Part 3The Punishment for Being Late

The room erupted in laughter again. Everyone understood her meaning.

This time it was a public kiss. Next time, it would be her in his bed.

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Are you really not going to the hospital to see your father one last time?"

Furious, Olivia picked up her phone to call her dad, but she also aimed a kick at me. She put so much force into it that she lost her balance, and the phone flew from her hand, its screen going black as it hit the floor.

Mason was quick, catching her by the waist before she could fall.

"Liv, calm down. Getting angry isn't good for you. Remember, you're pregnant!" he soothed. "For my sake, just let him go. I don't want my birthday to be ruined by all this negativity."

His magnanimous words only seemed to make Olivia angrier, her chest heaving. But wrapped in his arms, she slowly calmed down.

"See?" she said, looking at me with contempt. "That's the difference between you and Mason. You broke his nose, and he's still defending you. But you throw a tantrum over a simple game!"

She turned to Mason. "Mase, have security escort him out. I don't want to see his face again."

With Olivia's permission, Mason was more than happy to grind me into the dirt. He signaled for the guards.

Her kick had torn my wound open. Blood was now steadily seeping through my shirt.

"Liv, I think something's really wrong with Mike!" one of the girls finally pointed out.

I used to be tough. Now, even in the dim light of the club, my face was as white as a ghost's.

Olivia didn't even glance at me. "Don't worry about him. He's faking it."

As I was dragged out and dumped into the pouring rain, the club behind me was still alive with music and laughter. The pulsing beat mixed with the drumming of the rain, sounding like a funeral dirge, mocking me for ever thinking I deserved better.

I clutched my father-in-law's medical kit, letting the storm wash over me.

If I hadn't had appendicitis, I would have been the one to answer that call. All Mason and his friends wanted was to humiliate me. He knew that when it came to Olivia, I'd lose all sense of reason, especially now that she was two months pregnant.

Fate had played a cruel joke. I was still under anesthesia when my father-in-law, in his frantic love for his daughter, rushed headlong into disaster.

He died trying to save my child. He died in my place.

The thought that I was partly responsible for his death was a guilt that threatened to drown me.

But pain couldn't kill me. My father-in-law was waiting for me to handle his final affairs.

I closed my heavy eyes and waited for the ambulance to arrive.

Olivia never showed up. Not while I was recovering, not for the funeral arrangements. It was as if she had vanished from the face of the earth.

A colleague at the hospital asked me, "Why wasn't Olivia at Dr. Adler's funeral?"

I stared at a photo on my phone—her and Mason on a beach in Bali, wrapped in each other's arms. "She had something important to do," I said quietly.

My colleague nodded sympathetically. "Of course. She just found out she was pregnant. A shock like this… it's better for her to focus on the baby."

I let out a hollow laugh and didn't correct him.

The day I was discharged from the hospital, I had barely walked through the door of our apartment when she returned.

"Mike, I'm home!"

She stood by her suitcase, her eyes full of expectation.

I knew what she was waiting for.

Normally, the moment she got home, I'd rush to replace her heels with slippers, then sweep her up in my arms, carry her to the couch, and massage her feet. It was our ritual, one of the many habits born from years of love.

But ever since Mason had returned to the country as the heir to his family's fortune, she had pulled away. No more playful affection, no more casual touching. All those small, loving habits had become things she despised.

Over the last two years, I had gone from confusion to withdrawal to this. A heart of cold, dead ash.

I watched the hope in her eyes slowly fade, truly baffled by what she was thinking. Did she really believe that after forcing me to kneel, after having me beaten and thrown out like trash, after running off to Bali with her childhood sweetheart, all it would take was one sweet word to erase the humiliation and bring us back to how we were?

My eyes began to sting.