"No."
Kira pursed her lips, looking aggrieved. "You can't leave."
Stanley's slender fingers paused. "Kira..."
"You really can't. You're someone else's husband now. I don't feel secure. You spend every day with another woman—she's even carrying your child. If we're not together often, what happens when our feelings fade? What if you fall in love with Chloe?"
"Stanley, you're so eager to go back to her. Have you started to... like her?"
Stanley looked at the unease in Kira's eyes, and a mocking curve tugged at the corner of his lips.
Like.
Love.
In the world he'd grown up in, those words were nothing but arsenic wrapped in sugar coating.
His parents had played the loving couple in public for over thirty years, but their marriage had only survived on reputation and mutual benefit.
His father, who marketed himself as whipped by his wife, kept a rotating lineup of mistresses—some younger than Stanley himself.
His mother, who marketed herself as the perfect wife and devoted parent, had been caught during his teenage years with multiple muscular young men in their own home...
Love and affection were just fig leaves draped over disgusting animal urges.
Too fake.
Only feelings that had weathered the test of time, along with the sense of responsibility that grew from them—those were the real thing.
Like what he had with Kira.
They shared twenty years of history. Even as a teenager, he couldn't bear to see her living alone and had wanted to take responsibility for her entire life. That hadn't changed.
He would never use possessiveness, control, or lust to trap her, restrain her, or interfere with her choices.
He wanted her to be free forever.
He wanted a marriage completely different from his parents'—one untainted by self-interest, built only on pure emotion and responsibility.
Stanley let go of Chloe's hair, patted the top of her head, and said indulgently, "Silly girl."
Talking about love and affection—how naive.
"I already gave her a wedding. Until the divorce, I'll transfer her monthly allowance on the fifteenth like I'm supposed to. I won't take on any other responsibility for her... Don't you want to marry me sooner?"
"I'm scared!" Tears welled up in Kira's eyes. "We've barely even hugged a few times, but you and her already have a child on the way. Every night you spend with her, I can't sleep. I keep thinking, over and over, I can't stop..."
"Thinking about whether you've held her in your arms, kissed her, taken off her clothes, lost yourself in her body!"
Stanley's throat bobbed. His pupils contracted sharply.
Kira.
Had hit the mark.
Since meeting Chloe, because of her pregnancy, he hadn't gone further than that. But kissing—that happened almost every day.
Chloe seemed to possess some kind of muse's magic, violently dragging his base urges and worst instincts out from the depths of his soul.
When he was being tender with her, he couldn't think of Kira. He'd even abandon work. Like an addict too far gone to save.
Responsibility, reason, reality—he threw them all away. All he wanted was to drown in her, to chase that indescribable pleasure and release.
Like a thief with a guilty conscience, he gave in to Kira. "Fine. I'll text her. I'll stay with you tonight."
Kira's face immediately lit up, and she reached out to wrap her arms around Stanley's.
But the man pulling out his phone instinctively moved away from her.
Kira froze. "Stanley?"
He hadn't even noticed what he'd just done. "What?"
Kira's delicate brows furrowed. "Why did you pull away from me?"
Stanley blinked, startled. Then a flicker of confusion crossed his face.
He'd pulled away from Kira?
Before he could think it through, his phone buzzed.
Chloe was calling.
He gathered himself and answered. Before she could speak, he said, "Babe, I'm not coming home tonight."
The moment Kira heard "babe," her gaze sharpened. A sour expression crossed her face, and she pinched his arm hard.
"Ss—" Stanley hissed in pain and turned to look at her, but there wasn't a trace of anger on his face.
"You called her 'babe'... right in front of me..." Kira said.
Stanley's pupils contracted. He quickly reached out to cover Kira's mouth, terrified Chloe might hear.
But Chloe had already heard.
And she wasn't the only one. Ervin had heard too.
When Chloe made that call to Stanley, she'd put it on speaker.
