Three Years of PretendingChapter 2

Back at the penthouse, I lie face-down on the bed while the housekeeper tends to my back.

Callum comes home.

His sleepwear hangs loose at the collar.

Bandaging wrapped across his chest — from where they'd gotten to him before I arrived.

[Oh my god, battle-worn Callum?! That silhouette. That ratio. I can't breathe.]

[Cover up! Don't let that woman take advantage!]

[Your body belongs to the female lead! Don't let her near you!]

Callum can't see those comments.

He sets a basin of water beside the bed.

Kneels at the edge.

Wrings out a warm cloth.

My back wound means no shower — just a wipe-down.

The comments nearly swamp my vision:

[So THAT'S why she suddenly grew a conscience! Took a hit just to get him on his knees in front of her!]

[One calculated move and now he has to clean her up out of guilt. Pathetic.]

[Her schemes and her reputation are perfectly matched. Does she think about anything besides power plays?]

[Hold on, girls — the female lead just joined Callum's company as his personal assistant.]

[Callum's glacier is going to melt. He's going to discover he can love someone. And then she'll pay.]

[Just wait — when she goes around calling our female lead a homewrecker, Callum will make her pay for it.]

[The author said she ends up beaten to death by a hundred men in that facility. FINALLY. Now I can keep reading.]

I pull my hand back from his.

The cloth Callum was pressing against my knuckles hangs in the air.

"Go do what you want," I say.

Callum frowns. "What would I go do?"

"Work late. Sleep in the guest room. Isn't that your favorite routine?"

"Madeleine."

He drops the cloth back into the water. "What are you scheming now?"

I look at him.

He's kneeling — technically the lower position — but the look he aims at me is pure contempt.

He has always been like this.

Cold. Self-contained. He only agreed to this marriage because my family once saved his, and even that was a concession he resented.

And yet — in these eight years of marriage, I have never let him breathe.

He pulls away, I report it. He snaps at me, I report it. He disappears for a night, I take it straight to his parents.

I've used the title of "wife" like a weapon, marking territory everywhere.

But… I never wanted to actually hurt him.

And yet he would end up doing that to me—

My eyes sting.

Why?

He is my husband. The father of my child.

A few arguments between us, and I'd die at the hands of some other man, broken and unrecognizable.

"Callum." I sit up. "I signed the agreement."

He stiffens.

The steward lays a document on the bed between us.

The marital non-interference agreement.

The one he drafted before the wedding.

A paper marriage. No physical contact. No intimacy.

It had triggered every stubborn nerve in my body.

My husband. Why shouldn't I touch him?

"From now on, I won't push you anymore. Do whatever you want."

Callum stares at me like he doesn't recognize the language.

I expect him to say something.

Instead, the agreement tears — strip by strip — between his fingers.

"Callum?"

He drops the shreds into the wastebasket.

"What good does it do now?"

Before I can make sense of that, the comments ignite:

[She didn't sign it at the wedding, waited until after she'd already had her way with him and there's a child involved, and NOW she wants non-interference? Hilarious.]

[Not just an idiot — a dramatic idiot.]

[Our clean, untouched Callum — ruined. Because of HER.]

[It's fine. Everything she taught him, our female lead gets to enjoy later.]

[I'm blushing — STOP.]

Something in my chest pulls tight.

So according to that feed — not only would Leo stop calling me Mom.

Everything I'd ever taught Callum would become some other woman's reward.

I breathe through it. Then:

"If the marital agreement is too late — what about divorce papers?"

Callum goes very still.