Chapter 20
Chapter 20
Colette’s steps faltered as she suddenly stopped walking, Incing Man to halt as well. He was still holding her hand, his grip tight at he framed the might slip away if he let go. She glanced down at his fingers wrapped around her arm, and with a sharp tag, she yanked herself free, the motion filled with a mixtuir of pain and fury,
“I no longer care if you go to freaking Queensland or not,” she spat, her voice taking under the weight of her emotions. “I am done! I am BONE with this?” Het voetose, trembling with the intensity of her feelings. “Over and then again, you do this to mir, and I keep letting you!” Trans welled up in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “Te starting to hate myself, Matt! Not Just pot Go to Queensland, p
ame, go to hell for all Just don’t involve me in this!”
She turned away from him, her pace quickewing as she tried to put as much distance between the exertion, bit from the sheer emotional exhaustion that threatened to swallow her whole.
as possible, Bet her heat was pouoding, not just from
But Matt wasn’t trady to let her go. He caught up with her again, his despension evident in the way he reached cat, trying to grab hold of something, anything, to stop het from leaving. “Hty, please. 1 already promised Tanny l’il be there for his birthulay, and I can’t show up there alone,”
Colette shook her head, her resolve hardening. She wasn’t going in fall for the emotional manipulation this time. She muddet allow herself to be dragged: back into the same cycle of pain and betrayal. All she wanted was for him to shut up, to leave her also. Hut then, a click thought comised her mind -a way to turn the tables, to make him feel the same tomment she was rushing.
“Tell me then,” she demanded, bet vaice icy, “why was Iris in your car?” She was fully equiped foe Matt to either lack off or to come not swinging in Iris’s
But what she wasn’t prepared for was the truth
“Because I took her to dinner last night,” Matt admitted, his voice strady, but lared with argnet
Colette’s heart shattered into a million pieces, the pain so intense that it left her breathless, but when she thought she was beyond being hurt by him, be found a way to cut her even deeper. All these montba he had pretended that there was nothing between the but business, and now he had the audacity to admit that he had taken her to dinner.
She picked up her pace, her legs moving faster as if she could run the hearthteak that was suffocating her.
“Wait, Colette, please?” Matt’s voice was desperate, echoing in the empty street as he chased after her, “1 thought it was a treessary step before I asked her she would like to take another position in my company owns
Colette Troe, het breath catching in her throat as Matt’s words sank in. He had gone to send Iran away, but if he had really gutten rid of fris then he would have lead the comeration with that!
“When is she leaving then?” she demanded, her voice trembling with the effort to keep
her emotions in check
Matt hesitated, his eyes flickering with a shadow of regret before he answered. “She isn’t.”
Colette’s heart plummeted. She upened her mouth to protest, but Matt continued, speaking over her desperate attempts to make sense of what he was saying “Look, she couldn’t leave the country. Her mother is sick, apparently. But when I asked her, she was ready to resign and leave the company for my sake. She said she would get a job chewhere, ready to utile a resignation letter tomorrow. If it helped me une my marriage.”
“And it made me realize,” Matt continued, his tone somther, “that I was being so selfish and unfair to her. I can’t Ere someone because–because my wife doesn’t like her!”
He finished speaking, but his words echoed in the silence between them. Colette felt like the ground had been ripped out from under her. see it? How could be not understand how deeply his had played him?
How could he nut
God, how stupid can a man really be? she thought bitterly. Matt, the smartest mum she knese, couldn’t see the manipulation staring him right in the face. He had gone there to send her away, but instead, tris had twisted everything, making him feel guilty, making him believe that he was the one in the wrong–just like his “stupid” wife. Amazing!
Colette’s voice trembled as she spoke, her emotions teetering on the edge of despair and rage. “Will you tell me something, Matt?” she asked, trying to keep her voice strady. “How’s her cologne still smelling up the rat if she was there last night?”
Matt met het
his expression blank for a moment before he responded, “She accidentally dropped the battle on the car floor, smelling up the whole car I tried to wash it off this morning, knowing how you would feel about it. But I guess it didn’t work.” He sighed, a tired, resigned sound that only added fuel to the fire burning inside her.
Colette’s heart pounded in her chest as she processed his words. Itis, dropping a $1000 bottle of perfume by accident? It made no sense. But as the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together, a cold realization settled over her. This wasn’t an accident–it was a calculated move.
1/2
irin, her mind taring
itt,” she began slash,
dripping with suspicion, “when did she drop
changed in an instant. The sight widening of his eyes the tightening of his jaw–she didn’t need him to answer. She already knew the truth, Iris sement, and be Nacht ne milon it. The woman had found out that Colette was going with Matt, and she had made ker spent, a rymbol of her presence, as if to remind Colette that she was there first and that she would always be there.
fram. Colette’s throat, though it held no busoc. it was the lap of Karos
trached the breaking print “Of course.” e whispered, more to herself the
silence was deafening.
I seen too much, who had been hurt too
“Of course, she did”
didn’t try to deny it, didn’t even attempt to make excures. And that silence spoke volumes–he knew she was right, but he
the was trying to sabotage what little they had left
Colette’s chest tightened, painful knot of anger, butt, and helplessness forming within her had set the stage for yet another fight, another rift between
To what end? To cause another fight so that Colette refused to go with him to Queensland!
