Secretly Married To My Neighbor {06}

"How could you do this, Penny?" My mother hisses through her sobs, the sound raw and broken, each gasp like a physical blow. Gayle stands beside her, aggressively wiping at her own face, her movements sharp with anger and disbelief. Carlos holds her from behind, his grip tight as if he’s the only thing keeping her upright. My father lies in a coma. Zayne’s legs are shattered. The doctors say it will take a miracle for him to ever walk again. All because of a crash on the way back from the airport, a stupid accident that shouldn’t have happened. I’ve never felt more horrible in my life, a hollow, nauseous pit where my heart should be.

Paul is driving us to the hotel, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his face a mask of stern concentration as he talks low and fast into his phone. He’s arranging everything—doctors, private rooms for my mother and sister to stay overnight, specialists flying in. The efficiency of it should be comforting, but it just makes me feel worse. I am paralyzed. I saw them all just a few hours ago, laughing and waving as Paul led me away. Now I can’t even summon the courage to walk into that hospital. The thought of seeing my father motionless, of seeing Zayne’s broken body, makes my stomach lurch. I press my forehead against the cool window, trying to breathe.

The car stops under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hotel’s covered entrance. Paul is out first, moving with that purposeful grace he always has. He opens my door and helps me out. My legs feel like they’re made of water. He pulls me close to his side, his arm a solid bar across my back, and ducks his head to my ear. "It’ll be okay. Just stay calm, baby," he whispers, his breath warm against my skin. The words are a bandage on a gushing wound. They soothe the very surface of my nerves but do nothing for the panic screaming beneath. What if my father dies? What if I never get to hear his voice again? What if Zayne wakes up and looks at me with nothing but hate? I can’t breathe.

Paul’s grip on me loosens, shifts into something more deliberately careful, almost fatherly, as my mother and sister get out of the car. He is putting on a performance for them, the concerned family friend, the steady rock. My sister is already digging through Zayne’s belongings from the wreckage, her hands shaking as she plugs his cracked phone into a portable power bank. She’s desperate for answers, for something to make sense of the senseless. I know what she’s looking for. A reason. A blame. I feel numb, detached, like I’m watching a terrible movie about someone else’s life.

The elevator ride to our floor is silent except for the mechanical hum. The air is thick with grief and accusation. I stare at my own reflection in the polished brass doors, seeing a ghost. Just as we step into the plush, silent hallway, a sharp buzz cuts through the quiet. Zayne’s phone, now cradled in Gayle’s hand, glows to life. She looks down at the screen and her whole body jolts as if she’s been electrocuted. Her face pales, her eyes widening in pure shock. I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to know.

With Paul’s hand still a steady, heavy pressure on the small of my back, he uses my mother’s key card to open the suite door. The room is spacious, impersonal, a stark contrast to the chaos inside us.

"So it’s you!" Gayle screams, her voice a jagged shard of sound. She thrusts the phone toward my mother like it’s a poisonous thing.

Paul turns. He isn’t visibly shocked. He is calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that comes from having calculated every possible outcome.

My mother takes the phone. Her hands tremble so violently the device slips through her fingers and clatters onto the marble floor. Her own hand flies to her mouth, stifling a choked cry that is part horror, part devastation.

"Mom, what’s going on?" I pull away from Paul’s touch, the connection suddenly feeling toxic.

"Don’t act surprised, Penny!" Gayle snarls, her face twisting with a disgust so visceral it makes me step back. "You’ve been sleeping with this man? Penny, have you gone completely nuts?"

"What?" The word is a breathless puff of air. I walk over, my movements slow and heavy, and pick up the phone from where it lies near my mother’s feet. The screen is a mosaic of my ruin. They weren’t supposed to find out this way. Not like this.

It’s all there. A grainy paparazzi shot of Paul leading me into a hotel, his hand possessive on my waist. A more intimate, startlingly clear photo from the jet—me asleep, my head on his bare chest, his face completely unconcealed, looking down at me with an expression that leaves nothing to the imagination. A scanned image of our wedding certificate, the official seal a blatant stamp of our secret. And then the texts. The final, damning one.

[I’m happily married, Zayne. I’m sorry but whatever plans my parents have for both of us? That ship already sailed, Prick.]

The language is all wrong. It doesn’t sound like me. The cruelty of it, the casual dismissal, it’s a caricature of my voice. A cold certainty begins to drip down my spine. I slowly turn to look at Paul.

Just as I do, my mother pushes past me. The sound is crisp, shocking in the quiet room. Her palm connects with his cheek in a hard, furious slap.

"So you’ve been fucking my daughter, huh?" she hisses, her voice trembling with rage. "What did you do to her, Macaulay? What did you do?"

"We’re married." He says it firmly, steadily. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move to block her as her hand flies out again, connecting with the other side of his face. The red imprint of her fingers blooms on his skin.

"Can you listen to yourself?" she screams, the sound tearing from her throat. "You’re married to a twenty-year-old? A twenty-year-old!"

"He’s literally twenty-six years older than you, Penny," Gayle says, her voice cold and cutting, doing the math for everyone in the room. "He’s old enough to be your father. You gave yourself to him?"

"It isn’t that way…" The protest is weak, automatic. "We didn’t do anything until we got married, I swear it."

"And you think that makes it okay?" Gayle fires back, stepping closer. "You marry a man just to have sex without the pressure of sinning? Is that it? Is that what this is?"

"I love him!" The declaration bursts out of me, desperate and true. "I didn’t marry him for sex. And I didn’t send this text to Zayne."

"Then who did, Paul?" My mother’s gaze bores into him, a demand for truth.

"No, he didn’t…" My voice trails off as the pieces click into place with a sickening finality. I remember now. My phone was ringing, buzzing insistently on the nightstand after the jet, when I was lost in a haze of shock and pleasure. He was the one who picked it up. He was with my phone the whole time. I turn to him fully now, my resolve crumbling as I watch him stand there, willingly taking my mother’s slaps, his expression unreadable but his eyes fixed on me.

"Did you groom her?" My mother’s voice breaks. "Rape her? How hard did you have to manipulate my daughter to get her to consent to that… that horrible piece of paper?"

"Paul, you should leave," I say, the words coming out as a squeak, barely audible. "Please. Just leave."

For the first time, I see a crack in his armor. He looks shocked. Betrayed. As if I’ve just driven a knife deep into his chest. He moves toward me, ignoring the women in the room, and takes my hand in both of his. His palms are warm, familiar. "Isn’t this what you wanted?" he asks, his voice low, urgent, for my ears only. "For them to know? To finally be out in the open?"

"Not in this way, Paul!" I jerk my hand back, the contact suddenly burning. "My dad and Zayne are in the bloody hospital! This isn’t some strategic reveal, this is a nightmare!"

"Penny, it was an accident," he insists, his tone hardening slightly. "Zayne could have been more careful on that road—"

"You sent those texts, didn’t you?" I move away from him slowly, putting space between us as more hot tears pour down my face. "Don’t lie to me. Not now."

He is silent for a beat too long. The air leaves the room. "I saw that he was asking for your nudes," he finally admits, the words gritted out. "I just… I got so angry. The thought of you sending him anything, after everything we are…"

"You don’t even trust me," I whisper, the realization a deeper, more intimate wound than any slap. This wasn’t just about protecting our secret. It was about jealousy, about control. He impersonated me. He poured gasoline on a situation that was already a five-alarm fire.

"You have a boyfriend while being married to me," he counters, as if that justifies it all.

I nod, finally, the motion feeling like the shattering of my own fantasy. My sister is right. My mother is right. In their eyes, and maybe in reality, we did just get married for the sex. To legitimize a desire that felt too big and too wrong to contain. But this—the manipulation, the secret war he was waging on my phone, the catastrophic timing—this isn’t how marriage is meant to be. This is a horrible, twisted version of it.

I wrap my arms around myself, feeling very small and very, very young. "You should go, Paul. I’ll send my attorney to deliver the divorce papers. It’s best if we sign them now, while we’re still in Vegas."