جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 478

ALISTAIR'S POV: ​"Why are you getting so angry?" he asked, his tone light and full of easy amusement. "I thought you couldn't wait to OPEN up your life." ​The words hit me like a physical slap across the mouth. ​"Not her!" I shouted, my voice rising to a roar. The loud sound echoed off the high walls, raw, harsh, and desperate. Then the sickening realization crashed over me like a cold wave. "Wait a second. Did you suggest an open marriage to me because you had already thought about doing this with her? The very moment you got the chance, you went right after her. You're that desperate—" ​"Don't insult her." His tone suddenly turned dead serious. All the casual amusement instantly drained from his face, replaced by something dark, icy, and sharp as steel. His eyes narrowed into slits, his jaw tightened, and for the very first time since I'd known him, I saw something genuinely dangerous lurking in his expression. "I won't say it twice." ​I should have rejected his warning wit

ALISTAIR'S POV:​"Baby, please, just calm down for a second and listen to what he has to say, okay?" Vesper begged, grabbing onto my forearm with both hands. She was squeezing my arm so hard that I could feel her long nails digging straight into my skin, leaving tiny crescents of sharp pain behind.​Why was she so terribly scared? Why would a simple argument make her panic like this? Did being pregnant really turn a woman into such a nervous wreck? I had heard people say before that women became far more fragile and sensitive when they were expecting a baby, much more prone to sudden tears, random worries, and irrational fears. Maybe that was all this was. Maybe her body was just completely overwhelmed by the whole situation. Or maybe there was something else going on under the surface, something important she was keeping to herself and refusing to tell me.​"Stop arguing in front of me and just go outside," Marl said, waving his hand toward the hallway like he was shooing away a both

MARL'S POV:​Alistair's face was like a constantly shifting paint palette.​Angry red. Fearful white. The deep purple-black of a man who realized he was being threatened and couldn't do a single thing about it. Looking at him right then, I couldn't help wanting to take a quick photo of his pathetic expression. And I did not just think about doing it. I actually raised my hand and did it.​My phone was already in my hand before I even had time to stop myself. The shutter click was soft, barely audible, but in the tense, dead silence of the closed room, it sounded almost like a loud gunshot. The glowing screen showed the freshly captured image, Alistair's face frozen in a moment of pure, unadulterated panic.​"What do you think you are doing!" Alistair's head snapped directly toward me, his eyes wide with pure outrage.​He looked like he wanted to jump across the floor, grab me firmly by the collar, and rip the phone out of my hands. But then he seemed to think better of it. His hands c

MARL'S POV:​"I know you have never felt a single second of regret for what you have done to her," I said smoothly. "If you can keep that up until the end, you win. The very second you admit you regret what you did, you lose."​Alistair suddenly let out a sharp laugh. The sound was hollow, fake, and forced, the nervous laugh of a desperate man who was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince me.​"Is this ridiculous game just your lousiest excuse to try and steal her away from me?" he sneered, tossing his head back. "It won't work, Marl. Other men have tried to come into her life before, but Mary loves only me. She always has, and she always will. You can't change that."​I looked at him with an expression that was almost pitiful. What a total liar. He had told himself that comfortable lie for so long that he had actually managed to fool himself into believing it was the gospel truth.​I knew Alistair had to think I had completely lost my mind to propose su