Seeing her smile, Remington pulled her closer, gently rubbing his nose against hers. "Baby, you smiled. That means you're officially forbidden from being mad at me."

Lizetta pushed his head back, pinching his cheek right at the jawline. "Remington, do you have no shame? How did you manage to say that with your usual cold, arrogant face?"

Remington reached up, catching her delicate wrist to rescue his face from her pinch, and let out a soft sigh.

"I didn't have a choice, did I? Is my pride more important than my wife? I know exactly what my priorities are now. You should be praising me, baby."

Lizetta's anger completely evaporated under his relentless charm. All the frustration she had been brewing vanished in an instant.

She felt she had absolutely no principles and was far too easy to coax. It was genuinely pathetic.

So, she adjusted her expression, fixing Remington with a serious stare.

"If you knew I'd be angry, you shouldn't have hidden it from me! You know exactly how utterly devastated I was back then. Why didn't you just tell me the truth?"

The thought of it made Lizetta burn with anger again. In her darkest, most broken moments, Remington had actually kept this from her.

Remington held her tight, pressing a kiss to the reddened corners of her eyes, his voice low and raw.

"It was my fault. Your physical condition was so fragile then. The doctor told me you couldn't handle even the slightest shock. I was terrified that if I told you the truth- that Joy was killed by someone sharing our blood, and that even after the murder, the umbilical cord blood was used by the perpetrator to save another-the blow would destroy you. I just didn't know how to drop a truth that cruel on you."

Lizetta briefly closed her eyes. "But because you wouldn't tell me, I spent all that time believing you were protecting Stella and Martin West! Even after we lost Joy, I thought you had the evidence but chose to let our baby's murderers walk free. Do you have any idea how much I hated you for that? How much it broke me?"

Only now did Lizetta realize the full truth. Back then, she thought Remington had found proof against the West family, but he had actually uncovered Hanna.

She thought he was protecting Stella, which drove her to that desperate, suicidal attempt to run Stella down.

But the reality was that Remington had hidden the truth. He wasn't indifferent, and he hadn't protected the Wests.

He simply hadn't found any evidence tying them to the crime.

Seeing the fiery hatred rekindle in Lizetta's bloodshot eyes, panic flashed across Remington's face. He quickly spoke.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I thought that because I couldn't save Joy, you already hated me enough. Even if you misunderstood and hated me more thought it was still better than you knowing exactly how our baby died. I thought shielding you from that bloody, brutal truth was the right choice."

He had been genuinely terrified her mind would shatter under the weight of that reality.

So he would rather she aim all her hatred at him than tell her what really happened.

He thought her hatred for him might at least give her the strength to keep fighting, even if it was just to get revenge on him.

Lizetta clenched her fists and hammered them against his chest repeatedly, glaring at him with tear-filled eyes.

"Remington, do you honestly still believe hiding it was for my own good? Are you still patting yourself on the back for being so noble? You jerky Joy was my baby! As a mother who couldn't protect her ownchild, I needed to know the truth!owed my baby an answer. Do you think treating me like an idiot and lying to my face was actually helping me? And..."

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