2: 2
Stanley froze where he stood, all the color draining from his face.
Carmen's eyes went wide, and she whipped around to stare at me, disbelief written all over her.
"Mona, what's gotten into you today? You've always hated Stan Maddox, haven't you?"
"You said he wore that stone face all day long, never cracked a smile once, that being around him was so suffocating you could hardly breathe."
"You told me yourself you liked sweet young guys like Stanley. Easygoing, obedient, gentle and attentive, always checking in on you, always ready to make you laugh."
"So what now? A boy hands you his whole heart, and suddenly you don't know him? Even if you're scared of the Maddox family, that's no reason to trample on someone who truly loves you!"
The floating prompts flashed across my vision again.
【She's provoking the ex-husband on purpose. He's downstairs right now, probably about to crush the steering wheel in his hands.】
【Our heroine's such a cheapskate she counts every last nickel, won't even buy a shopping bag at the store, so there's no way she'd bankroll some pretty boy. It's all lies her best friend is spreading.】
【This woman is truly vicious. She wants to make the affair charge stick so the ex-husband finishes the heroine off for good.】
Listening to it made my blood boil. I was not taking the fall for this. If Stan actually overheard any of it, that ten million was gone for good, never mind my own neck.
I pointed at Carmen, so furious I laughed.
"Carmen, quit spewing garbage! Me, spend money I clawed together penny by penny to keep a man? Let me tell you, even if he paid me to take him, I'd say he wasn't worth the rice he'd eat in my house!"
Then I threw up my hand and slapped Carmen across the face with everything I had.
The crack of it rang through the room. Carmen stumbled back two steps, half her face flushing red in an instant.
Stanley cried out, rushed over to catch her, and pulled her behind him.
"Ms. Pruitt, whatever you're angry about, take it out on me. Don't hit Carmen."
He looked at me, his eyes full of tenderness and heartbreak.
"She's not even in good health, and she pulled all-nighters just to comfort you. How can you be so ungrateful?"
He kept looking at me, all tenderness and hurt, his voice cracking.
"I know you're in a bad place, right after your divorce. But Carmen only wants you to be happy someday. I don't care that you were married before, I don't care what anyone says. I just want to take care of you. Why won't you give me a chance?"
Carmen hid behind Stanley, covering her face, tears sliding down her cheeks, her voice thick with hurt.
"Mona, I'm doing this for your own good. You told me yourself, if Stan Maddox weren't so rich, if there wasn't anything to gain from him, you never would've married a possessive, obsessive control freak like that."
She sniffled, then leaned her head out again, her tone growing surer.
"You even said he couldn't hold a candle to Stanley, that deep down the one you loved was a clean, easygoing boy like Stanley. That you never loved Stan Maddox, not once, that the whole thing was just an act to squeeze money out of him."
The words turned my blood to ice. If Stan believed a single one of them, I'd be sunk to the bottom of the river before the day was out.
