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2
The room went so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
I stared at Beryl Matthews's belly and said nothing for a long time.
Glen James stepped out from behind her, holding up a pregnancy test result.
"Mr. Gilbert, don't go scaring Beryl."
"She's carrying my child."
"If anything happens to the baby's father, it'll break her heart."
Beryl didn't argue.
She even turned and warned Glen to stay well away from those cups of bubble tea, in case he touched something he shouldn't.
Only after she was sure he wouldn't get hurt did she turn back to me.
Her tone was calm, as if she were discussing some business deal that had nothing to do with her.
"That time I went with you for your follow-up, Glen was waiting for me at the hospital."
"He insisted on making a bet with me. Whether you'd notice us kissing in the stairwell."
"One thing led to another, and we crossed a line."
"The baby was an accident. But since it's here, I'm keeping it."
She walked up to me and smoothed down the collar the wind had blown open.
The gesture was as gentle as it had always been.
But the words out of her mouth made me, for the first time, not recognize her.
"Barret, we both grew up in this world."
"Marriage and love were always two separate things."
"When a man keeps someone on the side, they call it charm. Why can't a woman have someone to pass the time with?"
"You were raised from childhood to be the Gilbert heir. You should know when it's worth making a scene and when to leave each other some dignity."
I looked at her, and suddenly I remembered something from many years ago.
The thing Beryl Matthews hated most was that so-called high-society dignity.
Her mother had a rotation of different men at her side, year after year.
Stewart Matthews kept the title of husband and ran his wife's company for her, and when he finally fell gravely ill and was hospitalized, Sara Matthews was abroad watching a fashion show with some young man.
The day Stewart Matthews died, nineteen-year-old Beryl Matthews stood outside the hospital room all night long.
The next day, she took my hand and said,
"Barret, I will never become someone like my mother."
At twenty-three, the Matthews family picked out a suitable match for her, a marriage of equals.
But she called off the engagement in front of the elders of both families, took my hand, and walked out of the old Matthews mansion.
Behind her, dozens of elders roared their condemnation, and a whole row of black luxury cars sat parked in the courtyard.
She didn't even turn her head.
That night, the Matthews family cut off her cards and took back the property and the position in her name.
I was the one who brought her home to the Gilbert penthouse.
Through the two hardest years of building her company, I courted clients for her, found investors, and stayed up night after night with her in the conference room.
When her stomach condition flared up, I turned down an overseas project and cooked for her with my own hands for half a year.
When the Matthews Group's cash flow snapped, I put up every liquid dollar my own company had, and then talked the Gilbert family into covering the rest.
When an enemy hired someone to hunt her down, I was the one who took the knife for her, and I've been down a kidney ever since.
Later, in the Gilbert family chapel, in front of all the elders, she signed a fidelity agreement.
The terms were spelled out plainly.
If she ever betrayed me during the marriage,
her Matthews shares, the fund in her name, and all her overseas assets would transfer to me.
Everyone told her not to sign it back then.
But Beryl Matthews handed me the pen, smiling, bold and certain.
"Sign it."
"It's not like I'll ever give you the chance to use it in this lifetime."
And I actually believed her.
So when she wanted funds, I gave her funds.
When she wanted the Gilbert family's voting rights, I put those voting rights in her hands.
The day she secured her seat as chairwoman of the Matthews Group, she told every reporter present,
"Everything I have now, Barret Gilbert gave me."
"In this life, I will only ever have one husband."
Now, she still has everything I gave her.
And she's finally become the very thing she hated most.
