Chapter 66 - 0066: Is This Marriage Even Worth Saving?

Chapter 66: Chapter 0066: Is This Marriage Even Worth Saving?

Elena’s Point Of View

The dim, amber glow of the streetlamp outside filtered through the sheer curtains, casting long, bruised shadows across the guest room. The air was thick... charged with the suffocating tang of sweat, heavy leather, and the raw, dangerous static of a war that had been brewing for months.

I sat astride his lap, my legs spread wide over his muscular thighs, my body still quivering from the brutal, unyielding friction he had forced upon me moments ago. His cock was still buried deep, hard as iron, pulsing with a thick, territorial heat right against my inner walls. But the haze of lust that had blinded me seconds ago was dissolving fast, replaced by a cold, burning clarity.

He was watching me through dark, hooded eyes... his jaw locked, his broad hands still clamping onto my waist like I was a piece of property he was trying to hold onto by force. He actually thought he had won. He thought that because my body had succumbed to his touch, my mind had surrendered too.

"You ain’t serious right now," I said dryly. My voice was dangerously flat. Controlled. Far too controlled for a woman whose skin was still slick with his touch.

Graham didn’t answer with words. Instead, his hips gave an arrogant, possessive roll upward... pushing in just that extra torturous quarter-inch, stretching me open, letting his broad crown brush that swollen, hyper-sensitive nerve inside me to make me remember who was in control.

A month ago, that subtle, wicked move would have shattered me. It would have made me whimper, melt into his chest, and give him whatever promise he wanted just to feel him fill me completely.

But right now? I felt nothing. The heat vanished. The pleasure curdled. Only a bitter, searing irritation washed through my veins.

I frowned, placing my palms against his broad, bare chest to slide myself up and off him. But the moment I shifted, his heavy grip tightened around my hips like iron shackles, pinning me firmly down onto his length.

"Let go of me, Graham."

He didn’t budge. His dark eyes locked onto mine, unyielding, possessive, and thick with high-handed authority. "It’s either you do what I asked, or I stop right here. Say you’re dropping him, Elena. Tell me there is no other man."

My nostrils flared. My jaw clenched so tight my molars ached. He was serious. Deadass, alpha-male, narcissistic serious. He was sitting there, using my own body’s hunger as a hostage, trying to wring a pathetic, groveling surrender out of me while his pregnant mistress slept down the hall.

A bitter, humorless laugh spilled from my throat. Soft. Cold. Absolutely dripping with venom.

"I see," I whispered, slowly brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. "You think you can set conditions for me, hmm?"

I tilted my head, my eyes narrowing as my fingernails slowly, deliberately dragged down the center of his chest, tracing the heavy muscle down to his abdomen. "Fine," I cooed, my voice coated in poisonous sugar. "Then let me set my own."

His dark eyebrow twitched upward... just a fraction. Arrogant. Expectant.

I leaned down slowly, bringing my lips until they were brushing the shell of his ear, smelling the dark amber and sweat on his skin. With the softest, most lethal purr I could muster, I whispered:

"You throw Lillian out of this house tonight... I’ll stop seeing him. Then you can finish what you started."

Graham’s entire frame stiffened beneath me. The grip on my waist tightened until it bordered on painful. His breath hitched, his dark eyes shifting as a flash of genuine discomfort and resistance cracked through his composed facade.

"That’s not possible, Elena," he said, his voice clipped, hard, and defensive. "She’s carrying my child."

The moment those six fucking words left his mouth, something inside me didn’t just break... it shattered into a thousand jagged, unfixable pieces. That tiny, foolish string of hope I’d been holding onto, the pathetic little part of me that still remembered the man he used to be before his mother and that girl ruined us... it snapped.

I burst out laughing. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t soft. It was a loud, wild, bitter sound full of raw fire and agonizing ache that echoed off the high walls of the guest room.

"Of course," I said, nodding slowly, my voice dripping with pure disgust. "Because it’s always her, isn’t it? Her needs. Her comfort. Her health. Her fragile little pregnancy. Her presence in my damn house!"

"Elena..."

"Don’t you dare say my name!"

With a surge of violent strength that caught him completely off guard, I slammed both palms hard against his chest and shoved myself off his lap. I slid off the edge of the bed, my wet inner thighs slick, and snatched my lace thong off the floor with trembling, furious hands.

"Then this conversation is officially over, Graham," I spat out, my breath coming in ragged, furious gasps. "Since you refuse to throw your mistress out of my home, I am not dropping my boyfriend."

Graham’s head snapped up, his jaw dropping as he sat on the edge of the mattress, completely unclad, his broad chest heaving.

"What?!"

"You heard me!" I hissed, stepping into my panties with shaking fingers and pulling them up over my hips. "I’m not dropping him. He treats me like I actually matter. He looks at me like I’m a human being, not a broken vessel! And right now? I’d rather feel chosen by someone else than keep begging for scraps from a husband who only remembers I exist when his dick is hard!"

Graham’s face darkened instantly, a dangerous, dark fury flushing his neck as he stood up, towering over me in the shadows.

"Isn’t all this dramatic bullshit just because you wanted me to sleep with you?!" he growled bitterly, his voice rising in deep frustration. "Weren’t you practically begging for my attention at breakfast?! Weren’t you grinding on me two minutes ago like you were starving for it?!"

I froze.

The air left my lungs. Every drop of blood in my body went ice-cold.

I turned slowly. Deliberately.

And then I swung my arm back and slapped him.

CRACK.

The sound ripped through the quiet room like a gunshot. The sheer force of the impact turned his sharp face to the side, a bright red handprint instantly rising against his jawline.

He didn’t hit back. He just stood there, completely stunned, his breath hitching as his dark eyes locked onto mine in utter shock.

"I am not a slut, Graham," I hissed, stepping directly into his personal space, my finger trembling as I pointed it straight at his nose. "Do you hear me?! Don’t you ever use my desire for my own husband to demean me again!"

"Then what the hell is this about, Elena?!" Graham roared, his composure completely shattering as he took a step toward me, his chest heaving with raw, unbridled anger. "If it’s not about sex, then what is it?! You moan under me, you cry out my name, you squeeze me so tight I can barely breathe, and then you stand there acting all self-righteous and noble! Stop playing these fucking mind games with me!"

I stared up at him, my chest rising and falling heavily, tears of absolute rage burning at the backs of my eyes.

"You really think this was ever about sex?" I asked, my voice dropping into a soft, terrifyingly brittle whisper.

"What else could it possibly be?!" he snapped, gesturing wildly between us.

"This was never about the sex, you arrogant bastard!" I screamed, my voice cracking with five years of pent-up anguish. "You think I haven’t been touched since you stopped coming to my bed?! You think I don’t have men out there who would give anything to have me?! I’ve had options, Graham! But I chose to stay loyal! I chose to suffer in silence, praying to God that you’d wake the hell up! Hoping that you’d remember the promises you made me! But every single time I give you a chance, you do something like this. You remind me exactly why I should hate your guts!"

Heavy, suffocating silence stretched between us.

Graham stood there, naked, dark, and formidable, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he stared at me, struggling to process the absolute venom pouring from my mouth.

Then, his eyes narrowed, his jaw clenching as he tried to claw back his dominant upper hand. He let out a low, bitter scoff.

"Remember a few months ago when you practically begged me to sleep with you?" he said quietly, his tone laced with a cold, cruel arrogance. "When you cried in the hallway because I locked my door? I’m finally granting you your wish, Elena."

I stared at him. Pure, unadulterated disbelief surged through my chest, instantly followed by a blinding wave of fury so intense my vision blurred.

Begged? Granting my wish?

I stepped forward. And without a single second of hesitation—I brought my hand across his face a second time.

CRACK.

Harder than the first. The sharp sting radiated all the way up my arm. Graham’s head snapped back again, his breath catching in his throat as he stumbled back half a step, completely stunned by the violence of my rejection.

"You self-absorbed, narcissistic prick!" I breathed, my voice shaking violently. "You think my love is a damn Christmas list?! You think you’re doing me a favor by sticking your dick in me after spending the day with her?!"

He blinked, his hands clenching into tight fists at his sides, his pride bleeding out right in front of me.

I bent forward slightly, looking him dead in his dark, shocked eyes, and sneered right into his face.

"I never knew you were Santa Claus."

The insult hung in the air like a cloud of teargas.

"You should leave," I whispered, stepping back, my voice laced with steel. My heart was hammering so hard against my ribs I thought my chest would split wide open.

Graham blinked, taken aback, his brow furrowing. "What?"

"I said GET THE FUCK OUT!" I screamed, the full force of my lungs shaking the walls of the room.

"Elena, listen to me..."

"No! You listen to me, Graham!" I charged forward, poking my rigid index finger directly into his hard collarbone, forcing him back toward the door. "Chasing me out of our master bedroom wasn’t enough for you, was it?! You had to bring that woman into this house! You had to let your mother call me useless and barren at my own breakfast table! You had to make a complete, public fool of me in my own marriage!"

Graham’s jaw tightened, his voice dropping into a desperate growl. "You think any of this is easy for me?! You think I wanted it to be like this?!"

I laughed bitterly, a harsh, ugly sound. "Oh, yeah? It must be so fucking agonizing for you, Graham! Sleeping with a younger woman while your wife cries herself to sleep every single night on a cold guestroom mattress!"

"I didn’t mean for things to get this far..."

"But you DID!" I screamed, tears finally spilling over my lashes, hot and scalding against my cheeks. "You meant every single choice you made! Bringing Lillian here! Defending her against me! Sitting by while your mother humiliated me! Withholding your touch for months just to manipulate me into submission... you meant all of it!"

"Elena... she’s carrying my child," he said again, his voice dropping into a quieter, almost broken tone this time, his eyes searching mine. "I can’t just throw her out into the street. You should try to understand my position."

Those words—those exact six fucking wordspunched straight through my chest like a rusty blade. My lips trembled violently. My hands clenched into fists so tight my nails drew blood from my palms.

"Oh... so now she’s your priority?" I whispered, my voice breaking into a million ragged pieces. "Not your wife. Not the woman who built your life with you. Not the woman who stood by you when you had nothing."

Graham looked away, unable to hold my gaze.

My breath rattled in my throat. "You know what, Graham? Just go back to her. Go back to your precious, fertile Lillian."

"Elena..."

"I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT!" I screamed, hurling my weight against his chest, shoving him violently toward the open hallway.

He staggered back across the threshold, startled by the sheer, unhinged grief in my eyes. Before he could recover or say another word, I slammed the heavy oak door right in his face.

I turned the deadbolt with trembling, slippery fingers. CLICK.

The silence that followed was deafening.

My back hit the hard wood of the door, and my legs completely gave out. I slid down onto the floor, my knees folding tightly into my chest, my arms wrapping around myself as the very first sob tore out of my throat like an explosion.

Once it started, I couldn’t stop it.

Hot, heart-wrenching tears poured down my face in relentless streams, soaking into the fabric of my clothes as I rocked myself back and forth on the cold floor like a wounded child. The noises leaving my mouth didn’t even sound human—they were ugly, guttural, raw shrieks of pure, unadulterated agony.

God, it hurt so much.

Because the cruelest, most sickening irony of it all was... I still loved him.

Despite the mistress downstairs, despite his mother’s cruelty, despite the humiliation and the emotional starvation... I still loved Graham with every broken piece of my soul. And he knew it.

He knew it, and he used it. He took my love and twisted it into a weapon, using my own body and my own desires to try to cage me, control me, and force me into accepting my own replacement.

All because I couldn’t conceive. All because my womb had failed us.

The image of Lillian’s smug, triumphant smile at the dining table flashed through my mind, and I buried my face into my arms, sobbing so hard I began to choke on my own breath.

How did we get here?

What happened to the man who used to hold me in the middle of the night and swear that I was the only thing in this world that mattered to him? What happened to the vows? The quiet laughter? The dreams of growing old together?

Every single memory felt like a hot knife twisting in my gut... the way he used to kiss my forehead before work, the way we planned our future, the gentle touch of his hand on my stomach years ago when we foolishly picked out names for babies that never came.

My fingers dug frantically into the carpet as dark, poisonous doubts slithered into my mind.

Was I really not enough? Was my body truly broken? Was I the one who ruined everything by failing to give him an heir?

I bit down on my wrist to stop another scream from escaping, the physical pain grounding me against the crushing weight of the emotional abyss swallowing me whole.

He had once called me his home. But tonight, I wasn’t even welcome in my own bedroom. Tonight, he looked at me and saw nothing but failure, bitterness, and an inconvenience standing in the way of his new family.

And as I lay collapsed on the cold floor, trembling violently in the pitch-black room, one final, terrifying question echoed through the hollow silence of my heart:

Is this marriage even worth saving anymore?