Page 37 of The Sicilian Billionaire's Neglected Wife
I watch her face crumble in the space between heartbeats. Watch the last thread holding her together snap. Watch her shatter as completely as the vase that’s about to—
CRASH.
The sound of shattering glass cuts through her words like a scream.
I’m on my feet before the last shard hits the floor, my body moving without conscious thought. Every instinct screams at me to go to her, to explain, to fix this catastrophic misunderstanding. The crystals scatter across marble like tears, like all the broken pieces of what we used to be.
Sienah stands frozen in the doorway, her face gone ghostly, her eyes fixed on where Myca’s hand still rests on my thigh. The look on her face—
No. Fuck. No.
It’s the same look from eight years ago. The night she begged me not to become her father. Not to break her the way he broke her mother.
And now she thinks I have.
Behind her, Shayla’s expression is unreadable. “I’ll get a broom.”
But I can’t look away from my wife’s face. From the devastation bleeding through before she locks it down, pulling that awful numbness around herself like armor. And suddenly I’m transported back to the only time we’ve truly fought in ten years.
Don’t cheat, Aivan.
Her voice breaking on my name.
Please don’t be like the man who sired me and made a fool of my mother.
One look at her face now and I know exactly what she’s thinking. What this looks like. Myca pressed against me, talking about the limo, about making me happy, about being eager...
My blood turns to ice in my veins. She thinks I’ve already betrayed her. Thinks I’ve already become everything she feared.
“Sienah.” Her name comes out rough, desperate, torn from somewhere deep in my chest.
But my wife doesn’t even look at me this time.
“I’m s-sorry about the vase.” She’s addressing Shayla, and it’s the stutter that kills me. The way her voice sounds hollow, empty. Like I’ve finally broken something that can’t be fixed. “I’ll pay for it.”
She sounds numb. Finally, utterly numb.
Because I’ve hurt her beyond redemption.
The urge to tear Myca away from me, to cross the room and shake Sienah until she understands, until she believes me, is overwhelming. My muscles bunch with the need to move, to act, to do something other than stand here while she falls apart.
I take a step forward. “Sienah—”
She looks at me then.
No, fuck, no.
She’s looking at me like I no longer exist. Like the last ten years never happened and I’m just another man in a room full of people who don’t matter. The light that’s always been there when she looks at me...
That soft, warm glow of love I’ve taken for granted...
It’s gone.
Extinguished.
By me.
My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I’m surprised they don’t crack. This is wrong. This is all wrong. She’s looking at me like she’s already gone, like she’s already figured out how to stop loving me, and the possibility makes me want to—
