someone who held onto anger forever, but she could be stubborn about old wounds.

Still, people naturally defended the people they considered family.

And now that she knew the truth about Sophia’s death, something else had changed inside her.

She couldn’t look at James the same way anymore.

They had the same mother.

Her pain was his pain.

Her loss was his loss.

There was no measuring one person’s grief against another.

James looked up.

“I know I was wrong.”

His voice was rough.

“I judged you before I ever bothered to understand you.”

“Back then, everyone believed Ryan’s marriage had been forced on him.”

Rose’s eyes flickered.

James continued.

“Everyone in our circle believed you had used some underhanded method to secure your position as Mrs. Knight.”

“That was why Ryan’s friends disliked you so much.”

Rose remained silent.

James’s gaze lowered.

“Do you remember the cruise?”

Rose nodded faintly.

“Everyone was there to see Rowan off before she went abroad to study.”

He paused.

“And then you and Ryan ended up spending the night together.”

Rumors had spread almost immediately.

People said Rose had drugged Ryan.

They said she’d slept with him deliberately to force him into marrying her.

James had believed it.

He had already hated women who used deception to manipulate relationships because of everything that had happened to his own family.

Victoria had slept with his father.

She had driven his mother away.

Sophia had died.

Rose had disappeared.

By the time Rose appeared in their lives, James had already formed his judgment.

So, he hated her too.

Rose’s expression shifted.

“How did you know I wasn’t the victim?”

James frowned.

“What do you mean?”

Rose took a slow breath.

“I didn’t drug anyone.”

“I was the one who was drugged.”

James went still.

“I woke up in Ryan’s room.”

“At the time, I was already in love with him.”

Her lips curved faintly, but there was no happiness in it.

“I thought he’d finally accepted me.”

She had been only twenty.

Young enough to believe that finally getting the person she’d loved for years meant every impossible thing she’d hoped for had somehow come true.

She hadn’t known who had drugged her.

She’d been frightened.

Angry.

Confused.

But when she’d realized she was with Ryan, she’d felt something dangerously close to relief.

Because she’d thought he had chosen her.

That he’d accepted her.

That the night meant something.

Instead, the next morning, everything exploded.

A waiter accidentally opened the door.

Ryan had already begun to wake up.

The moment he realized what had happened, he’d wrapped Rose in a blanket and lost his temper.

But it was too late.

Several people had already seen them.

Their relationship couldn’t remain a secret.

The news quickly reached Margaret.

And Margaret had acted immediately.

The Knight family, she had declared, wouldn’t refuse responsibility once something like this had happened.

Because the two of them had been discovered together—and because no one had informed the family beforehand—she publicly announced that Rose and Ryan were married.

Neither of them had been given the opportunity to object.

Rose had still been a college sophomore.

Her reputation mattered.

And with the marriage publicly announced, Ryan had been left with little choice but to go through with it.

James stared at her.

“You were really drugged?”

“Yes.”

Rose nodded.

“I didn’t know anything.”

James’s expression darkened.

“But Ryan was drugged too.”

Rose froze.

“What?”

“He was.”

James looked troubled.

“That was why we rejected you back then.”

He rubbed a hand over his face.

“Everyone thought you had drugged him.”

“But if you were drugged too...”

His expression changed.

Something didn’t add up.

Rose had been set up.

Ryan had been set up.

But somehow, they had ended up in the same room.

If someone had wanted to take advantage of Rose, why would they have brought her to Ryan’s room?

And if someone had wanted to manipulate Ryan, why Rose?

James’s jaw tightened.

“These two things were connected.”

Rose stared at him.

She had never known.

Ryan had never told her he’d been drugged.

Not once.

Back then, she’d interpreted his intimacy differently.

She had thought that perhaps, beneath all his coldness, he’d finally had some feelings for her.

That was why he’d been so close to her that night.

But now...

Rose pressed her lips together.

There was something deeply wrong about the entire thing.

“Someone set both of you up.”

James’s voice was low.

“And you were both manipulated into believing something about each other that wasn’t true.”

His hands tightened into fists.

His little sister had been used.

Again.

Rose didn’t know what to say.

James took a breath and forced himself to calm down.

“Get some rest.”

He stood.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow and take you home.”

Rose nodded.

“Don’t worry about anything else.”

His expression hardened.

“Victoria and Alicia won’t walk away from this.”

He paused.

“Dad will deal with them himself.”

The word Dad slipped out naturally.

James’s lips tightened afterward.

For all the anger and disappointment between them, Derick was still their father.

But that didn’t mean James intended to forgive him.

“Whatever happens,” he said quietly, “they’ll have to answer for what they did.”

Rose didn’t ask what Derick planned to do.

She didn’t want to know.

Her hatred had already reached the point where even thinking about Victoria made her feel sick.

They had made their choices.

Now they would have to live with the consequences.

As for Derick...

He had once stood between Rose and the family she should have had.

He hadn’t chosen her when it mattered.

He had failed Sophia.

And Rose knew she would never be able to call him her father in her heart.

Not now.

Not after everything she’d learned.

She would never betray her mother.

James finally left the room.

But he hadn’t gone far.

At the end of the hallway, he stopped.

Ryan was still there.