324 Nights. Not One Was Mine Chapter 03
I forced my head up and looked at the crowd in the doorway.
“You’re taking their word for it? Just like that?”
“Then why doesn’t anyone ask why that supplementary card was in *his* possession? Why he had a divorce agreement drafted and printed and ready to go?”
The murmuring in the doorway paused, just for a moment.
But Ethan stepped in smoothly, sighing.
“Neighbors, I’m sorry you have to see this.”
“I really didn’t want any of this getting out. Yes, I borrowed the card a few times—but I never bothered checking the statements. Who could’ve imagined she’d use it for something like this?”
Every word airtight.
He admitted the card had passed through his hands, and in the same breath washed himself clean.
The people outside bought it, most of them.
“Ah, so that’s how it went.”
“A man wouldn’t think to check up on his own wife.”
“This woman’s a real piece of work.”
I was shaking with rage. Before I could speak, Margaret grabbed the wine glass off the table and hurled its contents into my face.
“Still trying to talk your way out of it?!”
The cold wine ran down my cheeks.
Before I could catch my breath, Chloe kicked me hard in the back of the knee.
I went down—hard. My knees cracked against the floor and pain drained the color from my face.
A ripple went through the doorway.
Not one person stepped forward.
Someone muttered, “Would it really kill her to just apologize? Why drag this out?”
I braced my hands to push myself up, but Chloe pressed down on my shoulder.
“Stay down!”
“You love your pretty face so much—well, let the whole building see just how much that face is worth now!”
Chloe grabbed the compensation waiver and shoved it in front of me.
“Sign!”
“One million. Not a penny less!”
I gritted my teeth.
“I don’t accept this.”
Margaret grabbed my hair and forced my head up, making me face the crowd at the door.
“Look at her! Still won’t admit it!”
“A woman like this—if you don’t teach her a lesson, she’ll never learn what shame is!”
Voices from the crowd picked it up.
“Apologize in public!”
“Apologize to Margaret! Apologize to Ethan!”
“Woman like that deserves to be taught a lesson!”
Listening to it all, I almost wanted to laugh.
The same people who smiled and greeted me every day in the elevator, in the parking lot.
The instant they heard I’d “cheated,” they were tripping over themselves to grind their heel into my face.
I lifted my head and looked at Ethan. My voice was cold.
“You really think if you just crush me tonight, all of this goes away?”
“That baby in Lindsay’s belly—when exactly were you planning on bringing it home?”
The words dropped into the room like a stone into still water.
Everything froze.
Then something dark flashed through Ethan’s eyes. He crossed to me in two strides and clamped his hand around my jaw.
“Evelyn, say one more word. I dare you.”
His fingers dug in like he wanted to grind my bones to dust. Pain blurred my vision, but I still smiled up at him.
“What—afraid to let them hear the rest?”
“Afraid they’ll find out the one who cheated was never me. It was you—”
The slap came before I finished.
My head snapped to the side. My lip split. Blood dripped onto my white blouse and mixed with the wine stains.
Even the neighbors in the doorway froze for a beat.
But Margaret snapped into action, wailing louder than before.
“Look at what you’ve driven my son to!”
“He loves you so much, and *you* pushed him to this!”
“Why don’t you just go die?!”
The words drove into my chest like a needle of ice.
Before time rewound, on the night I put the gun in my mouth, that was the last thing she’d said to me on the phone.
Word for word.
I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, only cold remained.
“Don’t worry.”
“This time, the one who dies won’t be me.”
“You will.”
—