Chapter 2

Elena’s POV

Tristan’s senses have tunneled. Right now, nothing else in the world exists. Just Mira. I run down the stairs, my heart sinking deeper and deeper as I arrive at the dining room.

“Mira!” Tristan gasps, sinking to his knees next to my sister.

She’s breathing rapidly, her face red from the effort. Her hand is clutched around her throat as she looks at Tristan with tears in her eyes. “I… I think I’m having an allergic reaction to something in the soup.”

The mood in the room shifts immediately.

“It’s alright, I got you now,” Tristan whispers to her, rubbing her back and giving her water. 

Then, he turns to me. And it’s like being splashed with cold water. 

“Did you add nuts to the soup?” Tristan asks, his tone low and dangerous. The kind of dangerous that’s pretending to be calm. “Tell me, Elena!”

“I-I didn’t!” I say in utter confusion. “But even if I did, Mira doesn’t have any allergies!”

I rush over to Mira to ask her about it, but Tristan gets to his feet and blocks me, like he’s trying to protect Mira from an attack.

Just then, Mira starts to choke on her water. She keeps clawing at her throat, leaving red marks on her skin. “I… I can’t breathe!”

“Get out of the way!” Tristan yells at me, pushing me aside himself as he grabs Mira’s bag, taking an allergy pen and sticking it into Mira’s leg. 

He rubs her back, gently pushing her hair away from her sweaty face. He’s looking into her eyes, whispering softly as the medication starts to work. “It’s okay. I got you now. It’s going to be alright. I’m not going anywhere….”

I feel like I shouldn’t even be here, like I’m spying on two lovers who are locked in their own world. I look down at my feet, blinking back the tears in my eyes, just wanting to disappear.

I know that Mira doesn’t have allergies. Why would I even add nuts to a soup? 

Mira’s breathing finally became stable. She drinks more water and pats Tristan on the cheek. “Don’t get mad at Elena. It’s not her fault.”

“Not her fault?” Tristan echoes in disbelief. “She cooked that meal for you. You told her about your allergy, right?”

“I did, yes,” Mira says calmly.

“No, you didn’t,” I try to say, but Mira speaks over me.

“It’s really okay, Elena,” she says. “It’s not your fault if you were too busy to pay attention or if you just forgot. You were very busy in the kitchen.” She sighs and rubs her growing belly. “I’m just worried that it’s going to affect the baby….”

I open my mouth to tell her that she didn’t say anything, and even if she did, the thing she ate had no peanuts.

But that’s when Tristan wheels around on me. The worry from his face is gone. There’s only one thing burning in his eyes now. Rage.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Tristan roars, grabbing my arm. “Were you planning to hurt her and the baby? She clearly already told you what she’s allergic to! Did you just not listen? Or do you just not care? She or the baby could have died!”

His hand tightens around me, causing pain to shoot up my entire arm. “Tristan, she didn’t say anything! And if you just check the food I made, you would know—”

“I saw her enter the kitchen when you were there!” Tristan yells, yanking me. “I don’t need to look through that soup to know what’s in there. She had a reaction and I saw it with my own eyes! Are you really that ignorant to think that pregnant women can’t change? That they can’t develop allergies?”

I try to get away from his grasp, but I feel weak. It’s almost like I got struck by lightning and now I’m burning, withering in front of them.

“You’re careless,” Tristan spits out, releasing me at last. “You don’t know how to handle anything!”

I rub my arm, glancing at Mira who’s not even paying attention to me and what’s happening. I can’t believe Tristan won’t even check. He just took her every word without question. One look at the soup would have told him the truth. But maybe that’s something that he doesn’t want to see for himself.

Breathing hard, I stagger away from them and collapse on one of the chairs. My heart hurts. 

Everything… hurts.

It doesn’t help that Tristan is still pacing the floor, holding Mira’s shoulder gently when he gets close to her. “Are you sure you’re alright now? Do you feel better? Can you breathe alright?”

“Tristan, I’m okay now.” Mira caresses his arm. “It’s alright, you can relax.”

“I can’t relax.” Tristan shoots me a glare. “Because if something happens to you, I won’t let Elena off so easily. She’s going to pay.”

Now he’s talking about me like I’m not even in the room.

What is this? How can he do this to me? How can he throw accusations at me so easily?

And why did Mira lie to make it worse?

The pain in my chest starts to harden, turning into shame and anger.

I want to defend myself, but I know that once I open my mouth, I will cry.

My tears are already clinging to my eyelashes. I can’t let them see this. Not wanting to be embarrassed any further, I make my way up the stairs and into the bedroom.

There, all the tears that have been knocking at the back of my head finally explode.

I start to cry. But even with the tears streaking down my cheeks, the pain isn’t gone. 

I just feel so… stupid.

All the effort I’ve put into this marriage, all the tears, all the suffering. The love and the care and the time I’ve dedicated to make it work. Nothing. It’s all for nothing.

Tristan’s eyes just couldn’t any of it. He couldn’t see me.

Not when Mira is still in his heart.

I’m about to go to the bathroom and wash my face when all of a sudden, the door flies open. 

Tristan marches inside, his footsteps heavy. His face is stone-cold, his eyes intense as he turns to me. Not even noting the tears in my eyes, he hisses, “Come back downstairs and apologize to Mira.”

“No,” I hiss through gritted teeth, bitterly wiping my tears. “Why would I apologize for something I didn’t do?”

The silence that follows is long and taut, charged with electricity. 

I make the mistake of looking up at Tristan, met with an emotion I never thought I would see on his face. 

Hatred.

When he speaks again, his voice is loud. Ripe with contempt, like this is something he’s been wanting to say for the longest time.

“If you didn’t steal Mira’s place and forced her to leave, Mira would’ve been my wife.”

My breath is knocked out of my lungs. His words are a punch to the gut.

“Now that she’s back, you do this,” he growls, stepping closer to me. “Now that she’s back in my life, you want to kick her right out again.”

There comes more tears. I open my mouth and close it again. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know where to begin. How can I defend myself from that? What can I possibly say that will make him believe?

“I never replaced Mira,” I whisper at last, my voice thin. “I… I love you.”

“Love me?” Tristan echoes, letting out a derisive laugh. “No, you love the money I give your father’s company. You love that you can take some of it yourself. Fuck, you quit your job as soon as we got married. You love what you can take from me. Stop this stupid act!”

But it’s true. I do love him. 

However, it’s also true that my family needed Tristan’s money.

“It’s not an act,” I appeal hopelessly, trying to take his hand. “Please don’t be like this, Tristan—”

“The only thing I came to you for is an apology for Mira,” he declares coldly, swatting my hand away. “And since you can’t give that to me, I’m leaving.”

With that, he turns around and heads to the door. His hand closes around the handle and is about to push his way through. 

But seeing him turn his back on me like that, after everything I told him, after all the things I showed him….

It broke something in me.

My last shred of hope.

My voice is trembling, but I speak anyway.

“I’m pregnant.”

Tristan’s body stiffens. He turns around slowly, deliberately, his face already dark with surprise. I thought for a moment that that would clear up, but I was wrong. Doubt starts to darken his features even more, clouding it up into an expression of coldness and mockery.

“Pregnant?” Tristan repeats. “I haven’t touched you since our wedding night. Now you resort to lying? This is how low you’re willing to go?”

My heart drops.

So he truly forgot that night two months ago. 

That night, I received a call from his assistant, saying that he was drunk.

“Call Elena,” Tristan was saying in the background. “I need her to take me home.”

It was the first time Tristan called for me or even looked for me. So I made my way to his office even though it was three in the morning, finding him almost passed out in the sofa.

After his assistant left, I tried to make him get up so we could go home. “Tristan, I’m here now. It’s time to go home.”

“Elena,” he whispered, lifting his head and looking at me. “You’re here.”

And before I could say anything, he pulled me into a kiss. I was shocked, but my feelings for him got the best of me. I ended up kissing him back. Only this time, he didn’t pull away. He didn’t stiffly tell me that this was just our duty. 

Instead, he pulled me onto the sofa and tore off my clothes.

Then he kissed me everywhere with the same fire. With the same tenderness. 

He made love to me.

After all that, Tristan passed out on the sofa. I had no choice but to leave, even though I wanted to be by his side. 

Tristan never mentioned it again. I thought that he was just embarrassed. I treated it like it was a little secret between us, but now I know that he had no memory of it at all.

Not only that, but he also thinks I’m lying about it.

The truth is so clear now—I never mattered to this man.

Mira’s gravity in his life is so severe, so strong that one throwaway word from her can cast me into hell. No matter what I do, no matter what good I show, I will always be the greedy little liar who stole his future away from him.

“Prove it to me,” Tristan goads me. “Tell me when I touched you. Because if you really are pregnant, then I’m pretty sure it’s not mine.”

Another wound. Another stab. 

But my heart is done bleeding out.

I lift my gaze at Tristan but my mouth is devoid of any explanation. 

I only have two words for him.

Two words that I tremble to say, not because of the numbness in my body, but because I never thought I would be the one to say them.

“Let’s divorce.”