1 Seven years with Alan ended when he said he had a low sex drive. Before each time we were intimate, I would brew him a special herbal tonic. He drank it without refusing and even saw specialists. Then one day, as I entered with the steaming mug, I heard him scoff, "Are you really that desperate for a man?" A woman’s laugh came from his phone. She said, "Alan does not have a low sex drive. He was with me all afternoon. He just pictures you from high school, stripped bare on that bathroom floor, and it kills his mood." Alan chuckled and pulled me close, telling me not to listen. But on the FaceTime screen, I saw her face—the same girl who had humiliated me years ago. Blind with rage, I grabbed the scalding tonic and forced it down his throat. … Alan choked, his face turning an angry shade of crimson as he clutched his chest. He glared at me, his voice a furious roar. "Rowan, are you insane? I told you she was joking. Can you not understand English?" The ceramic mug shattered at my feet. Sharp fragments nicked my ankles, leaving trails of red. I forced the corners of my mouth up into a twisted smile. "I am joking too. Is it funny?" His expression faltered. From the phone on the bed, the woman's giggles continued. "Relax, Rowan. I just want his body, not his heart." "He literally did not want to pull out of me earlier. I was the one who had to convince him to go home to you. Besides, this kind of thing is only fun when both people want it. No one likes a desperate girl forcing herself on a guy. Did those girls in high school not teach you your place?" Memories I had spent years burying clawed their way back to the surface. I lunged at the bed like a madwoman and ended the call. Looking at the mess on the floor, Alan picked up his phone, his eyes freezing over. "Are you done throwing a tantrum?" "If I knew you were this unhinged, I never would have saved you back then. You deserved to be stripped." The moment the words left his mouth, a flicker of regret crossed his eyes. Not regret for cheating on me. Regret for getting involved in my mess back in high school and letting me attach myself to him. Right before our final exams, because I had beaten Sloane for the valedictorian spot, her little group of mean girls cornered me in the locker room. They tore my clothes off and threatened to take photos. In my most desperate, humiliating moment, Alan appeared like a savior. He chased them off and promised he would never tell a soul. I could still vividly remember the shy flush on his cheeks as he kept his eyes squeezed shut and wrapped his varsity jacket tightly around my trembling shoulders. He was the one who pulled me out of the darkness back then. And now, because of Sloane, he was shoving me right back into the abyss. Tears blurred my vision. I wiped them away frantically, my eyes red and burning as I stared him down. "Do you even know who she is?" He frowned, reaching out to wipe a tear from my cheek. "I know." "But Sloane told me she was just young and stupid back then. She knows she was wrong. She wanted to make it up to you, but she knew seeing her would only trigger you. So when she found out we were having bedroom issues, she decided to make it up to me instead." A sickening look of reminiscence washed over his face. "She is a true trust-fund girl, Rowan. Her skin is so soft it bruises if you just grip it. Being with her... that is the first time I actually felt like a real man." "Today in the parking garage, she was straddling me, begging me to tell her who made me feel better. Ro, do you honestly think there is a comparison?" His face was plastered with absolute infatuation for Sloane. He looked nothing like the boy who had once held me, his own eyes red with sympathetic tears, swearing he would protect me and make Sloane pay for what she did. I lost whatever control I had left. I grabbed his shirt collar, shaking him. "Alan, what gives you the right to forgive her for me? What gives you the right..." He swatted my hands away. My interrogation was clearly starting to annoy him. "Ro, it has been years. Do you really need to hold onto a grudge for this long?" "Besides, Sloane knows she messed up. If it is really that big of a deal, I will have her apologize to you in person." One flimsy apology. That was his solution to erase years of my trauma. A wave of pure nausea hit me. I sprinted to the master bathroom and dry heaved over the sink. He followed me, standing behind me to gently rub my back. He actually looked a little concerned. "Are you okay?" I slapped his hand away, my eyes blazing with disgust. He simply gathered my hair, pulling it over my shoulder, and wrapped his arms around me from behind, whispering into my ear. "Ro, instead of wasting energy being mad, you should figure out how to please me. If you were not so boring in bed, I would not have had to fake an impotence issue just to go sleep with Sloane." "But do not worry. Going to her place is just a hobby. You are still the one I love." Then, with absolute audacity, he opened his phone and shoved a video right into my line of sight. It was a video of them in his car. Sloane was moving on top of him, her face flushed with pleasure, her messy hair making her look effortlessly seductive. "Watch her and take notes, Ro. Once you learn how to do that, I will cut her off." A suffocating sense of absurdity crashed down on me. I shoved his phone away and splashed cold tap water directly into his face. He scowled, wiping the water from his eyes. "If you do not want to watch her, then go watch some porn." "Sometimes, you cannot just blame a man for stepping out. You need to look in the mirror and figure out what you are doing wrong." I looked down at the red burn marks on my ankle. My chest hurt so much I could barely pull air into my lungs. So all those nights I stayed up late, sick with anxiety over his condition, boiling herbs and researching doctors... he was out holding the girl who had destroyed my life. His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and immediately started throwing on his jacket. "Sloane got spooked by you screaming earlier. I am going to go check on her." "Study those videos. I expect to see some results when I get back." Watching him walk out the door, I walked over to the bed, pulled the positive pregnancy test out from under my pillow, and threw it straight into the trash can. Then I pulled up my messages and found a familiar contact. "You do not need to prepare the next batch of supplements." Reading the doctor's quick confirmation, I let out a long breath. Just as I was about to lock my screen, a friend request popped up. "It is Sloane. Alan said you tried to force more weird liquids down his throat. Do you want me to teach you how to actually take care of a man in bed?" I stared at her profile picture for a long time. It was a photo of a man's large, veiny hand gripping a woman's tiny waist. It was aggressively intimate. The small birthmark on the man's thumb was identical to Alan's. I hit decline and immediately blocked her. Moments later, Alan's calls started rolling in, one after another. The second I answered, his angry accusations blasted through the speaker. "Sloane tried to add you. Why did you decline?" "She is being the bigger person and offering to help you, and you are throwing it in her face? Add her back and apologize." Listening to him defend her without a second of hesitation left my hands shaking so badly I could not even form a word. Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast. Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of clothing shifting came through the receiver, followed by Alan's low, heavy breathing. "Sloane, stop it, I am on the phone..." His breath hitched. "What are you afraid of? Since she does not want to add me, we might as well teach her a lesson right now." The sound of his breathing grew heavier and rougher with every second. I slammed the end call button. The sounds of their intimacy looped endlessly in my brain like a nightmare. I curled into a tight ball under the covers, staring into the dark until the sun came up. Early the next morning, with swollen, red eyes, I drove to our new house—the one we were supposed to move into after the wedding—to check on the renovations. The door opened. Sloane was standing there. She was wearing a sheer silk slip. Her neck was painted with dark bruises and bite marks. She leaned against the doorframe, looking down at me with pure arrogance. "We got a little carried away last night. Oops, we accidentally got your wedding dress dirty." "I heard it was the last thing your mom left you before she died? Whatever, it could not have been worth much anyway. I will just buy you a couture gown to replace it..." I did not hear the rest of her sentence. I shoved her hard out of the way and ran into the living room. There it was. The dress my mother had spent her final days designing for me, crumpled into a heap on the hardwood floor. The pristine white fabric was covered in undeniable, disgusting stains. The last string holding my sanity together snapped. I lunged at Sloane and wrapped my hands around her throat. "I am going to kill you." "Alan... help me..." she gasped. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back. Alan locked me against his chest, looking entirely exhausted by me. "Ro, if it is dirty, just throw it away. I said I will buy you a new one." Sloane rubbed her throat, pouting as she pressed herself into his side. "I literally offered to buy her a custom designer dress, and she still attacked me. She is just psychotic." Alan looked at the red marks on her neck, and his expression turned ice-cold. "Rowan, you crossed the line." I dropped to the floor, pulling the ruined dress into my arms, tears pooling in my eyes. Two years ago, when my mother was losing her battle with illness, Alan was there every single day, running errands and taking care of her. When he found out her biggest regret was not living to see me get married, he spent weeks tracking down fabrics and sketches so she could personally design my dress from her hospital bed. I remembered seeing his bloodshot eyes back then. I was so touched, my heart ached for him. I begged him to go sleep. "Alan, you do not have to do all this. As long as I get to marry you, I do not care what the dress looks like." He had laid his head in my lap, looking exhausted but smiling so brightly. "Ro, it breaks my heart that she will not be there to walk you down the aisle. You wearing this dress on our wedding day will be a way to honor both of our wishes." But now, looking at the dress, his eyes held nothing but disgust. Meeting his cold stare, I hugged the fabric tighter to my chest. "I only want this one." He scowled, pulling a thick stack of cash from his wallet and throwing it at me. "Then take it to a dry cleaner. I am paying for it." Bills fluttered to the floor around me. It was laughable. Three years ago, when he poured his heart and soul into making this dress a reality for my dying mother, I never could have imagined it would end up as a literal rag for him and another woman to ruin. As I turned around with the dress in my arms, my phone calendar alarm went off. It was the reminder for Alan's routine clinic visit. I was just about to tell him, but Sloane suddenly grabbed her stomach and whined. "Alan, my OB-GYN appointment is in twenty minutes. We need to go." My feet glued themselves to the floor. As she walked past me, her eyes dropped to the glowing screen of my phone. Her smile was loaded with poison. "Rowan, do you know when my last ultrasound was?" My stomach plummeted. I already knew the answer. Sloane stroked her flat stomach, her smile widening. "Last Sunday. Three in the afternoon." That was the day of our seventh anniversary. I had spent two hours doing my makeup, bought a new dress, booked a Michelin-star restaurant, and told him I wanted to go to his clinic appointment with him before our date. He had smiled, kissed my forehead, and told me to just wait for him at the restaurant. I thought he just felt emasculated and did not want me in the room with the doctor. I had happily agreed. Now I knew the truth. He was terrified I would find out Sloane was pregnant. Watching Alan wrap his arm around Sloane's waist as they walked to his car, I unlocked my phone and deleted the calendar app entirely. By the time I got the dress back from the specialty cleaners, Alan walked through the door holding a garment bag. "Picked this out just for you. Do you like it?" When I did not even blink, he held the glamorous evening gown up against my body, his voice softening. "Ro, stop being stubborn. I have a surprise for you later." He essentially dragged me to the rooftop garden of an upscale hotel. Sloane, dressed in a stunning white gown, walked out of a crowd of cheering people and looped her arm through Alan's. Her eyes scanned the dress he had bought me, flashing with mockery. "Rowan, Alan told me I had to apologize to you before he would propose to me. Do you like the dress I picked out for you?" "I stripped your clothes off back then. Today, I am dressing you." Her sharp giggles drilled into my ears. It felt like literal acid burning through whatever dignity I had left. I looked at Alan. He gave me a flat, emotionless look. Those eyes that used to look at me with so much love were now filled with a dark, silent warning. Trembling, I backed up until I hit a corner wall. "Damn, Alan, only you could pull this off. Bringing the main girlfriend to propose to the side piece? Are you not afraid they are going to kill each other?" one of his friends laughed. Alan took a sip of his whiskey, glancing in my direction. "Rowan has been with me for seven years. She does not care about a title. But Sloane comes from a strict, old-money family. Since she is pregnant, I have to give her people an answer." "I know I am putting Ro in a tough spot right now. I will make it up to her later." His voice was low. But not low enough. Everyone around them heard it and started jeering. "Man, you really have the school valedictorian wrapped around your finger. But making her watch you put a ring on someone else? With her pride, she might actually snap. Do not push your luck." Alan swirled the amber liquid in his glass, smiling with absolute, unshakeable confidence. "You guys have no idea. I have a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card with her." "If it was not for me, photos of her naked body would have been plastered all over the internet. She owes me her life." A wave of knowing smirks rippled through the group. My deepest, most agonizing trauma had just become his favorite party trick to show off how loyal I was. My nails bit so hard into my palms they drew blood as I walked straight up to him. The whispering stopped immediately. "Alan, is this your grand surprise? Bringing me here so you and your friends can humiliate me?" He set his glass down. Ignoring the crowd of people watching us like a reality show, he grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. "Ro, this proposal is just a show for the Kensington family. I am not actually going to marry her." "She wanted you to be the officiant for the proposal. She is carrying my kid, Ro. I have to give her this one win." He shoved a folded piece of paper into my hand. It was a speech. Line after line of sickeningly sweet vows dedicated to Sloane. "Read over it. Do not ruin this for me." I had pictured his proposal a thousand times over the last seven years. I never could have imagined a reality this vile. I ripped the speech into shreds and threw the confetti of paper directly at his chest. "Alan, go to hell." His eyes went dark with fury. He grabbed my wrist, his grip bruising. "Rowan, do you honestly have to make a scene and embarrass everyone right now?" "I told you she is pregnant. I have to do this for her." Staring straight into his furious eyes, I slowly brought my free hand down to rest over my own stomach. "What if I told you... I am pregnant too?"
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "443061", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel