Chapter 9004
Chapter 0039
KIAN’S POV
The ride home that night was just as suffocating as the ride to the plaza earlier that evening. Only this time, it wasn’t because of Beverly’s never ending talks In fact, she barely said a word during the ride, didn’t even complain about how I almost left the gala without her because I was too preoccupied by my own desire to get the fuck out of there.
The cause of the suffocation was the simmering feelings inside of me, begging to boil over. Begging to be let out so that I could breathe. Begging to do something about the exchange at the gala that kept replaying in my head like a broken record.
I managed to get home without spilling those feelings over and I couldn’t care less about Beverly, if she followed me into the house or not. Didn’t even pay my mother any regard and just walked past her when she stood to welcome me.
“Did something happen?” I heard her ask as I went straight for my room. I knew she was asking Beverly and didn’t even care to hear Beverly’s response or the rest of their conversation. I locked my door behind
- me.
Then I went into a fit of rage for the first five minutes of being in there, breaking and tearing down everything I could lay my hands on. The more I remembered the way Leslie looked at me at the gala, the crazier I got. The more I think about how I, Kian Winston was backed into a corner, the more I wanted to drive myself off the edge of a fucking cliff.
The humiliation. The disrespect. The total bruise on my ego. All of that drove me fucking insane but they were nothing next to this pain behind my ribcage as I realized that nothing pained me more than Leslie casually handing me that divorce paper.
Nothing hurt more than seeing eyes that used to look at me like I was the center of her world, now looking at me like I don’t even deserve to be the crust of the earth that people step on.
I’ve been in my room for over an hour since then and the only reason for my calmness after breaking apart everything in my room is the shirt I am now holding in my hands as I sit at the edge of my bed. It’s the shirt Leslie got for me but never got to give me. It fell out of the closest during my rampage earlier and I picked it up.
I trace my fingers over the delicately done embroidery of my initials, on the stitches of the shirt that are like nothing I have ever seen. It’s like a whole new invention and I search the shirt for a label to get its brand name but I don’t find any.
The design also seems eerily familiar and it takes only a few seconds for me to find it in
my memory. The design belongs to Leslie. She designed the shirt herself. Fuck, how…how did I ever forget Leslie’s love for design?
In her first four years as my secretary, she was always scribbling away on a notepad whenever she had time on her hands. Although I was curious about the habit, I never bothered to ask.
Then we got married and I discovered she was always crafting out new cloth designs on those notepads. They were exceptional but I despised her too much to compliment them.
Even turned her down whenever she tried to show them to me. Most times, I caught her staring longingly
+25 BONUS
Chapter 0039
at the design team whenever we made rounds together around the company.
She was doing a good job as a secretary and I was paying her well, plus she was the wife of the company’s CEO, why the hell would she want more? That was always what I thought.
Oh, how stupid of me.
It all makes sense now. She finally gets to live her dream that I disregarded and looked down on. I can’t help but feel like all this while, I was the one who tied her down. I almost laugh at myself as that thought crosses my mind. I have always thought of her as the one who was tying me down.
Unable to keep wallowing in my misery, I tuck the shirt back into the closet. I make myself feel slightly better with the thought that this is her first design brought to life and she gifts it to me.
I then move to my study to bury myself in all the work have avoided as I need the distraction badly. I barely turn on my computer when my fax machine makes a sound for an incoming fax message.
I take out the paper and frown at the familiar printed document with both mine and Leslie’s signature on it. She faxed me the signed divorce settlement? My insides start to boil again. I couldn’t even be dignified with the document being mailed directly, she couldn’t even go through that trouble and just faxed it to me?
The hollow in my heart left by loss becomes even bigger as it fully dawns on me that we are really over.
