After that, Max only got worse. He stayed out every night—drinking, partying, never coming home. He paraded Gretchen around openly, his precious first love, showing her off at every event without a shred of shame. He didn't care about my feelings. He didn't care that his pregnant wife was watching.
I confronted him. I screamed, I cried. Every photo of them together, every whispered rumor, cut me like a knife. I sobbed and demanded to know why—why he was doing this to me, why he'd forgotten every promise he'd made, why he was betraying everything we had.
Max just stared at me, cold and mocking, like I was some raving lunatic.
"Are you done yet, Marina?" His voice could have frozen steel. "You got what you wanted. You're the young Mrs. Simmons now. You're giving the family heirs. The status, the position, the money—you have it all." His lip curled. "What more could you possibly want?"
"Don't stand there acting like you've suffered some great injustice—it makes me sick!" He let out a cold laugh, contempt dripping from every word. "You think I actually wanted to marry you? If Grandfather hadn't threatened to kill himself, if your grandfather hadn't once done our family a favor, if we didn't need you to produce an heir for the Simmons family—you think you'd have any right to stand beside me? Marina, face reality. You were never someone I loved. Not before. Not now. Not ever."
Every argument. Every sneer. Every cold shoulder. Each one was a blade, plunging into my heart, shredding it piece by piece. I'd cried. I'd ached. I'd humbled myself. I'd begged. And in the end, all I ever got was his coldness and disgust.
After that, I stopped asking why. Stopped fighting. Stopped pleading for even a scrap of his tenderness.
My heart had died completely. All I wanted was to quietly watch over my two precious daughters—to see them grow day by day, to watch them laugh, to watch them play. As long as I had them, I had a reason to keep living. My life still had meaning.
But I never imagined that even this humble wish was something Max refused to grant me. With his own hands, he pushed my babies—my hope—into hell.