Chapter Two

Serena Pov

The walk back from dinner was a blur.

With glazed eyes and a shattered dignity, I couldn’t even remember how much the rain poured down on my miserable body until the sharp sting of cold air bit at my skin when I finally walked through the door to the apartment.

The warmth on my cheeks was now gone and replaced with a pale color as I bit my lips to stop myself from shaking involuntarily. I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or the anger still bubbling from my chest, but I still went ahead and rubbed my palms together, hoping that it could also warm up the shattered, cold feeling inside.

I didn’t know when it happened.

When the part of me that believed in love—really believed in it—finally faded away.

Was it the moment I stepped into that room and saw the woman who had replaced me?

Or was it when Killian looked at her with that familiar, intimate gaze?—the one that I’d been so eager to get for several months now.

The worst part of it all wasn’t even the woman in Killian’s arms—the woman who was suddenly the mother to my son—it was the look in his eyes when he asked me, “What have you ever done for me?”

​

What have I ever done?

I burst out laughing, the sound ice-cold and bitter even to my own hearing. Did he really compare me to that Samantha?

I’d given him everything. My love. My loyalty. My heart. And what did I get in return? Humiliation and heartbreak.

I bit the insides of my cheeks as goose bumps suddenly appeared on my skin, reminding me of my current situation. Quickly, I threw my gown over my head and used a dry shirt on the couch to dry up the water from my hair and skin, my eyes shutting briefly as I savored the way my muscles now eased into the action, images of him towering over me flashing through my mind.

Angry tears immediately took over the moment as my eyes snapped open.

I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d made love to each other. Slept next to each other—cuddled through the nights because, of course, I was the understanding wife, shaped into the woman that’d always wanted him.

But never the woman he wanted.

I forced a smile at the portrait hanging above the fireplace, the sweet nostalgic memories flooding through me all at once. He wasn’t always like this. He was the sweetest husband I could ever ask for; pampering me with love and attention, always attending to my needs and flaunting me off to the public at any chance he got.

That was the version I’d fallen in love with.

But after the accident, he became a monster. The cold tyrant that was ready to watch me fall so hard that I would disappear from his world.

*******

The fever started later that night, slow at first, a dull ache behind my tearing eyes that I couldn’t shake off.

I crawled into bed, trying to ignore the overwhelming sense of nausea that crawled up my throat as my body slowly started to break down against my will.

Dammit! Not now. Please.

The long days of trying to balance work and my life, the sleepless nights spent wondering why I wasn’t enough for him—all those built up at this moment, this cold, sick version of me lying alone in our matrimonial bed. The same bed where I once believed we could grow old together—the same bed where we first made love.

I closed my eyes and tried to blink back at the cruel reality and sleep, to escape for just a moment in the reverie, but my mind wouldn’t stop haunting me. It was far too gone to cook up delusions.

The ringing of his underlying threats, Theodore slipping into Samantha’s arms like it was just a normal thing, and the way Killian looked at her, then at me—all of it played like a song on repeat over and over again for what felt like hours.

But at some point, I must have dozed off from exhaustion because the sound of a door slamming downstairs was what snapped me out of sleep, with sweat and chills soaking the sheets underneath me.

Rubbing my eyes with a groan, I pushed myself to turn over, hoping to see Killian standing there, but instead there were only the mumbles of his voice from the hallway, calling my name with that damned, grumpy tone, “Where on earth are you, Serena? Don’t tell me you’re lazing in bed again!”

I blinked, the haze of fever completely clouding my vision as I tried to navigate my dim-lit surroundings. “Killian?” I choked out, unsure if I had dreamed it or if it was really real.

And then I saw her.

A blurred image of her shameless figure staring at me with a taunting smirk, standing at the edge of the door, with her smudged lipstick and wavy brown hair carelessly thrown around her shoulders.

“What? You!!! "How dare you?!!!” I spat out with anger, watching as she chuckled behind her palms. “Leave my house! I can tolerate your shenanigans outside in public, but not in my own house.

I watched in horror as she said, “I didn’t do anything to you, why are you being so mean?” then sniffed dramatically as Killian suddenly dashed into the room and helped her to the couch across my protesting figure, her face plastered with fake tears and groans of pain.

“Don’t raise your voice at her again if you don’t want to be sleeping downstairs!” he snapped as he carefully took off her stilettos and massaged her feet.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, too weak to respond with the anger that I was barely suppressing now.

I wanted to scream, to tell him to leave her out of this and, for the love of privacy, leave our room and house, but my throat was tightened with the words at the tip of my tongue, my body shivering and threatening to collapse as the fever crawled up my spine again.

“If you heard well, you’d know that she sneezed,” he explained, as if that made any sense. “She’s sick, Serena. "I’m just making sure she’s taken care of. Would you be good and do that for me?”

“Wait, she’s sick because of a sneeze? "And you're…you're asking me to take care of her?” My voice shook with disbelief, rising to an octave as I balled my hands into fists.

Killian met my gaze, his expression unforgiving and firm. He wasn't even listening to me anymore. It was almost like I was supposed to obey his commands like a slave should.

I wanted to curl into a ball and disappear into the thin air from this, but right after tackling this woman into the ground and teaching her the lesson of her life, starting with wiping that damned smug off her lips.

Instead, I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed with every muscle in my body screaming for comfort and medicine, but I managed to follow them to the kitchen without complaints. Each step, the dizziness increased and made me stagger a bit, but I quickly held myself together, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me fall before him.

The strong smell of the herbal soup wafted through my nose, forcing me to gag in reflex with nothing actually spilling out.

The fever was getting worse. I could feel it now. My body was really slowing down from all the stress, but I couldn’t leave him. The tears that had been building up in my eyes finally trailed down my cheeks, hot and fast, but I was quick to turn away from him before he noticed them.

I wasn’t going to cry in front of him. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me weak.

I couldn’t give up.

Not yet.

“Killian,” I whispered, my voice strained with the last strength left in me. “I’m sick.”

He glanced at me, then back at her, then, with a cold smile, said, “I know, Serena. Just go back to bed, the surprise will wait. I’ll deal with this myself.”

I stood there, my heart breaking all over again, leaning against the kitchen counter, watching him make soup for her. I realized just how far things had actually escalated.

I was no longer the woman he was in love with. No longer the woman he would care for when she was sick.

He wasn’t even trying to be nice anymore.

Well, at least he let me have the bed all to myself tonight.

I staggered back into the bedroom, collapsing on the bed, instantly feeling the weight of the night crashing down on me. The fever was unbearable now, the world spinning around me in doubles.

Not able to take it anymore, I pulled the blankets over my head, hoping to shut out the reality of my situation—even if it was just for a night—I was too sick and exhausted to think anymore.

I wasn’t sure how long I would stay, with my mind drifting in a fevered haze. Minutes? Hours? It could be hours because my arms feel too heavy to move a muscle. A hand on my shoulder startled me out of my thoughts, shaking me awake furiously—my eyes peeling towards the glaring clock on the nightstand—in the middle of the damn night.

“Serena,” he said, his voice still cold, but there was a faint hint of concern. He wasn’t concerned about me, though.

Not really. He was worried about her.

“She needs the soup, Serena,” he said, his eyes narrowed with impatience as he watched me struggle to sit upright. “I need you to make it, I wasn't able to do it myself.”

You’re kidding me!