Chapter 207
Victoria was about to put her leather shoes on the shoe cabinet.
Hearing those words, her fingers instantly tightened around the shoes.
Her eyelashes trembled slightly, her eyelids lowered, hiding the calm emotions deep in her eyes.
Why would Martin suddenly ask her this question?
Whether her cancer was real or not—others might not know, but wouldn't he?
Victoria suddenly felt exhausted. She didn't want to play this role-playing game with him anymore. It was pointless.
She placed the shoes on the cabinet, bent down to change into cotton slippers, treated Martin like he was invisible, then turned and headed up the spiral staircase.
As she stepped onto the stairs, Victoria felt a chill seeping through her slippers, spreading through her body and into her limbs.
When she was about to go to the walk-in closet to change clothes.
A large, bony hand grabbed her wrist. He gripped it quite hard, making her frown.
Victoria lifted her eyelids and looked at Martin.
He wore a khaki trench coat with a pure cotton shirt underneath.
A solid-colored tie at his collar.
His features were cold and handsome.
In his prime.
He looked the way she used to like, dressed the way she used to want him to dress.
But now everything had changed.
No matter how many times she looked at him, he was no longer the man from deep in her memories.
Victoria realized sadly that perhaps she never loved the real Martin.
She loved the version of him she had imagined.
Victoria blinked her dry eyes. She didn't want to look at him anymore.
Because every time she did, it reminded her how terrible her judgment had been.
How blind she had been.
She lowered her eyelids, trying to break free from his grip.
Martin saw how resistant she was to him. The old Victoria used to actively press herself into his arms, wanting to be close to him twenty-four hours a day.
But now she rejected him so much?
Martin's brows furrowed unconsciously as he repeated his earlier question, "You still haven't answered me. Do you really have cancer or not?"
Victoria laughed mockingly.
Hadn't she told him?
She'd told him so many times.
She'd shown him her medical reports—he didn't believe her.
He forced her to get pregnant. She said she had cancer and couldn't get pregnant—he still didn't believe her.
Now he was asking her again with fake concern. How should she answer?
"If you think I have it, then I have it. If you think I don't, then I don't." Victoria pulled free from his hand and gave him a cold, indifferent smile.
Martin didn't know why, but seeing that smile made him even angrier.
He was showing concern for her—what had he done wrong to deserve this attitude?
What did she mean, if he thought she had it then she had it, if he thought she didn't then she didn't?
"Can't you just give me a straight answer?" Martin thought about the child in her belly and his anger instantly subsided.
Victoria's other hand was holding her phone, which suddenly buzzed with a message.
She looked up and opened her phone.
Martin snatched the phone from her hand and started reading.
She tried to grab it back, but he held it up high.
He was much taller than her to begin with.
Martin's face grew darker and darker, because he saw it was Aaron replying to her message. She had asked Aaron if Martin had bullied him.
Aaron told her not to worry, saying he already knew about her cancer.
The way these two sympathized with each other—how was that like friends?
What kind of friends had such blurred boundaries?
Martin's face darkened as he deleted Aaron's WhatsApp from her phone, then shoved the phone back into her hands, "Victoria, you're not even divorced from me yet, and you're already this close with Aaron? This time, I'm just deleting him for you. Next time, if I catch you sneaking around with him, don't blame me for going after him."
"I don't even have the right to make friends anymore?" Victoria's fingers gripped her phone tightly in her palm as she stared at him.
He scoffed, "He has bad intentions toward you. Stay away from him."
"You can read minds now?"
"I'm a man too. You think I don't know what's going on in his head?" Martin glared at Victoria, instantly furious.
This stupid woman, how could she be so stupid?
What man would be that bored—if he had no ulterior motives, why would he care so much about her?
Aaron clearly saw that their marriage was troubled and was deliberately getting close to her, driving a wedge between them, trying to steal her away.
But Martin's well-intentioned warning still wasn't appreciated.
She shot back, "You built your fortune by using me. You call yourself a man?"
Built his fortune by using her.
Those words really stung.
So sarcastic.
Martin laughed bitterly.
He was about to argue with her.
But she turned and entered the walk-in closet without looking back, slamming the door.
That door blocked all the words he wanted to say, all the explanations he wanted to give.
Martin didn't sleep all night.
He watered the green plants he'd bought her and fed the Gracula religiosa he'd bought her.
The Gracula religiosa kept squawking in his ear, calling him a bastard, calling him ungrateful.
Saying Victoria didn't like him.
Saying Victoria hated him.
Martin found it very annoying.
He smoked on the sofa all night.
But even after thinking all night, he still couldn't figure out whether Victoria really had cancer or not.
His heart felt like it was pressed down by a huge stone, heavy and suffocating.
Every winter, Martin caught a cold.
This time was no exception.
He smoked and coughed at the same time.
Victoria heard his coughing and couldn't sleep either.
If this were before, knowing he had a cold, she would definitely have rushed to buy him medicine, climbed into his bed to warm it for him.
But now Victoria chose to sit on the edge of her bed, looking out the window, waiting for dawn.
She couldn't sleep, partly because his coughing disturbed her.
On the other hand, her insomnia was getting worse and worse.
Every night felt so long.
Victoria's body was clearly exhausted, her eyelids trembling.
But when she actually lay in bed, her mind was unusually alert.
Memories of the past kept surfacing in her mind.
They wouldn't fade away. Her worries were like a tangled ball of yarn with no loose end, wrapped around her heart.
Every minute, every second was hard to endure.
Victoria thought, it's okay, she didn't have many days left anyway. When she closed her eyes for good, she could truly rest.
She hadn't finished suffering what she deserved to suffer.
So heaven wouldn't give her a quick end.
Dawn finally came. Victoria numbly pulled open the bedside table drawer, took out an unlabeled medicine bottle, poured a large handful into her palm, and pressed them past her lips.
She swallowed them dry.
Without water.
Endless bitterness instantly numbed her tongue, numbed her entire mouth.
Maybe when the body hurt, the heart wouldn't hurt as much.
Victoria pushed open the master bedroom door and walked out to see a table full of nutritious food on the dining table. The kitchen door was frosted glass, and she could clearly see Martin wearing an apron, busy working in the kitchen.