Chapter 178
Serena
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The restaurant was quiet when we arrived, a corner table already reserved, the midday lull sitting between the lunch
rush and the late afternoon crowd.
Kieran pulled out the chair for me and I sat, while he sat
across from me. The waiter soon arrived with the menus.
“What would you like?” Kieran asked me as he opened one of
them already browsing through.
I told him and he passed it to the waiter with his own order,
he maintained a perfect countenance through it all which left
me a little confused.
We weren’t fighting.
The absence of it was the first thing I noticed. No argument building under the surface, no careful words, no testing of territory. Normally, Kieran and I had a tacit understanding of picking fights with each other over the same thing.
Perhaps, this recent tactic of mine was working. But wanted
him to see how much I have pulled away. how I actually no
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I hope that was what was happening. He seemed to be playing along, acting like a good husband.
“Your mother’s birthday is coming up,” he suddenly said
pulling me from my thoughts.
I looked up and met his eyes.
“I hadn’t forgotten,” I said.
What I had forgotten about was getting her a present. It crossed my mind only a few times but there was never
enough hours in the day to get things done.
“Have you got something for her?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I said.
“We could go shopping,” he said. “Pick something for her together and then go see her and celebrate with her.”
“Okay,” I said while nodding.
The waiter returned with our food. We fell into a sudden
peaceful quiet, him eating from his plate while I ate from
mine.
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I turned around towards the direction where the voice came
from.
Fiona stood a few feet from the table with Sophie at her side.
Fiona’s eyes moved from Kieran to me and held on me.
“It’s a shame,” Fiona said to Kieran. “Sophie is the mother of your son. She was assaulted at that summit and spent the night in a hospital, and you couldn’t be bothered to visit.” Her eyes came back to me. “Is this how cruel you are? You’re about to have your own baby and you prevented your
husband from attending to his responsibilities. Do you know
what kind of woman that makes you?”
Fiona was oozing everything anger, as she came to fight for the justice of her friend. On her side, Sophie appeared to
be a pathetic woman that life has been unfair to which was
contrary to the snake she actually was.
It was either this was an act or she had successfully deceived Fiona into believing she was a good person.
Sophie’s hand closed around Fiona’s arm.
“Fiona.” Sophie pulled at her. “That’s enough. Can we please just go? They didn’t do anything wrong.”
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“You’re too kind,” Fiona said to Sophie, not moving. “That’s your problem. You’re too kind and you let people treat you poorly and you defend them regardless. Sophie didn’t deserve any of what happened at that summit, Alpha Kieran. You’re a cruel man for letting it get to that point.”
Kieran dropped his spoon as his lips parted about to possibly give Fiona a response to her accusations.
I quickly set my fork down loud enough to stop Kieran. I looked at Sophie.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Are you recovering well?”
Fiona drew a sharp breath. “Don’t sit there and pretend to care,” she said. “You don’t have a compassionate bone in your body. Sophie ended up in that hospital because of the
environment you created. Everyone knows it.”
Sophie got what was coming to her, but how was that my
fault?
Kieran stood up. “Fiona, what is all this for? You can’t—”
“Sophie,” I said, rising to my feet.
Hooked at her past Fiona’s shoulder. Sophie stood there
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“Would you like to join us? Sit down and eat something.”
Sophie shook her head quickly. “I couldn’t possibly do that.””
“I’m inviting you,” I said.
Sophie looked at Fiona and then at Kieran and then at the empty chair beside him. She sat down.
I pushed back from the table and picked up my bag.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay,” I said. “I have somewhere I need to
be.” I looked at Kieran and then I walked toward the door.
I pushed out into the street.
I walked and thought about it. When Fiona called me cruel,
when she said I had no compassion, when she blamed me
for Sophie’s hospital stay, Kieran said nothing. He got up
when she called him cruel. Not when she came for me. He sat
through all of it until she named him, and then he moved.
If that had been Sophie on the receiving end, he’d have been
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he had done even the minuscule thing to remind me that I
was the other woman even in my marriage.
His heart belonged to her and I was the person who came in between them. He would never get over her, not in this life or
the next.
I used to hate the thought of that, the reality of his life gnawed at me repeatedly until now. I finally understood that there was no point in fighting that truth.
Even now, after claiming he would do better if given a second chance, he once again could not defend me.
“Serena!”
I turned behind me to see who it was calling my name.
Kieran was running towards me.
He caught up to me on the pavement and stopped.
“What is going on here, you’re supposed to be with Sophie.”.
“Because I came to have lunch with my wife,” he said. “Not anyone else. That’s why I’m here.”
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I shook my head.
He had so many words. If he had said these words when I still cared about him perhaps I would’ve had that to hang on to. Now they were just useless.
Now they were a bit annoying and they became that
because I discovered that they were never the truth. He was
a liar. The only person he thought of was Sophie.
“Go back,” I said. “You have a guest.”
“Serena.”
“Sophie is inside,” I said. “Go back.”
“I’m not going back,” he said. “I’m married to you. Not to Sophie. You are the one I’m married to.”
I almost laughed.
He stood on the pavement outside the restaurant with his hands in his pockets and his chin up and he said it like he’d just figured something out.
He was assuming the part of a dutiful husband, one who 718
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cared for his wife when his reality was far from that. It Sophie
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were placed against each other, in a breath his choice would
be her.
His words and actions now were only pretense because
he was convinced this child was his and it would be his
legitimate one. His heir.
That was what he cared about.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” he said.
I turned and started walking.
