The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 467

Chapter 467
Gemma's POV

The air in the restaurant is too thick, scented with rosemary and expensive perfume. It coats my tongue. The words spoken by Meredith hang between us, ugly and wrong. I feel Cassian go very still beside me.

“My mom… she isn’t that kind of person,” I say again, like putting up a shield. 

I think of the woman that Lisette Marino was. Her love for my father was a quiet, stubborn force, a deep-rooted tree that weathered every storm. Even after his affair with Angela was exposed, even after his death, a part of her never let go. That devotion shattered her mind. A woman capable of such fidelity does not have “unexpected connections.”

Meredith’s gaze is unbearably soft. “I know,” she says, and her voice is heavy with an unspeakable truth. “The ‘accident’ I’m referring to… it wasn’t your mother willingly sleeping with my father.”

I frown. The distinction feels crucial, a lifeline. “Then what do you mean?”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, as if steeling herself. “Back then, your father, Charles, was pursuing a major deal. He desperately needed the Bernard family’s investment. But my grandfather, the head of the family then, saw no potential in it. He turned him down flat.” She pauses, watching me. “So your father… he had to find another way.”

I stare at her. 

My father belonged to a Mafia family, known to be prestigious and ruthless until he took the command in his own hands. 

Our extended family always considered that he brought our dynasty’s downfall, but as his daughter, I always used to see him as my hero…until he died, and his death exposed the dirty secrets of Angela and Reyna's existence. 

I have vague memories of his return from trips, gifts in his hands, a smile for my mother. I remember his consideration toward her, the way he’d pull out her chair. If his affair hadn’t been discovered after his death, I would have clung forever to the belief in their loving marriage. But mom never spoke of business struggles, only of his hard work. 

“I don’t understand,” I whisper.

Meredith’s next sentence is delivered softly, but it hits with the force of a physical blow. “Your father offered your mother to my grandfather to secure the deal.”

The implication is clear. Vile. Absolute. My stomach lurches. How could such a man do something like this? The father of my childhood memories fragments, the smiling face cracking like old plaster.

The image of my father, already tarnished, now crumbles completely in my mind’s eye. There is nothing left but dust and a profound, sickening disgust.

“Gemma,” Meredith reaches a hand across the table but doesn’t touch me. “I am so sorry. For all you’ve suffered. It is my failure. I should have found you sooner.”

Her words drift past me. I am lost in the horrifying tableau of my parents’ past. I see my mother’ gentle hands, my father’s smiling face, and now all of it is poisoned.

“If you are willing,” Meredith offers, her voice tentative, brimming with hope, “I can make your mother a Bernard, too. Legally. She would never have to be a Marino again. She could leave that name behind.”

The offer pulls me back. My focus snaps to her at the mention of Lisette. I blink, the vacancy in my eyes clearing into something hard and certain.

“No,” I say, and my voice is clear now, final. “That’s not what she is. She’s not a Marino. She’s not a Bernard.” I look from Meredith to Harry, asserting a truth that feels more real than any DNA report. “She’s not anyone’s wife. Not anymore. She’s just herself.” I swallow, the love a solid, aching thing in my throat. “She’s my mother.”