?Chapter 1722:


    The moment Alban recalled the trick Gillian had yed on him, every trace of sympathy vanished without a trace. A lethal chill radiated from his stare.


    Before she could react, his fingers mped around her jaw with ruthless force. Gillian sucked in a sharp breath, pain creasing her forehead.


    “So you slipped something into my drink just to drag me into bed, and now you’re acting frightened?” Alban scoffed.


    Gillian went rigid for a heartbeat before wrenching his hand away from her face. “I never wanted to sleep with you! I didn’t poison you! You’ve mistaken me for someone else!”


    She had been drunk and utterly spent, copsing into sleep the instant she was escorted to this room. How he had managed to enter was beyond herprehension—especially when she clearly remembered locking the door.


    “Enough lies!” Alban roared, seizing her wrists, his eyes cial.


    “I’m telling the truth! I didn’t do anything! Stop framing me!” Gillian cried, tears spilling over.


    The sight of her shimmering eyes drove an unexpected pain straight into Alban’s chest. His brow tightened, his expression hardening further. Losing control infuriated him.


    Gillian sniffed, fighting back the tears, and forced out, “Take a look around—do you even know whose room this is?”


    “This is my…” Alban paused, sweeping his gaze across the space, confusion knitting his brow. Had he walked into the wrong room?


    Anger zing through her, Gillian pressed on. “If you still don’t believe me, pull the surveince footage—see who entered first, you or me! I didn’t drug you! I want nothing to do with you! How dare you use me without proof? It’s absurd!”


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    Her words only sharpened the frost in his face, his displeasure deepening. She even dared to insist she wanted nothing to do with him.


    He had suspected deceit at first, but the raw disgust in her eyes sliced into him. Did she truly find him so unbearable?


    A muted sense of loss brushed over Alban. Never before had a woman regarded him with such open contempt.


    Gillian shrank beneath his menacing stare, her throat tightening as she held her breath, as though he might swallow her whole.


    She genuinely wanted no involvement with Alban whatsoever. She knew their lives existed in entirely separate realms, and she would never reach for whaty far beyond her station. His world was something she could only observe from a distance—a ce forever closed to her. She understood exactly what it meant to scheme against someone like him and would never gamble her life that way. And if she were to disappear, what would be of Adide?


    Gillian was not foolish. Fairy tales belonged on the page, not in real life. Cindere had carried noble blood—her father had been a true aristocrat. Otherwise, how could she ever have entered the royal event and met the prince? Gillian knew exactly who she was: an ordinary woman from the slums, walking a road that would never intersect with Alban’s. No matter the time or circumstance, they were parallel lines, never meant to meet.


    After the suffocating silence stretched on, Gillian finally spoke. “Rest assured, Mr. Martel. I won’t breathe a word of this. Let’s act as though it never urred.”


    Her face was resolute, her voice steady and devoid of yearning or uncertainty.


    She understood she stood no chance against Alban and feared what might happen if she resisted. So she chose to ept the brutal truth, chalking it up as nothing more than cruel misfortune. And from the fury burning in Alban’s eyes, Gillian sensed that he, too, might have been a victim.


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