Seraphina’s POV
Everything beca a blur as Julian dragged from the living room. His fingers clamped around my wrist like a steel trap, rciless and bruising. This wasn’t the tender touch I’d grown accustod to over recent weeks. This was pure dominance, a harsh reminder of the man I’d married years ago.
My feet barely touched the ground as he hauled down the corridor. The silence between us crackled with tension so thick I could taste it. My pulse hamred against my throat, each beat echoing the dread building in my chest. The Julian who had been trying, who had shown glimpses of warmth, had vanished completely.
He threw open his bedroom door with violent force, the wood slamming against the wall. Then he released so abruptly I nearly collapsed, my legs trembling from the sudden freedom. I caught myself against the doorfra, my wrist throbbing where his grip had been.
When I finally looked up at him, my world crumbled.
The man standing before was a stranger wearing my husband’s face. Gone was any trace of the softer version of himself he’d been revealing lately. Instead, his eyes held the sa glacial indifference that once made enemies cower. But this ti, that arctic stare was reserved entirely for .
Worse than the coldness was what lay beneath it. Fury burned in those dark depths, transforming his features into sothing almost unrecognizable. And cutting through it all like a blade was sothing that made my soul bleed.
Hatred.
Raw, undiluted hatred directed at .
The fragile progress we’d made over the past weeks disintegrated in an instant. Every tentative smile, every careful conversation, every mont where I’d dared to hope we might actually build sothing real together, all of it reduced to nothing by that single look.
"I never intended to deceive you," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "But it wasn’t my place to share that information. It never belonged to ."
He moved closer, his presence suddenly overwhelming and nacing. "You didn’t think I had a right to know?" His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "You didn’t think I deserved to know I was going to be a father?"
The unfairness of his accusation ignited sothing fierce inside . "How exactly was I supposed to handle that?" I shot back, my voice gaining strength. "Tell , Julian, how would you react if soone forced you to inform your mate that he’d fathered a child with soone else? With soone who wasn’t you?"
A harsh laugh escaped my lips, devoid of any humor. "You betrayed ," I stated simply, the words cutting through the air like shards of glass. "Yet sohow I’m the one expected to apologize. Because you’re upset." My gaze locked with his, refusing to back down. "I don’t owe you explanations about anything. Not after what you did. I wasn’t the one who chose to sleep with my mate’s sister. I’m barely keeping my head above water while my entire existence falls apart around , and yet you sohow manage to make this about your wounded feelings."
The silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken truths and years of accumulated pain. Sothing flickered across his expression, maybe remorse, maybe just more anger. He opened his mouth as if to defend himself, to offer justifications I’d heard too many tis before.
I held up my hand, stopping him cold.
"Don’t," I said firmly, shaking my head. "Just don’t. You’ll never change, will you?" My voice wavered but I refused to let it break completely. "I can see it written all over your face, Julian. The disappointnt. The resentnt. That sa coldness you used to reserve for your enemies, now you’re directing it at ." A single tear traced down my cheek before I could stop it. "This is how it’ll always be, isn’t it? Every conflict, every problem, sohow it’ll always be my fault. Always my burden to carry." My voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I can’t exist in a relationship like that anymore."
His expression shifted dramatically, anger replaced by sothing resembling panic. He reached toward desperately. "Seraphina, please, don’t say that. Wait, just listen to for a mont."
I stepped backward, putting distance between us before his touch could weaken my resolve. After seeing that hatred in his eyes, the thought of his hands on felt unbearable. "I need distance, Julian," I said, my tone flat and emotionless. "I need room to think."
Part of had convinced myself that maybe she’d been lying, creating drama where none existed. But deep down, I knew better. She’d been telling the truth, and her timing had been calculated to cause maximum damage between us.
I turned toward the door, my legs feeling unsteady beneath . Just as my fingers closed around the cool tal handle, his voice stopped in my tracks.
"Where do you think you’re going?" he demanded, a mixture of fear and possessiveness coloring his words.
The audacity of his question almost made laugh.
I looked back at him over my shoulder, eting his gaze steadily. "Don’t worry yourself," I replied, an strange sense of calm settling over despite the chaos raging inside. "I won’t disappear on you." The truth fell from my lips like stones. "You’re holding my father prisoner sowhere, and I’d never abandon him to whatever fate you have planned." I managed a cold smile that felt foreign on my face. "So relax, Julian. I’m not going anywhere."
With that, I opened the door and stepped into the hallway, leaving him alone with the wreckage of whatever we’d been trying to build together.
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