The Fake Marriage, the Real Mistress, and the Baby He Wants Me to Abort Chapter 7
I walked into the terminal without looking back. Behind me, Chloe started screaming.
“You actually hit me?!”
“Who the hell do you think you are?!”
“What, just because you helped me once, I’m supposed to bow and scrape for the rest of my life? Be your little charity case forever?!”
“Yeah, you got me out of that town – but everything after that? I built that myself!”
“We came from the same place! So why do you get the better life – just because your mom spread her legs for the right man?!”
“I don’t owe you!”
“I don’t owe you a goddamn thing!”
Her voice bounced off every wall in the terminal. I didn’t slow down. If anything, I walked faster.
Then the screaming changed – no longer rage. Terror.
“Julian – what are you doing?!”
“Put the knife down!”
The crowd broke into chaos behind me. I turned. Julian stood in the middle of the terminal with a knife in his hand.
“Claire is this what you want? You blame me for your ear?”
“Fine. I’ll give it back to you. Will you forgive me then?”
His eyes were wild – beyond reason, beyond pain. He dragged the blade across his left ear in one jagged stroke. Blood ran down his jaw, his neck, soaking into his collar. He didn’t flinch.
“Julian, stop – put it down!”
Chloe was backing away from him, one step at a time, hands raised like she didn’t know him anymore.
He didn’t look at her. His eyes hadn’t left me.
“Claire if I cut it off, if I give you mine instead will that make us even?”
–
I said nothing. I gave him nothing. Julian’s skin went gray. The knife pressed deeper.
Blood sheeted down the side of his face, but his eyes stayed locked on mine. After a few seconds, his hand went still.
Claire, do you really feel nothing anymore?”
“Not even a little? Watching this doesn’t hurt at all?”
“You used to fall apart if I got a paper cut.”
“And even if I’m the villain here – you’re not innocent either!”
Something shifted behind his eyes – his desperation curdling into rage. He threw the knife down. When he
spoke again, every word was a weapon.
“You came after me first. You’re the one who started this.”
“I gave you half a decade. Yes, I lied – but I gave things up too, didn’t I?”
“If you’d told me the truth sooner, none of this would’ve happened!”
His jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle jump. His voice dropped to something low and dangerous.
“Go ahead and run, Claire. But your mother stays.”
“She’s my father’s mistress – where exactly does she think she can hide?”
“Come back, Claire. Let’s sit down and fix this.”
“I’ll divorce Chloe. I’ll marry you for real this time.”
“We’ll go back to the way things were. No more Chloe. No one else. Just us.”
He was screaming all of it in the middle of the airport – hundreds of people frozen around him. Chloe
lunged forward, clutching his arm, her voice cracking.
“Julian divorce? What are you talking about?”
“I’m pregnant! I’m carrying your baby!”
Julian’s face twisted with irritation. He shoved her off. Chloe stumbled backward, her heel caught the slick patch of blood on the floor, and she went down hard.
“No –
“Oh God, it hurts -”
“My stomach – something’s wrong