Mr. CEO's Substitute Bride
Chapter 23. In this lifetime, I never want to be with the man I like again.

Chapter 23: 23. In this lifetime, I never want to be with the man I like again.

Back at the villa, it was just after nine.

Titus Zane went straight upstairs with his shoulder bag and returned to his own room.

After a simple wash, he changed into home clothes, poured himself a glass of red wine, sat on the padded floor, lifted the blue cloth covering the easel, placed the wine glass on the floor beside him, and picked up a paintbrush to mix oil paints on the palette, outlining on the canvas.

Innately drawn to it, Titus Zane had loved painting since childhood, self-taught, already sketching complete still lifes with a pencil in kindergarten, and Logan Ray also had an affection for art, so they went abroad to study together.

Just as he began to paint, the image on the canvas was still in its embryonic form, unrecognizable, only the colors were as somber as Titus Zane’s life at the moment.

Olivia Zane was carried back to her room by Nathan Moore, this time, she did not ask Nathan to share the bed with her, but simply smiled and said, "Nathan, you should rest early too, don’t work too late."

Nathan Moore uttered a faint hum, kissed gently on Olivia Zane’s forehead, wished her "good night," and then left.

Touching the spot on her forehead where Nathan Moore had kissed, Olivia Zane’s watery eyes slightly squinted, realizing that... since that night, they seemed to have never truly kissed.

For Titus Zane, that night was the beginning of an ongoing nightmare.

He had been guarding the bridal room for his sister Olivia, merely trying to make up for his own mistake, as her wedding was so important yet it was he who caused her to be hospitalized.

A few days later, Olivia woke up, and the doctor said that for the rest of her life, she would be confined to a wheelchair...

That day, a furious man grabbed Titus Zane’s arm, ignoring her resistance, dragged her to the top floor of the villa, threw her into the innermost bedroom, then turned and pinned her against the wall.

His large palm tightly clamped on Titus Zane’s neck, dark eyes shooting a bloodthirsty glow.

"You wicked woman, since you’ve harmed my woman, you’ll never get to be with the man you like for the rest of your life!"

"Why should that be!" Facing Nathan Moore’s icily hostile aura, Titus Zane wasn’t the least bit afraid, but his subsequent words truly frightened her.

Nathan Moore’s thin lips curved into an arrogant smirk, he coldly chuckled and said.

"Why? Because I’m Nathan Moore, because I have the power to make the whole Zane Family accompany the dead!"

After saying that, in Titus Zane’s astonished eyes, Nathan Moore added, "Don’t believe it? You can try."

Although she had been living abroad for many years and had only met Nathan Moore twice, she was well aware of his decisive and ruthless business dealings.

At twenty, with both parents killed in a car accident, and college not yet finished, he took on the heavy responsibility. Without being unusually ruthless, how could a young adult preserve his family’s enterprise?

So, Titus Zane was scared, because she dared not gamble with her family’s fate.

She still remembered the day her sister was discharged from the hospital; the whole villa was decorated inside and out as if for a festival.

At night, the couple sat in the dining room, turned off all the lights, lit candles for a romantic candlelit dinner, and afterward, a slightly tipsy man carried his sister Olivia Zane back to their new room on the second floor.

At the time, Titus Zane sat on the terrace of his own room, curled up on a soft cushion, staring into the night sky.

In the distance, some lights flickered, moving towards the villa, getting closer and closer, so close that she could clearly hear the sound of an ambulance from the hospital. Titus Zane stood up, leaning on the balcony railing to look down.

He saw his sister Olivia Zane, in disheveled clothes, being carried by a man rushing into the night.

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