CHAPTER 25: CONFRONTATION

BOYCE

If one more person asks me where my wife is again, I’m going to lose it.

“Boyce, my man, where’s that stunning wife of yours tonight?” Some board member chuckles, gripping my hand like we’re old friends. I keep my smile perfectly measured — the one I’ve practised for years in the mirror. Not too warm, not too cold. Just enough to disarm.

“She’s… indisposed tonight. Prior commitments,” I say smoothly, letting the champagne glass in my other hand do the talking.

He winks. “You two are the picture of love, you know. Lucky guy.”

Lucky. Right. If luck meant showing up to these suffocating events solo while she was God knows where, then yes, I’m drowning in it.

The speeches drag on. The same over-polished faces nodding, clapping, networking. I play my part — shaking hands, laughing at jokes I’ve heard a hundred times, and posing for photographs that will be printed in tomorrow’s gossip columns under some insipid headline. But behind the smile, every time my phone buzzes in my pocket, my pulse spikes. Maybe it’s her. Maybe she’s finally remembered she’s supposed to be here.

But it’s never her.

By the time I leave, my jaw aches from keeping my smile in place. The driver knows better than to talk to me on the ride back. My mind’s already replaying the last few days — her vanishing acts, her “shoots” that run too long, her phone calls that end abruptly when I walk into the room.

And the rumours. Always the rumours. About him.

I press my tongue to my cheek to keep from grinding my teeth.

The twins’ apartment is lit when I arrive, which irritates me even more. It’s late. I don’t bother knocking.

She’s sitting there in the living room, hair loose, barefoot, like she hasn’t a care in the world.

“Well”, I say, closing the door with a sharp click, “there you are.”

She glances up from the mug she’s holding, completely unbothered. “Boyce.”

“That’s all I get? No ‘sorry I missed the event’, no explanation, nothing?”

Her eyes narrow. “I already told you, I had things to—”

“Oh, right, your things,” I snap, stepping further inside. “Funny how your things always seem to pop up right when you’re supposed to be by my side and then you suddenly forget the clause of the contract you signed.”

Her lips part, but I don’t let her speak. “Do you have any idea how it looks? Me, standing there while every man in the room asks me where my beautiful wife is—and I get to make up excuses like some fool who doesn’t know he’s being played while they roll their eyes inwardly at my foolishness.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Weren’t what? Weren’t you avoiding me? Weren’t off with—” I stop myself, letting the pause hang like a noose. “Never mind. I’m sure your shoot was very demanding.”

Her grip tightens on the mug. “You’re implying something you can’t back up.”

“I’m implying,” I say evenly, “that I’m tired of being the only one holding up appearances. You vanish when it suits you. You let me take the heat in public, and you don’t even have the decency to call.”

Her eyes flash, but I keep going, voice dropping into that dangerous calm I know gets under her skin. “You married me knowing exactly what this life requires. I didn’t sign up for a wife who treats her time like a secret diary I’m not allowed to read especially when it clashes and affects my time and career every little bit of time.”

“I needed space, Boyce,” she says tightly.

“Space?” I scoff. “Is that what you call it now? Space from me, from the life you married into… or from the truth you keep hidden?”

Her jaw sets. “You’re twisting this.”

“No, I’m just not blind.” My words are sharp now, deliberate. “You think I don’t hear the whispers? You think I don’t notice the way you flinch when certain names come up?”

She freezes. Good.

I lean in, lowering my voice to a murmur that’s more dangerous than shouting. “You’re playing a very dangerous game, Sin, and I suggest you remember which side you’re supposed to be on and the contract you signed.”

The silence between us is electric, heavy with all the things I’m not saying out loud yet.

And then — the door opens.

Catalina walks in, eyes instantly scanning the room, reading the tension like a bloodhound. Her gaze flicks between Sin and me, her brow furrowing.

“Did I… interrupt something?” she asks slowly.

I don’t take my eyes off my wife. “No. We were just… having a private discussion before you walked in.”

Sin exhales sharply, setting her mug down a little too hard on the table.

But I’m not done.

"I need you to come in for the next event or so help me God, Sin..." I kiss her forehead, and she flinches. "Say hello to the boys for me. "Bye, Catalina." I get back to the house and open a bottle of scotch before downing a glass; I pick up an envelope, in it contains pictures of Sin and Steel; same person she swore she had nothing in common with but has now been proven to be the father of the twins and they'd never liked me, feeling is however mutual. I would make her life a living hell because there is no way in this world that I'd grant her a divorce so I better get creative and find a way to continously keep her tied to me because if she leaves everything will be ruined so she must remain with me and not any other person even if he is from her past.

I make a call, "You need to come up with other ways to keep her with me, I'm slowly losing my grip on her because of him so they need to be separated as soon as possible so we don't fail, we've come way to far to fail."