A Love Built On Scorn Chapter 02
Three years into our marriage, the new assistant he had hired less than a month earlier climbed into his bed.
The sight of their bodies tangled together in the sheets felt like a slap after slap across my face.
I cried so hard I could barely breathe, like a madwoman, hurling the cruelest words I knew at both of them.
Sebastian endured my screaming without a flicker of shame.
“In families like ours, men keeping women on the side is nothing unusual. Besides, didn’t your father cheat when you were only one year old? Your mother played blind for all those years and never told you, and life still went on for your family, didn’t it?
“Caitlin, be smart about this. Grow up. Stop shrieking like a lunatic and ruining my mood.”
In that instant, it felt as if the blood in my veins had frozen. The curse on the tip of my tongue lodged in my throat.
I couldn’t spit it out, nor could I swallow it down.
The man who had once loved me with everything he had was now using the deepest wound of my life to shut me up with contempt.
By the time I got home, it was already midnight.
The moment I pushed open the front door, the girl curled up on the couch went rigid with alarm.
She was exactly Sebastian’s type lately.
Pretty in that innocent, clean-cut way, young, with the kind of sheltered face that still carried a stubborn streak that refused to lose.
I was soaked from the rain, and my head was swimming, but I still forced a smile and, with as much courtesy as I could manage, called the butler and told him to prepare a guest room upstairs for her.
One look at the medicated ointment on the table and the mess strewn across the floor told me how wild Sebastian had been this time.
I let out a silent sigh and turned to go upstairs.
After we remarried, I was the one who insisted on sleeping in a separate room from Sebastian.
As I passed his room, I heard him grilling his executive assistant, Jonas Gorman, in a sharp, cutting voice. “Why did Kayla go out to work in the rain today? Didn’t I tell you to transfer 200,000 dollars to her?”
I didn’t know how Jonas answered him.
I didn’t care to know.
At 3:00 a.m., my head was throbbing too badly for sleep, so I went downstairs to take some medicine.
There I saw Sebastian bracing over Kayla with both hands planted at her sides, forcing the flushed woman in his arms to promise him three things.
“Promise you’ll take care of yourself.”
“Promise you’ll spend Sebastian’s money every day.”
“Promise you’ll keep loving Sebastian.”
But after saying the promises, Kayla still sounded aggrieved. “You’re wearing a wedding band that’s supposed to mean love, and you’re still making me say things like this. So what am I, then? Your mistress?”
Sebastian let out a short, mocking laugh, slipped off the wedding ring he had designed with his own hands, and tossed it into the trash without a second thought.
“Happy now?”
The dizzy spell from my fever sent my stomach churning.
I shut the door in a clumsy panic, lay back down on the bed, and pressed a hand to my chest, where the pain cut like a knife.
But in the end, the tears still fell, useless and humiliating.
Before I agreed to remarry him, I had naïvely thought that all I had to do was not look and not listen.
As long as I could get Mom’s belongings back, I could live as a blind woman, a mute woman. It wouldn’t matter.
But in that moment, I finally understood that some feelings cannot be controlled.
I knew I had a fever, but I forced myself to endure it anyway, almost as if I wanted to punish myself for just a little longer.
I don’t know whether I fell asleep or whether the fever burned me into a daze.
I dreamed of Sebastian at 18.
That summer, after college entrance exams were over.
We had finally shrugged off the crushing weight of school, traded our stiff uniforms for grown-up suits and formal dresses, and gone to a revolving restaurant in New York.
That was where he confessed his love to me for the first time, solemn and earnest.
Even the night outside could not hide the flushed, awkward red in his face from sheer nerves.
In front of the towering floor-to-ceiling windows, we lost ourselves in each other again and again.
Only when we were both completely spent did he point at the moon and swear that he would love me for the rest of his life.
A pity that vows do not last forever, nor does love.
When I opened my eyes again, I was met by familiar white walls and the sharp smell of disinfectant.
“What exactly is the point of abusing your own body like this? You had a fever and didn’t take any medicine, just stayed alone in your room trying to tough it out. What was that supposed to accomplish?”
Sebastian’s tone was merciless, thick with ridicule.
In the past, even if I had come down with nothing more than an ordinary cold, Sebastian would have been beside himself with worry.
Back then, he would press his palm to my forehead, his brow furrowed in concern. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Did you take your medicine? Does your head hurt? Do you want some water?”
But now—
I stared at Sebastian for a long while. There were so many emotions in his eyes—mockery, derision, contempt.
Everything except even the slightest trace of tenderness.
My heart felt as though it were being scorched by a fire with no name.
Before remarrying him, I had warned myself over and over again not to hope for Sebastian’s love anymore.
I forced a smile. “I’m sorry. I wasted your time. The butler could have brought me to the hospital.”
Sebastian lifted a brow, apparently surprised by my attitude.
I still remember the day we remarried.
He had stood outside the City Hall with that arrogant smile and said, “See? Without me, you’re nothing. You can’t pay off your debts, you can’t afford fancy restaurants, and even the place you live is worse than the servants’ quarters back home.
“I protected you too well all those years. You’ve never really suffered. You have no idea how cruel the world outside can be. I wanted to keep spoiling you forever, but your demands became too much—so much that I started to resent you.
“If you can fix that temper and that personality of yours after we remarry, that would be even better.”
And now I had changed.
I no longer clung to him and begged him to do childish things with me. I no longer asked him to report his whereabouts to me every day. I no longer checked his phone. I no longer acted spoiled with him.
And at this moment, I no longer needed his concern, either.
To carve away a love that was once fervent and sincere, little by little, is a long and excruciating process.
Thankfully, at this moment, it felt as if I was almost there.
