Under the Mistletoe with my Ex's Brother

I'M NOT BARREN

Scarlet 

“It just happened, okay? I'm sorry but I'm pregnant for your husband,” Savannah, my stepsister muttered as she sniffed into my mother's shoulder, who rubbed her back soothingly while glaring at me.

A shudder went through my whole body as I watched them look at me like I was the one who had just destroyed their life.

The more I tried to tell myself it was just a dream, the more reality sank deep into my flesh. My own husband and sister. 

How?

I turned to Lucas, tears burning in the back of my eyes though they refused to fall.

“Say something,” my voice came out weaker than I intended. Pathetic. The same word they had used to describe me everyday because I had never bare a child for years. “Tell me this is all a misunderstanding and you would never betray me by sleeping with my own sis_sister. I swear I would–i would understand.”

But he just stared at me. No guilt. No sign of remorse. Just bland, like I had never meant anything to him. 

And it infuriated me. Oh it did. The anger burned in me like fire spreading in the dry season.

“Just let it go, Scarlet. She's your stepsister so what difference does it make?” My mother shouted at me while she still cradled Savannah like she was the one who just got her life ripped out of her hand. “You know Lucas has always belonged to her anyway. You only had him because she was out of the state.”

“Really? Out of the state?” I asked in disbelief before peering up to the roof. I sighed and looked back down, a tear finally finding its way down my cheek. “She stood him up at the altar, mother. She chose her fashion dream and then left him to face the embarrassment alone! And what happened next? He was met in an accident that almost made him cripple!” 

My mother opened her mouth to speak again but I continued before she could have the chance. “And who was there to care for him? Who dropped out of college to see to it that he got all the care he wanted and made sure he regained strength back to his leg?” I spat, my hand pointing angrily to my chest. They all stared at me in silence, though their guilt and anger directed at me still. “Where was Savannah then?”

“Enough!” Lucas suddenly growled standing up from his seat. I stared at him in shock, his larger build almost overshadowing my petite form. “I say enough. You knew everything beforehand before you gave yourself to me for marriage. You knew I was still madly in love with your sister but yet you dedicated your life to me. No one is to be blamed here except you.”

I jerked back as his confession hit me like a punch to the chest.

Six years! Six years I had burned myself for this family. Laid my life down. Laid all my desires and dreams just so I could earn a nickel of love from them! 

Six years of tears and loneliness even when I was married to one of the most reputable billionaire's in the state! Six years I had slaved myself for his love.

And what did I get?

A knife to my fucking back.

The anger burned in me so painfully, I didn't think before I raised my hand and backhanded right in the face. His face whipped to the side with so much force and I held a wince back and I felt the sharp sting that spread in my hand from the hit.

I heard my mother and my sister gasp, and before I knew it I felt someone hit my face back, the pain spreading fast in my cheek. I cradled the skin in my hand feeling the burn beneath my skin as I looked up to see my mother staring down at me with the most disgusting and hateful look I had ever seen on anyone.

I was taken aback by it.

“How dare you? How dare you lay your hand on your husband?” She spat at me, her eyes growing fiercer and fiercer by the second. “What would you have made him do? Your sister gave him what you never could!”

Her words sliced through my heart, hitting the deepest part I never thought existed. I looked behind her to see my father nodding his head, agreeing to what she had just said. He had been silent ever since I caught them discussing my Savannah's pregnancy. It was like he didn't even want to waste his time with me. This was the last place he wanted to be in.

I turned back to my mother with eyes full of pain and regret. “ You should be siding with me. I'm the one who you carried for nine months, not her, mother,” I said, my voice low as a whisper.

“No daughter of mine is barren!” Her voice rose with unimaginable malice, as she stepped closer to me, her eyes dark with bitterness pointed at nine other than me. “You've always been a failure. A failure at every single thing! A failure who tried to steal everything that belonged to her poor little sister!”

A choking sound left my lip as my tears fell relentlessly down my face. I heard Savannah sobbed in the background, but her reasons were far from her feeling pity for me.

“Six years he married you, Six years you gave him nothing but useless hope for a proper family. You should be grateful he stuck with you all those times. You should be grateful to your sister for bringing happiness into his life. You are nothing but a bar—” she had begun to say but Lucas suddenly stopped her with his hand on her shoulder.

She looked at him with pity and adoration before looking back at me with a glare and then returned to go sit back with Savannah who had her hands placed tenderly on her barely there stomach.

My body was full of trembling now, a deep sense of dread and hopelessness seeping deep into my bones. But as I stared up at my husband, his eyes were surprisingly soft, unlike the indifferent look he wore earlier– I had begun to hope that maybe he had realized he had gone too far. That I didn't deserve their ill treatment.

Until he spoke.

“I love Savannah. I've always loved her. And while you were undeniably helpful to me, she at least could give me a family. You're defective, scarlet.”

Defective.

The word rang in my skull painfully and I tugged at my purse strap, the pregnancy test in it now seemingly useless. 

I looked at each of them in turn. My mother's cold satisfaction, my father's dismissive nod, Savannah's subtle triumphant smile, and my husband's indifference.

It was all damning evidence of my worthlessness to the family.

It was suddenly eerily calm like they had said their peace and I was just expected to move on from it. Accept my misfortune and continue the circle of my servitude to them. 

Because that's what I would have done. Keep quiet while they lay down rules and in return, I follow them.

But not this time. Not when he had taken it too far by betraying me in the worst possible way. 

It should have been anybody but my own stepsister. The same one who had once rejected him. 

No… not when there was a child currently growing in me. The little one deserved better than a family who would always consider him the second best. Who wouldn't hesitate before casting him aside if it meant saving themselves.

“I want a divorce,” I blurted out and they immediately shot up with eyes wide open.

For a moment, none of them said anything. It felt like the silence was zapping with an invisible electric.

And then someone burst into a loud laughter. My eyes shot to the source. It was Lucas.

“You can't possibly mean that,” he said, still coughing with laughter.

“I've never been more serious. I mean it,” I said simply, turning to look at every one of them.

“Oh stop being dramatic. We all know you could never have the courage to leave your husband,” it was my mother this time, her eyes glaring at me. “Besides where would you go? You wouldn't survive a day without us, not to talk of a whole year. You have no friends, remember?”

I sighed. “I don't need your support. I'll survive just well without any of you.”

“Quit the drama!” my father's voice thundered. He was speaking for the first time since I came in the front door. “You'll not divorce Lucas. Do you even think of what people would say? The damage this would bring to our reputation?”

I chuckled low and bitter under my breath, the sound scraping my throat painfully sore as I tried to stop the tears from flowing. “You should have thought of that when you encouraged her to go to bed with my husband.”

“Scarlet,” Savannah called out softly and I stared down to look at her. Even in tears, she still looked beautiful. Her skin shining like white porcelain. 

Well what do you expect from someone as sheltered as she is?, A voice spoke in my head.

“You don't have to do this. I really didn't mean to destroy your marriage,” she began to say, her voice falsefully innocent. “If there's anyone who should leave, it should be me. I'm the one who doesn't belong here.”

I watched my mother immediately drag her to her, wrapping her hands around her shoulder. “

“Don't ever say that,” she spat. “You're not going anywhere here,” she said and then turned to me, her eyes hostile. “If she insists on leaving then let her go. She'll be back by the next morning, I'll tell you.”

I ignored her and then turned to Lucas. “I'll send my lawyer to communicate with you about the procedures for the divorce,” I said and looked away from him and then turned my back against them before walking out of the house without another word.

With blurry teary eyes and a hand placed on my belly, I stepped into the cold air, my hair blowing past my shoulders, and then bam, my body collided with a solid.

But when I rubbed my head and looked up, it wasn't a wall that was in front of me, but instead my brooding brother-in-law, also known as the real heir of the Cole's Empire and the black sheep of the family, stared down at me with his usual dark vacant eyes.

Damian Cole.