My Mother and Husband Both Chose Her Over Me Chapter 02
“Mom, take Milo and go,” Adrian said, never taking his eyes off me.
My mother glanced at me once, then hurried through a rear exit. My hand stayed suspended in the air.
She did not even give me a chance to speak.
“We’re leaving.” Adrian seized my wrist and dragged me away.
The trip home passed in a haze. I barely noticed the streets outside the car and kept wondering whether I had dreamed everything.
Only when I sat on our couch and watched tears fall onto the back of my hand did I finally accept the truth.
“It’s exactly what you saw,” Adrian said.
He lit a cigarette and stood by the window, visibly irritated. “We knew you wouldn’t let it go, so the news reports were fabricated.
“I hired actors for the arrest footage and the interviews.”
He exhaled. “You didn’t discover anything for three years, so we stopped being as careful.
“Yesterday was an accident.”
“After everything, all you can say is that you were careless?” I looked up through burning eyes.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Adrian!” My tears spilled over.
“You know what Serena did to me.”
He knew about the scars covering my arms, the suicidal thoughts, and the insomnia that had followed me for years.
He had held me through panic attacks and nightmares, so no one understood better than he did exactly who had caused them.
“Why did you sleep with her?”
Adrian released a slow stream of smoke. “Nell, that was a long time ago.”
“What?”
“It’s over.”
“It isn’t over. I’m still sick.
“You don’t get to decide that it no longer matters. I don’t accept it.”
“She could give me a child. You couldn’t.”
I went still.
He saw the shock on my face, sighed, and crushed the cigarette into the ashtray. “You know what your health is like.
“I love you, Nell, but I wanted a child of my own.”
“But…”
“I know,” he interrupted. “The damage that left you unable to carry a pregnancy came from what Serena did.
“But she regretted it.”
A tear struck the floor. “Adrian, you’re hurting me too.”
The moment I said it, I regretted it. My own mother had helped them deceive me.
What right did I have to expect more from him?
