Chapter 4
I was monitored very strictly, with almost no chance to take out that phone to make contact.
Adrian, who was supposed to be abroad, somehow finished his business trip in just five days this time and hurried back.
After he returned, the surveillance on me loosened a bit, and I finally had the chance to pick up the phone again.
I sent a message using that anonymous phone card.
“Dude, you can’t take it like a man? Even if she cheated, why not just divorce? Why lock your wife up?”
Adrian replied quickly: “She didn’t cheat. I trust her. Aria isn’t the kind of person who would do such things.”
I stared at this text message in a daze.
What does he mean?
Although I indeed didn’t have the courage to actually find a man to cheat with, which is why I resorted to this plan. But how could Adrian understand so well what kind of person I am?
He had always been so cold to me.
I pushed on, disregarding everything else, adding fuel to the fire:
“Mr. Shaw, you don’t know your wife better than I do.”
“She has three moles, on her ribs, near her belly button, and… Every time I trace them with my finger, connecting the dots, she trembles uncontrollably from the stimulation.”
“But you’re her husband, married for three years, you must have known this long ago, right?”
The last sentence was dripping with sarcasm, because in these three years, Adrian had never touched me.
“Bang!” Just as I sent it, suddenly a huge crashing sound came from upstairs.
The sound came from Adrian’s study.
I trembled, nervously hurrying to hide the backup phone.
The crashing sound rang out a few more times.
Then, I heard Adrian coming downstairs.
He tiredly instructed the housekeeper: “Find someone to clean up, the computer needs to be replaced.”
Footsteps approached.
I was so scared I was shaking, vaguely feeling that I would be the next thing he tore apart.
I escaped into the blankets, pretending to be asleep.
The lock on my door had mysteriously broken since he returned.
Adrian gently turned the handle, seeing the bedroom was dark, he didn’t say anything.
In the dead silence, his heavy, uneven breathing and unsettled heartbeat were extremely obvious, so much so that I wondered if Adrian could hear my own racing heart.
He came closer and closer.
I kept my eyes tightly shut.
Adrian didn’t shake me awake, didn’t furiously grab my neck demanding an explanation.
He stood by my bed.
Even though I didn’t open my eyes, I could still feel a sharp, burning gaze deeply fixed on my lower abdomen, as if hesitating whether to check.
Don’t shake, keep breathing steady, keep acting!
I didn’t move.
Suddenly I felt the mattress sink down beside me.
Adrian slowly lay down next to me.
That icy yet burning gaze still focused on me.
I gritted my teeth, no gain without pain.
I gave him more fuel!
As if lost in a sweet dream, I murmured and turned towards him, nuzzling my head into his embrace.
Adrian paused for a moment, that fierce, burning gaze suddenly softened.
“Honey…” I mumbled.
Adrian stiffened for an instant.
I persistently wrapped my arms around him, using the sweetest voice I could muster, “Honey, hug me.”
I thought he would get angry, even wake me up with a slap.
Because I had never called him honey before, he knew I was calling someone else.
But—
He stared at me hard, gripping my arms tightly, trembling with anger, but the next moment, hearing my muffled whimper, he forced himself to loosen his grip.
Adrian held the back of my head, letting me hug him tighter.
He kissed my hair.
Then he stroked my back from top to bottom with his palm, in a clumsy yet gentle soothing gesture.
He said softly, “Mm, honey’s hugging you.”
I froze.
This kind of eerily calm reaction was utterly insane.
Adrian was an exceptionally intelligent person. He should have understood I was cheating from the first text message he received. To avoid a scandal, he should have quickly drafted divorce papers and forced me to leave with nothing.
But instead, he denied it again and again, frantically, obsessively insisting that I hadn’t slept with someone else.
Even now, he was almost self-hypnotizing, snatching away the pet names meant for someone else.
What on earth was he doing?
Adrian thought I had stopped sleep-talking and fallen into a deeper slumber.
He silently lifted the blanket, his finger resting on my ribs, then lightly sliding down along the direction of that mole.
A light touch, his fingertip cool.
So quick, I didn’t even have time to react before I suddenly curled up, shaking uncontrollably.
That text was something I had made up, I didn’t even know myself that being touched on the moles would cause such an electrifying stimulation!
I trembled pathetically, unable to keep up the act any longer, immediately wanting to turn away and hide.
Adrian stopped his caressing motion and completely enveloped me in his arms, forcing me to face him chest to chest.
Forceful, secure, like interlocking hearts, so tight that I could feel his heartbeat from beneath his ribcage against my chest.
Chaotic, frenzied, powerful.
He whispered softly: “You are mine, I am yours.”
He had truly gone mad.
He had completely abandoned all rational, cool logic and weighing of pros and cons, becoming a wild beast.
Savage, direct, possessive without compromise.
As if I had been carried into his lair, and could only belong to him.
Adrian had objectified me, objectified himself. We were not humans with fragile shells and sensitive souls, but two lifeless iron locks.
With a “click”, locked together.
He could stubbornly believe, I am his, he is mine.
He had truly gone mad.
I opened my eyes in the darkness, looking at Adrian’s sleeping face with complex emotions, between his burning chest and arms.
Until my eyelids grew heavy and I fell into a dream.
In the dream, three years ago, I cried and begged Adrian to let me go.
He looked at me coldly.
Until I shouted: “I don’t owe you anything, you have no reason to lock me up!”
Only then did he take a step back, silent for a full minute before looking up, “You do owe me. Your sister ran away and ruined the engagement, so you have to pay me back for life. I won’t let you go.”
At that time, I collapsed on the ground, touching the face so similar to my sister’s, finally understanding that he would never let me go because he saw me as a replacement for my sister.
Three years passed like this, bitter and unbearable.
When I opened my eyes, Adrian was already gone.
The bed beside me was neat and clean, as if no one had ever been there.