Chapter 6

Caleb's POV

“My baby!” Pearl yelled as she snaked her arms around me just the moment I stride in.

For a moment, I thought my eyes were deceiving me as confusion and disbelief swirled in me. “Yes! How dare you cheap slut! Are you stalking me now!”

I stomped nearer to her as her lips remained partly open, with her jaw dropped in awe. “Oh my bad, you didn't expect to see me here, huh?” 

“A gold digger, scheming bitch! You thought you could just escape from your rightful place! The prison is your home and has no hiding place!”

For a split second, dread flashed on Lyra's face as my breath fanned her skin. “You're here to replace the previous janitor right?” I whispered into her ears.

Her brows rose, and she gave me a mischievous look. “Get your filthy hands off me!” she yelled as she raised those deep blue eyes of hers.

“How dare you, Caleb!” She exclaimed.

“The prison is my home no matter what? Do you even have a heart?” She added as emotions clouded her previously angered voice. 

“Have you ever loved me even for a second, Caleb?” 

Her question hung in the air as I raised a haughty brow at her, and the deafening silence in the hall suffocated me.

Then she took a few steps towards me with no kindness in her eyes. “We shall see whose rightful place is it soonest?!” her eyes dilated and her jaws clenched.

“You coward!”

Each word she spilt out of her mouth felt like a sharp blade cutting through my confidence.

“Wait a minute! What the heck is happening?” Pearl finally got out of her shell as confusion etched her face and her brows knitted together.

“Come on, baby! She's…”

“Your ex-wife! No, no, no!” She interrupted me before I could say another word.

My lips remained pursed as I let out a low growl from all possible thoughts that crossed my mind. Does Pearl, by any chance, know Lyra? No way!

“Lyra?” She added, with her jaw still dropping.

Pearl's teeth clenched angrily around her words as her brows furrowed. 

“You don't need to think deeply about whether to hire her or not because of me baby. She doesn't deserve it,” I tried to assure her as my arms buckled around her waist.

“What!” Pearl’s voice echoed in the hall.

“We're officially divorced; that's why I proposed, so we can finally be together just like our son wants.”

I pulled Pearl's chin up as her facial muscles tightened. Her whisper in my head told me there was something she was hiding from me.

Out of mind, I didn't know the minute a hot slap landed on my face. “You don't have a heart, Caleb!” Lyra's voice cracked as a single teardrop fell on her face.

She parted her lips to say another word but went mute again. I didn't know how tears flowed down her face like a broken river bank.

I tried to go close to her as I felt the heavy beating of her heart. “You and your wicked family murdered my babies! And now you already have a child with another woman!”

“Babies?!” I laughed as I spoke.

“Those bastards? Do you even know their father?”

“And you see her. She's Pearl Jenkins, the CEO of the Jenkins Group. The company you want help from.”

“Why the hell am I talking about a job to you? Such a useless entity like you can't afford to even work here as a janitor.”

“So…because you…,” she paused.

“Caleb! Is this the reason why you have tormented me all these years?! This?!”

For a moment, there was silence in the room. “Relax baby, call the security to throw this mad lady from here! She's only causing a nuisance,” I suggested as my phone buzzed loudly with a message.

I raised a dangerous brow at Lyra and her hands clenched into her fist.

“You will pay for this, Caleb Sawyer!”

“Pay?” I ignored the message and strolled towards her.

“Who are you? You're nothing! And you know me better, Lyra. I don't have interest in empty and baseless threats.”

“You can't do anything! Read my lips!”

“She's someone who's going to be your worst nightmare, Caleb Sawyer!” A voice echoed from nowhere and rang in our ears with no traces of warmth in it.

At that moment, I gasped in disbelief as I remained utterly shocked and our entire attention on the door.

However, Lyra's muscles seemed relaxed as her face brightened more.

The next scene I saw was someone I never expected to set eyes on at that moment, and my blood instantly dried up. And I could feel chills going down my spine.

“What! Oh my goodness! This is what you think is going to spank me? Huh?”

“Mr Cromwell!” Pearl's mouth agape.

“Lyra, is he the father of those bastards?” I threw numerous questions at the same time as I couldn't describe what I was feeling at that point but it was as if I didn't exist to her.

“Hey!” I added as I was about to touch her.

“If you touch her hair as much, you will leave to regret it!” Gary, the CEO of the Cromwell group threatened me.

All of a sudden, my fingers went numb as a sense of adrenaline washed over me. “Wow! That's it, Lyra! You have been sleeping with him behind my back, right?”

“Bear this in mind, don't come back begging if he finally dumps you. Because he has a fiancée, and he will never leave you for her.”

“Go to hell, Caleb!” She exclaimed, and her lips curved into a wicked, amused smile.

This is not the Lyra I've always known all these years. My mind spiralled around as she romantically sounded to me previously. All the years we have been together, she has lived to please me, and now this! Something is definitely wrong. How did she finally agree to sign the damn papers so easily? 

“You will pay for everything you did to me! The pain, torture, betrayal and every bit of it! Trust me and do not forget your mistress, lover boy!” she murmured in my ears, her voice vibrating like a deafening siren.

I didn't know how my voice died and I felt a sense of dread rolling in the pit of my stomach.

Without hesitation, out of mind as her breath fanned my skin, I didn't know how my lips crashed against her, and I savoured the sweetness of it.

I felt the tension in the hall as it erupted in the entire hall and the gazes suffocated us. “What a fuck! Let go of me!”