Chapter 59 - 0059: Do Not Question My Feelings About My Wife

Chapter 59: Chapter 0059: Do Not Question My Feelings About My Wife

Graham’s Point Of View

The sharp clink of silver against fine porcelain rang out like a gun crack, echoing off the high, vaulted ceilings of the grand dining room as I dropped my fork. My hand trembled with a raw, volatile tension that had been building in my chest all morning, coiling tighter with every passing minute until it demanded release.

The sudden, suffocating hush that followed Elena’s exit was louder than any scream. It pressed against my eardrums, thick and accusing, filling the space she’d left behind, and for a moment I couldn’t tell if the silence belonged to the room or to something collapsing quietly inside my own chest.

Even the servants seemed to have vanished, as though some animal instinct had warned them to clear the room before the real storm broke.

She was gone.

I could still hear her voice... that smooth, weaponized, false cheer, purring into her phone like an alley cat in heat. Pretending to talk to some mystery boyfriend who probably didn’t even exist. The way her dark eyes had locked onto mine, holding my gaze with a deliberate, merciless steadiness, and that sly, wicked twist of her lips, it felt like a silver blade slicing cleanly through my ribs, twisting right into my pride.

She knew exactly what she was doing. She knew how to burn my house down around my ears and make me watch the smoke rise, savoring every second of my helpless fury. And the worst part, the part I couldn’t admit out loud, was that some twisted corner of me still found her more beautiful even then, even furious, even cruel.

I hated that I noticed the curve of her mouth even as she humiliated me. I hated that some starving, foolish part of me had wanted to laugh right along with her instead of feeling the sting.

My jaw clenched so hard the joint popped.

I turned slowly to my mother, who sat at the head of the table, her thin lips pursed so tight her mouth looked like a scar carved into porcelain. Her platinum hair was immaculately styled, not a single strand daring to fall out of place, her makeup flawless despite the ugliness she’d just unleashed, her pearls gleaming under the crystal chandelier.

She was the absolute picture-perfect image of a matriarchal tyrant, a woman who had spent decades perfecting the art of cruelty disguised as concern. I sometimes wondered if she even remembered how to speak without drawing blood.

There had been a time when I thought I’d seen softness in her. I couldn’t remember anymore if that memory was real or something I’d invented to survive my childhood.

"Mom," I said, my voice dropping into a low, dangerous gravel. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you say those things to Elena?"

My mother scoffed, waving a manicured hand with total, dismissive indifference, as if the concept of basic human decency was beneath her pay grade.

"Say what, Graham? That your wife is barren? That she wanders down to breakfast looking like a common tramp, dressed in a bathrobe, and then openly parades her extramarital affairs in front of the domestic staff?!"

The words hit like heavy iron weights, each one landing with a fresh, bruising force. I slammed my palm against the table, making the fine china rattle violently, a teacup nearly toppling off its saucer.

"She is my wife!" I roared, the veins in my neck bulging against my collar. "No matter what happens, no matter what state this marriage is in, Elena is my wife! Mother, you will respect her in this house! Do you hear me?!"

Matilda blinked, shocked by the sheer violence in my tone, her composure slipping for the briefest instant before her stubborn pride quickly flared back up, armoring her all over again. "Respect her?! She just humiliated us! She just stood in my face and told me she has a lover!"

"She is doing it to get a damn reaction out of me!" I barked, raking a hand through my hair, gripping the strands until my scalp burned with a pain that almost felt like relief. "She’s angry, she’s hurt, and she is trying to make me jealous! She doesn’t have a lover! She’s making a fool out of all of us because you keep pushing her!"

"Well, congratulations, darling!" my mother snapped, standing up so fast her chair screeched against the marble floor. Her sharp eyes pinned me down like an insect on a board, cold and clinical. "It worked! You look like a fool! Now tell me... what is this insane nonsense I heard about an open marriage?! Is that true, Graham?! Did you actually propose that to her?!"

I dropped my head, rubbing the bridge of my nose as a dull, agonizing throb began pulsing behind my eyelids, the beginnings of a headache that I already knew would last the rest of the day. For one fleeting moment, I wished I could simply walk out of the room, out of the house, out of my own tangled life, and not look back until the noise stopped following me.

"Mom... it was the only way," I muttered, my voice tight, each word dragged out of some exhausted, cornered place inside me. "It was the only way to bring Lillian into the estate without the media tearing us apart. I couldn’t have Lillian stressed in a hotel during her first trimester!"

Matilda’s eyes widened in absolute horror. "That was your brilliant corporate solution?! You gave your wife a free pass to go out into high society and sleep with other men?! You gave Elena the green light to drag the Sinclair name through the mud?!"

"I am not divorcing my wife, Mother!" I thundered, standing up and towering over the table, my shadow falling long and dark across the white tablecloth. "End of discussion!"

"Why not?!!" Matilda screamed back, her voice cracking into a shrill, hysterical pitch that I hadn’t heard from her in years, not since my father’s funeral. "You’ve done everything but sign the damn papers, Graham! You brought your mistress into her house! You put her in the guest wing! Why keep her if you don’t even want her anymore?! Why keep a woman who can’t give you an heir?!"

"Because she is mine!" I snarled, leaning across the mahogany wood, my breath coming in ragged gasps that scraped against my throat. "Elena is mine, and nothing you or anyone else says will change that! I took vows with her! I am not divorcing Elena to make Lillian my wife! I won’t do it!"

Before my mother could fire back, a soft, small hand timidly curled around my forearm.

Lillian.

She stepped up beside me, her presence wrapped in expensive floral perfume and the calculated warmth of helpless vulnerability. Her soft lavender maternity dress clung to her bump, her big, amber eyes swimming with unshed tears as she looked up at me, her whole posture folding inward as though she might shatter at the slightest provocation.

She was the absolute picture of a gentle, wounded victim, the total opposite of the firestorm that was my wife, and some distant, rational part of me almost admired how effortlessly she wore that role.

It was a performance so polished it almost made me forget it was one. I hated that I could recognize the performance and still feel myself softening toward her anyway, as though some old habit in me simply couldn’t resist a woman who needed rescuing.

"Graham..." Lillian murmured, her voice a trembling whisper that practically begged for protection. "Do you... do you still love her?"

The question dropped into the quiet room like an unexploded bomb.

My lips parted, but no sound came out. The air felt thick, heavy, unbreathable, pressing down on my chest until I thought my ribs might crack under the weight of it. I stared past Lillian, past my mother, looking straight at the empty archway where Elena had stood moments ago. I could still smell her rose-and-vanilla scent lingering in the draft, a ghost of her presence that refused to leave.

I could still hear the sharp clack of her slippers on the tile. Her brilliant, mocking smirk. That damn phone call, replaying itself over and over behind my eyes like a wound I couldn’t stop touching. I hated how much space she still occupied in a room she’d already left. Even her absence felt loud, as if she’d left some invisible residue behind that clung stubbornly to the air, to the furniture, to me.

Lillian waited, her small fingers gently stroking my wrist, searching my face for a crumb of reassurance, her breath held so carefully I could see the strain of it in her shoulders.

"Do you love her, Graham?" she asked again, her voice dropping into a razor-thin edge masked in syrup. "Because if you do... then why am I here? Why did you bring me into this house?"

I swallowed hard, forcing my eyes back to Lillian. "None of your business, Lillian."

Lillian gasped softly, flinching as if I’d slapped her, one hand flying to press against her collarbone. "Graham..."

"I mean it," I growled, pulling my arm out of her grip, the sudden absence of her touch almost startling in its coldness. "Don’t question me about my feelings for my wife."

My voice was cold, icy, and devoid of the comfort she was begging for. I turned on my heel and faced her fully, towering over her small frame, and for a moment I hated myself for how easily the cruelty came, how naturally it rose to the surface whenever I felt cornered. It frightened me a little, how quickly I could turn hard toward someone who was carrying my child, as though some switch inside me only knew how to protect Elena, even from women who posed her no real threat.

"If she could have given me a child, Lillian, none of this would be happening," I spat out, the bitter, ugly truth tearing out of me like something long infected finally lanced open. "Do you understand that? I have never quarreled with my wife in the five years we’ve been married. Not once! We never had screaming matches! But ever since you moved in here, my home has become a warzone!"

Lillian’s lower lip trembled violently, her hands curling protectively over the swell of her stomach. "I... I didn’t ask for her to shout at me, Graham! I was only trying to be nice to your mother - "

"Do not provoke her, Lillian!" I barked, slicing my hand through the air. "I’m warning you right now - do not push Elena! She has a lethal temper when she’s cornered, and I will not constantly side with you just to spite my wife! She loves me. She’s just too damn annoyed right now, and she has every right to be!"

Lillian took a step back, her eyes wide with shock and fear, the tears finally threatening to spill. "Graham... how can you say that to me? I’m carrying your child!"

"And I appreciate that!" I yelled back, stepping closer to her. "I brought you here because I didn’t want you dealing with the burden of pregnancy alone in some apartment! I did it to protect my heir! But you need to know your position here, Lillian! This is still her home! Elena is the mistress of this estate, not you!"