My Husband’s Double Love for Me and My Best Friend
Chapter 02
Back at the Malibu house, I pushed the door open and froze once more.
Where our wedding photos should have hung, there were now pictures of Sebastian and Chloe together.
My painting at the stairwell had also been replaced with hers.
My fists clenched, nails biting deep into my palms. I walked upstairs and shoved the master bedroom door open.
The room was in chaos-lingerie piled on the floor, a crumpled tissue on the bedside table. What an invasion.
A sound came from outside the door. Chloe walked up the stairs, hands tucked into her pockets, leaning against the
doorframe.
She gave me a provocative smile:
“How do you feel seeing this, Lena, she said.”
“Furlous, aren’t you? Want to kill me, don’t you?”
She took a step closer, then another, stopping right before me. A cold laugh escaped her.
“I deliberately stole him from the start, she said. But you can’t blame me-who told him he was so easy to tempt?”
“Oh, and did you know, she added. He says I’m irresistible to him, even more charming than you during pregn@ncy!”
I struck her cheek sharply, snarling:
“Wasn’t I good to you?” I shouted, the words tearing from my throat. “Who paid your tuition when you had nothing?
Who stood between you and your father’s fists?”
‘Is this how you repay me, I said. Stealing my lover and bragging about it-you have no shame!”
I stared at her face, memories flooding back.
At sixteen, I’d met her selling paintings at a street stall and insisted my father fund her education.
At seventeen, when her drunk, gambling father came at her with a belt, I was the one who pulled her away I was the
one who paid a hundred grand to sever her from that life for good.
At eighteen. I’d been offered a spot at USC for my exceptional painting talent-the only condition I’d asked for was a
place for her too.
What had she said to me back then-“I’ll be good to you forever, Lena. If I were a man, I’d marry you!”
She’d been introverted and quiet, and I’d been like the sun breaking into her world.
When Sebastian and I first got together, she’d even grabbed my arm angrily and said: “If he ever hurts you. I’ll beat him
up!”
And now? She’d stolen the love of my life and trampled on the one person who’d ever truly seen her.
She held her reddening cheek, continuing to ramble:
“I’ve always been jealous of you, she said. I hate you, do you understand?”
“I hated your perfect life, your effortless superiority.” she spat. “I wanted to take it. All of it.”
I slapped her again.
As I raised my hand a third time, someone grabbed my wrist tightly and shoved me away.
Sebastian rushed over in a panic, his face livid when he saw me.
“Lena!” he roared. “Chloe came here because she was worried about you! She wanted to apologize!”
“All you know how to do is bully people with your privilege!”
Each accusation crushed my heart all over again.
Chloe curled into his arms, sobbing softly:
“I couldn’t help falling for you, she said. Lena’s right to hit me!”
“Please, don’t fight,” she begged, clinging to him. “If you need to hate someone, hate me. Punish me.”
I stared at her with cold eyes, and she gave me a subtle victorious smile.
The room fell silent-no one spoke another word.
I realized the Sebastian in front of me was nothing like the man I’d known.
We’d been inseparable since the cradle. When his parents were too busy with their empire, it was me who showed up at the Montgomery mansion, badgering the staff about his meals, his clothes.
He’d been good to me too.
In high school, my favorite place was a bakery downtown-he’d wake up at 5 a.m. every day to buy me pastries.
During college, when we were in different cities, he’d take a six-hour bus ride just to see me….
Now it was all over.
Ding.
A message popped up on my phone: “Ms. Lena, your passport is ready. We look forward to welcoming you to Paris for
advanced studies in one month.”