“Go on. Start talking.”
“Teach everyone how a man takes the salary his benefactor gives him, then sleeps with his benefactor's wife.”
“And while you're at it, teach them how you get another man's wife pregnant with your child.”
The color drained from Sebastian's face in an instant.
He instinctively shrank behind Sally.
“Sally……”
Sally's expression turned glacial.
She reached out, blocking the lens, fury barely leashed beneath her voice.
“Ulysses, that's enough.”
“You're upset right now. I understand that.”
“But you can't destroy a young man's whole life just because you're hurting!”
“Yes, Sebastian made a mistake.”
“But it wasn't easy for him, clawing his way out of the backwoods on his own all these years.”
“One word from you, and he loses his job, his reputation, everything he fought so hard to earn.”
“Do you think that's fair?”
I stared at her, almost laughing out loud.
Reading my silence as surrender, Sally softened.
“Ulysses, put the phone down first.”
“You're my husband. I won't shortchange you.”
“Just don't turn yourself into some sore loser who can't take a hit.”
Sore loser. Those words landed, and the last ripple inside me went still.
I looked at her and asked softly：
“So this is going too far?”
Sally blinked, thrown.
The next second.
I raised my hand and slapped Sebastian hard across the face.
The crack of it rang through the entire lounge.
His head snapped sideways, five red welts blooming across his cheek.
I shook out my stinging hand.
“I haven't even gotten to the part that goes too far yet.”
That was when Sally finally lost it.
She lunged forward and shoved me with both hands.
The small of my back slammed into the corner of the table. Pain blacked out my vision.
The prenatal checkup slip fell from my hand to the floor.
Sally didn't even glance at it.
She went straight to Sebastian, gathering him into her arms, sheltering him.
“Ulysses!”
“How did you turn into this?”
Her eyes were full of disappointment when she looked at me.
As if I were the one who'd done something wrong.
“You used to be the kindest man I knew.”
“Sebastian had such a hard childhood. Weren't you the one who ached for him the most?”
“And now, just because he fell in love with me, you want to ruin him?”
A strange laugh rose in me.
She said I'd changed.
But Sally.
Who was it that turned sickening first?
And just like that, I remembered something from long ago.
The first time Sally proposed to me, she was so nervous she couldn't even get the ring box open.
Eyes red, she slid the ring onto my finger and said：
“Ulysses, getting to stand beside you in this life is more luck than I deserve.”
“No matter how high I climb someday, I'll always remember it was you who pulled me up.”
Back then she was raw, sincere, with no one in her eyes but me.
And now, that face that once cradled my hand and made its vows.
It slowly blurred into the face in front of me, the one shielding Sebastian and demanding to know how I'd become this.
And suddenly, I was calm.
I hadn't changed.
The woman who swore she'd never betray me.
She'd died the day she betrayed me for the first time.
I didn't say another word.
I turned and walked out of the office.
Behind me, Sebastian was still crying softly.
“Sally, is Ulysses really going to ruin me?”
Sally lowered her voice to soothe him：
“No. As long as I'm here, no one can touch you.”
“Though, how are you going to thank me?”
Sebastian's tears turned to a grin. He gave Sally a light, playful punch, voice melting into a whine.
“Sally, there you go teasing me again……”
