But I wanted to fight with him even less.
Victor, of all people, should have known that my parents died in a car crash because of an argument, and that it had haunted me my whole life.
The thing I feared most was fighting.
"Where are my things?"
I turned and yanked open the drawer, digging through it for a long time. Nothing.
Every single thing that belonged to me was gone.
"What things?"
"My earrings, the pearl pair, and that thin gold chain."
I could let everything else go.
But that one pair of earrings—
they were the only thing my mother had left me.
Victor frowned and tilted his head toward the living room.
"Kathleen said she just wanted to borrow them for a few days. Don't be so petty."
"Give them back."
My voice came out ice-cold.
Victor looked a little taken aback. "Once she's worn them enough, she'll definitely give them back to you—"
"I said now. Give them back to me right now!"
Hearing the urgency in my voice, his expression darkened too.
"Kathleen, where are those pearl earrings?"
Kathleen shrank her neck in like some pitiful little rabbit, her eyes already going red.
"I'm so sorry, Marie."
"I was going to give the earrings back to you when I came home today, but by the time I noticed, they weren't in my ears anymore. I lost them—"
"Lost them where?"
My face fell, my voice sharpening along with it.
"What good is an apology? If you know it's wrong to lose someone else's things, then go find them right now."
Kathleen cast a timid glance toward the window.
"But it's dark out now. I'm scared—"
I kept my eyes locked on her.
"That's all I have left of my mother. I don't care if it's dark out, I don't care if it's hailing or raining knives—you're going out there to find them."
Tears spilled down Kathleen's face. She stamped her foot and made to run outside.
"Kathleen, don't go."
Victor's expression turned cold as he pulled her behind him. "Marie, are you done making a scene?"
"It's just one cheap pair of earrings. Is there any need to be this aggressive?"
I studied the anger on his face and let out a slow, amused smile.
"Victor."
"Did you sleep with her?"
He choked, his face flushing red. "What kind of nonsense are you spouting?"
"Kathleen's just staying for a few days. A pipe burst at her place and it's being fixed. She's just a young girl, soaked through and miserable. I couldn't stand the thought of her checking into a hotel—"
"So you brought her back to our marital home, let her sleep in our bed, wear my clothes, put on my jewelry, eat out of my bowl. Is that right?"
"And then, because she mentioned a germ phobia,"
"I got driven out of my own home like some miserable stray dog with nowhere to go."
Victor's expression shifted again and again. "Could you not be so snide?"
"Did I ask you to come back early?"
"You just had to come home today, walk in on this, and make a scene. What's the point?"
Listening to him scold me without the slightest hesitation, I went numb.
Tomorrow was Victor's birthday.
To get back early and put together a birthday surprise for him, I'd pushed myself to the brink all week on that business trip, racing to stay ahead.
A workload that should have taken seven days, I'd crammed into five.
Tonight I'd even turned down my coworkers' get-together and the celebration dinner.
I'd flown back overnight.
Only to see this.
Only to see the "surprise" Victor had prepared for me with his own hands.
Sensing my silence, Victor finally noticed the birthday gift box I'd put together myself, sitting beside the suitcase at the door.
"You... you rushed back early to celebrate my birthday?"
