Ray POV
"I’d rather marry a pathetic man than a monster like you, Ray," Claudia said. She leaned closer to and grinned. "Now tell , if I had actually chosen you back then, would you have married ? Or would you just have played with like a pet rat and tossed away once you got bored?"
"I—"
I choked on my own words, because the answer was clear as day. I had never planned to marry her back then—heck, I never planned to marry at all, because I didn’t want to end up under the complete control of a woman, just like how my father beca after he married my stepmother.
"See? You can’t answer that question because you have no idea what to do, right?" Claudia maintained that wicked, insulting smile on her beautiful face, mocking for my inability to make a choice. "You don’t love , Ray. You think of as a plaything, and when I broke free from your clutches, you beca angry at and tried to destroy ."
"So you have no right to tell who I should marry. Because frankly, I’d rather marry a rat than marry you."
...
I fell into a long silence after that. My head hung low as I pondered my own answer.
Did I really think of Claudia as nothing but a plaything?
And if that was the case, then why couldn’t I let her go? If hatred was all it was, I should have just destroyed her life until she was pushed to the brink of suicide and watched her fall firsthand.
Yet I didn’t do any of that and decided to keep her by my side for the next decade or even more. In fact, I had already made a plan for how we would handle having to live together until we were old, because I preferred to let her suffer by staying with the man she hated for the rest of her life.
"What’s more than this? Why can’t I let you go, Claudia?"
Claudia didn’t answer . She gave a cold look before returning to Miles’ side.
She hugged his arm and snuggled comfortably against him, which beca a thorn in my eyes.
I gritted my teeth as I rushed toward them, wanting to punch that bastard Miles for marrying Claudia.
But before my fist could reach his face...
My phone suddenly rang, and I woke up from the nightmare caused by her—just like all the nightmares and daydreams that sohow always featured Claudia.
The sunlight pierced through the wide window and forced to squint my eyes while trying to find my glasses.
Once I found them, I put them on to see more clearly and then picked up the call from Jane Jiang.
"What?"
"S-sir, I just want to know if you’ll reschedule your eting, because it’s already eight, and Amira told you’re still not in the office."
"Reschedule everything for today. I’m not feeling well," I replied as my head pounded like crazy. This sensation felt like a hangover, even though I hadn’t drunk anything last night.
"A-are you okay, Sir? Do you want to cook sothing for you? M-maybe dicine would—"
Beep.
I ended the call abruptly and then went outside to wash my face in my bedroom.
As I opened the door, I stumbled upon Claudia sitting on the living room sofa, knitting a doll like an old woman.
Our eyes t for a while, but no words ca from either of us. My eyes flicked toward her finger, and after realizing that she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring, a hint of ease settled in my heart and cald down slightly.
On the other hand, Claudia was also observing silently. She seed to have sothing on her mind, but after what happened last night, it was impossible for her not to hate even more.
Not that I would mind, though. I was used to being hated by everyone, so having one more person wouldn’t hurt .
I had no intention of talking to her, especially not when I looked like a ss right now.
But it was she who stopped .
"Wait!"
I halted my step imdiately and turned toward her. Claudia had gotten up from the sofa and walked toward , then grabbed my wrist and looked at my knuckles with worry.
"What did you do to your knuckles? Are you insane?!"
...
Like a boy who had been confronted by an adult, I kept my silence and watched as she traced her finger over my knuckles.
"So of them have dried out, but many are still fresh. Co with ."
She yanked , and though her strength was small compared to mine, my body obediently followed her as she held my hand and led to the sofa.
She forced to sit on the sofa right next to the knitted elephant doll she had been working on. I stared at that elephant doll while Claudia went to the bathroom and returned with a first aid box.
She sat right next to , holding my hand gently and started dabbing my wounds with cotton dipped in alcohol.
"It might hurt a little, so bear with it," she said, her eyes glued to the wounds on my knuckles.
I didn’t understand why she had to do this. It didn’t even hurt, at least compared to the extre headache and heartache I had endured the entire night.
And certainly not worse than the nightmare I had of her last night.
I let her tend to my wounds in silence, my gaze fixed on her the entire ti.
Her eyes were a little swollen from crying too much the night before, the faint puffiness still lingering around them. Yet sohow, it didn’t diminish her beauty in the slightest.
Yes... as much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t deny the truth.
Claudia was, is, and would always be beautiful in my eyes.
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