Chapter 80 - 0080: Have A Bad Day

Chapter 80: Chapter 0080: Have A Bad Day

Elena’s Point Of View

I woke the next morning to blinding sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains, liquid warmth pooling across my bare skin and the disheveled white sheets. My body felt oddly light, suspiciously vibrant, as though a residual rush of wild electricity still danced quietly beneath my flesh.

For a fraction of a second, I lay there in the quiet haze of sleep, smiling like a complete fool, my lips tingling, my thighs pressing together as a sudden throb of heat spread where it had no business being. I felt weightless, almost giddy, the way you feel after a dream so vivid it lingers in your muscles long after your eyes open.

Then the fog cleared, and reality slammed straight into my chest like a physical blow.

Last night.

The door locked. The phone call. His low, filthy commands. The slick, shameless sounds echoing through the dark room. His voice... Jaxx.

My stomach plummeted off a cliff, a violent wave of scalding heat shooting instantly up my neck to burn against my cheeks.

"Oh my God," I choked out, yanking the heavy duvet over my face and screaming a muffled, horrified sound straight into the feather pillow. "Oh my God! What did I do? What the hell came over you, Elena? What did you let him make you do?!"

I thrashed beneath the covers, dragging the pillow tight over my face and pressing it down so hard I could barely breathe. Squeezing my eyes shut, I prayed to whatever higher power existed that if I opened them, time would miraculously rewind, that the breathless moans, the embarrassing high-pitched pleas, and the shameless way I had cried out another man’s name would be erased from the universe.

I wanted, desperately, for the woman who had done those things to be someone else entirely... a stranger I could disown.

I had never done that before. In my entire life, I had never behaved like a shameless, wild creature, not even with Graham. Graham was rigid, icy, and endlessly image-conscious; every intimate moment with him had been calculated, polite, and sterile. He cared about reputation, about propriety, about keeping his hair neat and his ego fed.

Our marriage bed had always felt more like a performance than a passion, an obligation carried out with precision and no soul.

Not Jaxx.

Jaxx was a wild, unhinged animal, a dark, boundary-less madman who cared nothing for rules, decorum, or my marriage. And the terrifying, utterly shameful truth was that he had unlocked something filthy inside of me with just the sound of his voice... something I hadn’t known existed, something that now refused to go quietly back into hiding.

I could still hear him as if he lay right beside me, his dark, gravelly whisper vibrating directly against my eardrums: Touch yourself, Bambina... imagine it’s my hands.

A sharp, violent shiver rolled down my spine, curling my toes tight against the bottom sheet.

"Stop it!" I hissed at myself into the darkness of the pillow, slapping my own forehead with my palm. "Stop it, stop it, stop it! You’re insane. You’ve officially lost your fucking mind, Elena!"

I threw the duvet off my body and sat up in a panic, desperate to physically escape the dangerous images clawing their way back into my mind. My legs wobbled like wet paper when my feet hit the floor, my body traitorously remembering the explosive, blinding release I had stolen in the dark while my husband slept just down the hall. Shame and longing tangled together so tightly in my chest that I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

Dragging my feet, I stumbled into the adjoining marble bathroom, unable even to look at my own flushed reflection in the vanity mirror. I caught only a blur of myself in my periphery... tousled hair, kiss-swollen lips I hadn’t earned from any kiss, and quickly looked away, as if my own eyes might read the truth written across my face.

I stepped into the glass enclosure and turned the shower handle all the way to cold. The moment the icy, stinging spray hit my bare skin, a ragged, involuntary sound slipped from my throat, a soft, pathetic gasp that echoed shamefully against the wet tiles.

The icy temperature didn’t wash the memory away; it only made my skin more sensitive, every nerve ending firing as his face flashed unbidden behind my eyelids... his sharp, dangerous jawline, that arrogant, wicked smirk, the raw, heavy gravel in his tone when he called me Bambina.

I slammed the metal handle down harder, forcing the shower to pour freezing water over my head until I couldn’t breathe, as if trying to drown the madness he had lit inside me.

"I’m going crazy... yes, that’s it," I muttered through chattering teeth, my hands pressed flat against the slick marble wall as the cold water drenched my hair. "Because this isn’t normal. It’s not. It can’t be. You’re a married woman. You’re a civilized woman. You don’t take orders from criminal strangers over the phone!"

But even as I scrubbed my skin raw with the washcloth, my body hummed with a filthy, humiliating betrayal, aching for a voice, a touch, a dark presence that had no right belonging to me. I hated how much I wanted it again. I hated it, and some traitorous part of me already knew I would let it happen again anyway.

By the time I stepped out, dried my hair, and pulled on a crisp, immaculate cream silk blouse paired with high-waisted, tailored black slacks, I had forced my armor back into place. I painted my face with careful, precise strokes of makeup, concealing the dark circles beneath my eyes and masking the chaotic, flushed tint of my skin.

Purse hooked over my crook, heels clicking with razor-sharp precision against the floor, I became Elena Sinclair again... the refined, untouchable, polished wife the world expected to see.

Except beneath the silk, I was utterly unspooling, a fraying thread pulled tight enough to snap.

Descending the grand spiral staircase, I let the rich scent of freshly brewed espresso, toasted brioche, and melted butter greet me in the foyer, momentarily soothing. Then, as I rounded the corner toward the sunlit dining room, my eyes caught the nauseating display waiting for me.

Graham sat at the head of the long mahogany table like a smug, unchallenged king, reading the morning paper. Beside him sat Lilian... his mistress, the plastic snake, perched comfortably in my usual chair. Her long, lacquered red nails grazed his forearm as she giggled at something he’d said, her bleached blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, her presence dripping with silent venom.

I stopped dead on the bottom step, my stomach twisting into a hard, sour knot.

Lilian saw me first. Her sharp, cat-like eyes flicked up, gleaming with malicious triumph, and she deliberately tightened her grip on Graham’s arm, leaning her chest closer to his shoulder... just to show me, just to remind me that she was sitting in my house, eating my food, sleeping in my bed.

I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, rolling them behind my lids. A queen does not engage with street rats, I reminded myself, though my pulse betrayed the calm I tried to project.

Turning sharply on my heel, I marched directly toward the entryway console to snatch my car keys and leather briefcase, adjusting the strap over my shoulder and ignoring the heavy, prickling burn of Graham’s glare locking onto my back.

"Elena."

His voice cut through the grand hallway... deep, commanding, heavy with the arrogant assumption that he still held the authority to summon me like a servant.

I didn’t bother turning around. I kept my back to him, my knuckles turning stark white as I gripped the cool metal of my keys.

"We’ll continue last night’s discussion when you get back," Graham called out, his tone clipped, possessive, loud enough to echo off the high ceilings. "Sit down and eat."

I didn’t answer. I reached out and grabbed the brass handle of the front door.

"I said stop," his voice hardened, dropping an octave, carrying that cold, elitist bite I had endured for years. "And I want you to stop your job."

I froze mid-motion, my breath catching in my throat, my fingers locking around the door handle.

Slowly, deliberately, I turned my head, my gaze colliding with his across the wide expanse of the marble foyer. Graham had set his coffee cup down with a sharp clink. His jaw was tight, his dark eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. Beside him, Lilian smirked into her china cup, taking a slow sip like a spectator settling in to watch a bloodsport.

"Excuse me?" My voice came out low, deceptively steady, though my heart hammered violently against my ribs.

"You heard me." Graham pushed back his chair slightly, leaning back and resting his hands flat on the table, his lips curving into that condescending, smug superiority I hated to my very core. "Quit your job, Elena. Effective today. I don’t want you working at that firm anymore."

A short, breathless laugh bubbled up from my throat - sharp, bitter, dangerous. "My own company or yours? Is that a command, husband? Or are you under the delusion that it’s a polite request?"

"It’s not up for debate." His eyes darkened, a vein pulsing near his temple. "I don’t want other men looking at what belongs to me. I don’t want you stepping foot into that office ever again."

Lilian’s manicured nails stroked his sleeve, her voice chiming in with sickening, fake sweet concern. "He just cares about your reputation, Elena," she purred, venom virtually dripping from her lacquered lips. "It’s only natural for a powerful man to protect his wife from unnecessary exposure."

The laugh that ripped from my chest this time was loud, humorless, echoing through the foyer. I tilted my head, staring her down with unadulterated contempt. "Funny. Protection looks a lot like serving breakfast to the whore you dragged into our matrimonial home."

Lilian’s fake, sweet smile instantly shattered. Graham’s jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth grind.

"Elena," his voice cracked like a whip across the quiet room, a dark, dangerous warning. "Don’t test me."

"Or what, Graham?" I finally turned my body fully toward them, my heels clicking with deliberate, lethal rhythm against the marble floor as I stepped closer to the dining room archway. My pulse raced, every nerve in my body stretched to its absolute breaking point, but I refused to let him see a single tremor.

I leaned forward slightly, resting one hand on the edge of the doorframe, my eyes blazing with years of accumulated hatred. "You’ll punish me? You’ll strip away the last shred of dignity you haven’t already tried to destroy?"

The silence in the room stretched razor-thin. Graham’s cutlery clattered sharply against his porcelain plate as he gripped the edge of the table. Lilian shifted uncomfortably beneath my stare, her arrogant posture slumping.

I smiled at him... a cold, ruthless, terrifying smile. "You don’t get to decide my life anymore, Graham. You forfeited that right the moment you brought your trash through our front door."

"You will stop your job," he repeated, his voice dropping into a harsh, possessive growl, speaking to me as if demanding I stop biting my nails or change my dress.

I took two steps forward, my voice dropping into a dangerous hiss that vibrated through the room. "And why, Graham? Why should I stop? That business, my career, my status... it’s mine. Mine! I built my reputation with my own sweat, my own blood, my own sleepless nights while you sat back and existed in your golden, inherited cradle! I wasn’t fortunate enough to have an empire handed to me on a silver platter from birth like you!"

Graham’s knuckles turned bone-white as his fingers dug into the mahogany table. He rose halfway out of his chair, his broad chest heaving. "Don’t push me, Elena!"

I let out a bitter, hollow laugh that scraped raw against my throat. "Push you? Push you?! Then divorce me, Graham! What the hell are you waiting for, huh? Divorce me! So that you and her..."

I slammed my arm out, jabbing a sharp, accusatory finger directly in Lilian’s face. She flinched violently, leaning back so fast her chair screeched, looking as if my finger were a loaded gun aimed straight at her throat. "...can properly be together! Since she’s already taken over my dining table, my furniture, and my bed!"

Lilian’s face flushed a deep, embarrassing red. She clutched Graham’s sleeve possessively, her lips parting in shock, but no fake, witty retort came out this time.

Graham shot up from his chair completely, the heavy wooden legs scraping violently against the marble floor with a deafening screech. Lilian gasped aloud, clutching at his belt, her eyes wide with sudden fear. "Graham... please..."

Graham ignored her completely. He leaned over the table, nostrils flaring, his face contorted in a mask of dark, terrifying rage. "You’re my wife!" he roared, his voice booming through the estate. "And I will never divorce you! Do you hear me? Never!"

I froze, the air leaving my lungs. His tone wasn’t love. It wasn’t loyalty. It wasn’t even pride. It was pure, unadulterated, ugly possession... the look of a man who would rather destroy an expensive glass sculpture than let anyone else hold it.

I forced a slow, mocking, poisonous smile onto my lips, even as my insides trembled with raw adrenaline.

"Then stay the hell out of my business," I purred, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper that carried straight across the table. "And if you’re so terrified about my boyfriend."

I spat the word deliberately, watching his eyes widen in pure shock and his nostrils flare... "don’t worry, Graham. I’ll keep seeing him. Every single night. Be grateful I haven’t brought him into this house to fuck me on your furniture the way you dragged your slut into our bed."

The air in the room went razor-blade sharp.

Graham’s eyes turned entirely bloodshot. A thick vein bulged violently down the side of his neck, his hands trembling so hard with blind fury that I thought he might leap over the mahogany table and strangle me. Lilian buried her face against his side, whimpering his name in terror.

"You have controlled every single thing about me, Graham," I spat, my voice ringing clear, venomous, and completely unbreakable as I took a backward step toward the entrance. "My clothes, my schedule, my public image, my bloody life! But you see my job? You see my work? That is the one piece of me you will never, ever gain control of."

I grabbed the heavy front door and pulled it wide open. The bright, sharp morning air rushed into the suffocating foyer, whipping my dark hair around my face, and for a single moment I felt something close to freedom.

I paused on the threshold, turning my head just enough to catch his thunderous, ruined expression one last time.

"Have a bad day."