I tilted my head on purpose, glancing at his slightly open collar.
There, on his collarbone, the faint traces of a kiss still lingered.
Our eyes met, and Maverick’s pupils shrank.
He fumbled with his shirt, hastily pulling it closed as he shot to his feet.
“S–sorry…”
Seeing my innocent, clueless face, Maverick couldn’t bring himself to look me in the eye anymore.
“Mona, I’m sorry…”
He turned away, fleeing once again.
^ Fold Up
<
The Idiot Wife’s Revenge
And that desperate apology was so light, it vanished on the breeze a second later.
Men are creatures ruled by their desires.
Once Maverick crossed that line, there was no turning back.
His initial resistance and guilt crumbled beneath Sophia’s tears and tenderness.
He started using late nights at work and endless business dinners as excuses to avoid coming home and facing me.
Sophia, too, would conveniently “disappear.”
Though they were husband and wife in every sense, it was as if they were playing some secret, illicit game…
After three months of this charade, Maverick finally summoned the courage to “come clean”
with me.
“Mona, Sophia says… she wants a child.”
He gripped my hand so tightly his knuckles turned white.
But he kept his head down, unable to meet my eyes. “She says having a baby will make Grandpa trust us more. It’ll help our plan go smoothly.
“Grandpa’s getting older. He’s always wanted to hold a great–grandchild… but you–no one knows when you’ll recover…”
His words tumbled out faster and faster, as if this flimsy excuse had been rehearsed a thousand times in his mind.
“Sophia promised me, it’s just a temporary measure.
“When you’re better, when everything’s settled, I’ll leave her!
“I’ll take you away from here. We can go abroad. After that, it’ll just be the two of us…”
Sophia claimed she’d set Maverick free once she had a child.
Maverick, desperate to believe, clung to that lie.
And he tried to feed the same story to the “fool” I pretended to be.
Were these two binge–watching soap operas or something?
I swallowed my bitter laugh, spread my lips in a wide, vacant grin, and clapped my hands as I spun in circles. “A baby! A baby!
“There’ll be a little one to play with Mona. That’s wonderful!”
^ Fold Up
< The Idiot Wife’s Revenge
My giddy excitement was like a needle, stabbing straight into Maverick’s heart.
