Chester stood with his back to the sunlight, his face shrouded in shadow. Resting steady hand on each child’s shoulder, he spoke in a level voice, “You’ll forgive them when you choose to. No one can force that.”
“Forgive them?” Celestine let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Chester, who are you to make them beg for my forgiveness? Need me to remind you of all the disgusting things you’ve done?”
Chester pressed his lips into a thin, rigid line, struggling to find the right words. “I know… what happened with Joanna was a heavy blow. But you can’t expect me to cut off all my friends just because we got married.”
He paused, a visible struggle flickering across his face before he seemed to settle on a compromise. “If it bothers you that much, then from today on, I won’t see her again.”
“Dad! How could you do that to Miss Sinclair? She’ll be heartbroken!” Celia’s sobs stopped short. She stared at Chester in disbelief, clutching the sleeve of his coat.
“You hear that, Mr. Fordham?” Celestine’s smile was icy and thin. “Even your daughter’s showing withdrawal symptoms. Aren’t you worried your precious Miss Sinclair will take it even harder?”
“She’s not ” Chester’s hands balled into fists, denial coming quickly, too quickly. Words like those shouldn’t have come out of Celia’s mouth. Shooting his daughter a warning look, his brow furrowed deeply. “I keep my promises–believe it or not.”
Celestine folded her arms and studied him, her smile growing colder. “You sound so determined, Mr. Fordham. Almost like you really regret it. But…”
“But what?” Chester pressed, a note of desperation in his voice.
“If you really meant it, you wouldn’t have dragged them here, parading them in front of everyone, forcing them to kneel and apologize just for show. Who’s it for–me, or whoever happens to be watching?”
“If you really meant it, you’d divorce me as soon as possible and make a public apology with your precious Joanna–let it trend online for a whole month.”
just a few
“Celestine! That’s enough!” Chester’s fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles whitened. He couldn’t understand how she’d changed so completel
months.
Back when she was pregnant with the twins, she’d never acted like this.
14:233
He had limits, too.
Celestine let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Too much? Chester, do you remembe what it felt like, having a gun pressed to my throat? Do you have any idea how cald. the water is in May?”
She spoke so lightly, but her words landed like a ton of bricks, crushing Chester s chest.
Of course he remembered. He remembered everything.
From the moment she turned up at the funeral until now, he hadn’t dared ask her a single question about how she’d survived. He was terrified of learning an even uglier truth–one he wouldn’t be able to bear.
Pain and regret flashed across Chester’s face. “But… you’re alive, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Celestine nodded, her expression strangely calm. “Alive enough to attend my own funeral. Alive enough to catch my husband in the act with another woman. Isn’t that just another day in paradise?”
Her words drifted into the air, and the handful of onlookers who’d been pretending not to listen suddenly gasped, their glances at Chester shifting from pity to open condemnation.
He couldn’t take her tone, her words, the way she looked at him. His heart clenched tighter with every sentence she spoke.
She was spiraling–no matter how he tried to explain, she wouldn’t hear it. She’d only find new ways to wound him, and that wouldn’t help her, or the baby she was still carrying.
“Is there really no room for negotiation except those demands you just made?”
Money, fame, status–anything within his reach, he could give her.
But if she wanted his love…
He remembered what Luther had told him, the real reason Celestine had married
him all those years ago.
Chapter 229
Chapt
