Chapter 3The Secret Inside His Hearing Aid

I don’t know how I made it back to the house.

It wasn't until well after dark that Cam finally returned.

He tiptoed into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. He smelled of Scotch and a faint, cloying scent of another woman’s perfume.

Teresa’s scent.

He reached out to hold me, but I pulled away.

In the dark, he sighed, his voice low and placating.

“Alisa, don’t be like this. Teresa just got back from overseas. She’s naive, she doesn’t know corporate protocol. I was just taking care of her a little extra.”

“We’ve been together for seven years. Do you really not trust me?”

He wrapped his arms around me from behind, pulling me tight against his body.

“Okay, stop being upset. I promise you, I’ll keep my distance from her. It’s over, okay?”

His embrace, once my most cherished sanctuary, now felt like a cold, suffocating cage.

I didn’t struggle. I let him hold me, trying to absorb the illusion of warmth.

His kisses became frantic, scattered along my neck, and his hands began to wander beneath my silk pajamas.

Everything was exactly as it had been for the past seven years.

In the heat of the moment, his breathing grew ragged, and his hand instinctively reached for the bedside table.

That action—that unconscious reflex—was the final, crushing weight that broke the fragile dam of my suppressed anger and humiliation.

The instant he picked up that old hearing aid, ready to put it on, I lunged and sat bolt upright.

“Cameron Miller!”

My voice was sharp, a hysterical tremor that didn’t sound like my own.

“In your mind, do I even measure up to a strand of her hair?!”

My reaction startled him. He froze, the hearing aid half-raised to his ear.

“Tell me! These seven years—was I nothing but her replacement? Her stand-in?”

He opened his mouth, perhaps to lie, but the look of genuine shock, mixed with undeniable guilt, was all the answer I needed.

The last thread of my sanity snapped.

I ripped the hearing aid from his grip, raised my hand, and brought it down with every ounce of force I possessed!

CRACK!

The device he treated as a sacred relic shattered into a dozen irreparable fragments on the hardwood floor.

Cam’s eyes flew wide open, staring at the destruction in pure disbelief.

He threw himself onto the floor, scrambling on his hands and knees, frantically trying to piece the shards back together. His fingers were sliced by the sharp edges, tiny beads of blood welling up.

He looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot, glaring.

“Alisa! Have you lost your mind?!”

He roared, his voice distorted by fury.

“Haven’t I been good enough for you for seven years?! I treated you like a damn princess! Do you know the hell I went through building this company? The discrimination I faced?!”

He rose to his feet, stepping closer, his eyes cold and sharp as knives.

“We could have coasted through this life! We could have acted happy forever! But you just had to go after Teresa! You just had to force me to say the words!”

He gritted his teeth, pushing the words out through a narrow opening.

“Fine! You want the truth? I’ll give it to you! Yes! I never got over her!”

He turned, ready to slam the door on me again.

As his hand closed around the doorknob, I used the last of my strength to ask the question that had suffocated me for seven years.

“If you love her, why did you marry me?”

Cam’s footsteps halted.

He didn't turn around, but the sentence he left hanging in the air was enough to cast me into eternal darkness.

“Because I didn’t want her to suffer.”

The door crashed shut.

I started to laugh, a horrible sound that quickly dissolved into blinding tears.

He didn't want her to suffer?

Teresa Sabrina was a society heiress. And what was I?

To be with him, I had cut ties with my family, giving up everything that was easily handed to me.

He didn't know that when clients made him drink himself sick, I was the one who went in his place, downing hard liquor until my stomach bled, just to secure that contract.

He didn't know that when he crossed the wrong people in the city and was blacklisted, I went and knelt at the feet of my ex-fiancé, licking the dirt off his bespoke shoes, just to buy Cam a sliver of hope.

I was willing to suffer for him, so he wouldn't have to.

And he?

He didn't want her to suffer. Therefore, all the suffering was reserved for me.

The irony was blinding.