Chapter 29 The Breaking Point
CAITLYN'S POV
I did not sleep at all that night. I lay in the guest bed staring at the ceiling and thinking about everything Collin had said. You exist to serve my image, you are mine. I can make sure you never see the child.
His words kept echoing in my head over and over until I wanted to scream. This was not what I signed up for. This was not what marriage was supposed to be. But he was right that I was trapped. I had nowhere to go and no way out.
By morning I had cried so much that my eyes were swollen and red. I looked terrible but I did not care. I needed water, my throat was raw from crying and I felt dizzy from not eating anything since yesterday.
I went downstairs to get some water and found Collin in the kitchen reading his phone. He was dressed in his usual expensive suit and looked completely relaxed like yesterday had never happened. Like he had not cheated on me, like he had not threatened me.
"You look awful," he said without looking up from his phone. "The Hendersons' dinner is tonight. Make sure you clean yourself up."
I filled a glass with water and drank it. My hands were shaking so bad that water sloshed over the sides. I could not believe he was acting like everything was normal. Like we were just a regular married couple planning our evening.
"Did you hear me?" Collin asked and finally looked up. "The dinner is at seven, wear something nice."
Something inside me snapped. All the fear and sadness from last night turned into pure anger. I was done being treated like property, and I was done letting him control everything. I was done pretending.
"I am not going to the dinner," I said.
He looked up at me with cold eyes. "Excuse me?"
"I said I am not going," I repeated and put the glass down hard on the counter. "You can go by yourself and make up whatever excuse you want but I am not going to stand there and smile and pretend everything is fine."
Collin put down his phone slowly. "We already discussed this Caitlyn. You are going to play your role, we have an arrangement."
"I do not care about your arrangement," I said and my voice was getting louder. "I do not care what we discussed. I am not going to keep pretending like you did not cheat on me. Like you do not treat me like garbage. I am done."
"Lower your voice," Collin said and stood up. "Mrs Chen can hear you."
"I do not care if she can hear me," I said. "I do not care if the whole neighborhood hears me. You cheated on me, Collin, in our bed, and you did not even have the decency to stop when I walked in."
"It meant nothing," he said dismissively. "I already explained that to you. It was just stress relief."
"Stress relief?" I repeated and felt my anger rising even higher. "You were having sex with your secretary and you call it stress relief?"
"What else would I call it?" Collin asked like I was being unreasonable. "It is not like I have feelings for her. It was purely physical."
"That does not make it better," I said. "That makes it worse. You do not even care enough about her to have feelings but you still did it anyway."
"Because I wanted to," Collin said simply. "And I am allowed to do what I want."
"No you are not," I said. "You are married. You made vows."
Collin laughed but there was no humor in it. "Vows. You really still believe in that? Caitlyn grew up. Marriage is a business arrangement. The vows are just words we say to make other people happy."
"They were supposed to mean something," I said quietly.
"Maybe to you," he said. "But not to me. I told you what this marriage was about. It was about Image, family, and building something together. I never promised you love or fidelity."
"Yes you did," I said. "You told me you loved me."
"I said what you needed to hear to get you to marry me," Collin said without any shame. "And it worked. So stop acting like I deceived you when you were perfectly willing to believe what you wanted to believe."
The casual cruelty of his words took my breath away. He really did not care at all, he never had.
"You are done when I say you are done," Collin said and his voice got harder. "And you will go to that dinner because I am telling you to go. The Hendersons are important clients and I need you there to play the devoted wife."
"No," I said. "You cannot make me."
"What did you just say to me?" Collin asked and took a step forward.
"I said no," I repeated even though my heart was racing. "I am not going. I am not doing this anymore."
"You do not get to tell me no," Collin said. "You are my wife, you do what I tell you to do."
"I am not your property," I said.
He moved faster than I expected. One second, he was standing by the counter, and the next, he was right in front of me. His hand came up and he hit me hard across the face. The force of it made me stumble backward and I grabbed the counter to keep from falling.
Pain exploded across my cheek and I tasted blood in my mouth. I touched my face and felt it already starting to swell. Collin had hit me, my husband had actually hit me.
"You are whatever I say you are," Collin said calmly like he had not just struck me. "And right now you are my wife who is going to do exactly what I tell her to do."
I looked up at him and saw no remorse in his eyes. There was no guilt or shame. Just cold calculation like he was deciding if he needed to hit me again to make his point clear.
"You hit me," I whispered.
"And I will hit you again if you keep defying me," he said simply. "This is your own fault, Caitlyn. If you had just agreed to go to the dinner none of this would have happened."
"You cannot just hit me," I said and my voice was shaking.
"I can do whatever I want," Collin said. "This is my house. You are my wife, and you will learn to obey me, or there will be consequences."
"I am pregnant," I said desperately. "What if you hurt the baby?"
"Then you should have thought about that before you refused to do what I asked," Collin said without any emotion. "The baby will be fine as long as you cooperate, but if you keep pushing me, I cannot guarantee what will happen."
My whole body was shaking and I felt like I might throw up. This was real. This was actually happening. Collin was not just controlling and ma
nipulative. He was dangerous, he was willing to hurt me and even willing to hurt the baby.