Chapter 5: Explanation
"What?" The sound of the hairdryer made it hard for him to hear.
James saw her hair was mostly dry, so he turned off the hairdryer and lifted her chin with his finger.
A tear-stained little face came into view.
Once emotions that had been held back for so long lost control, they were hard to rein in.
Through blurry tears, Mia looked at James's gentle expression and asked between sobs, "James, why are you still being so good to me?"
James was caught off guard by Mia's tears. The hairdryer slipped from his hand and fell to the floor.
He bent down and picked her up, sat down where she had been sitting, and settled her on his lap. He raised his hand to wipe her tears. "You're my wife."
Mia shook her head slightly, trying to avoid his tenderness, but he held her waist and kept her on his lap. Unable to escape, she could only whisper weakly, "Please stop being so good to me!"
She really wouldn't be able to let go.
Making up her mind to divorce him—she had spent so long at the hospital building up the courage to make that decision.
James listened to Mia's "nonsense," a hint of helplessness flashing in his eyes, his voice becoming even softer. "What silly things are you saying?"
Seeing Mia's tears wouldn't stop, James, who had never been good at comforting people, rarely tried to soothe her. "Stop crying."
That only made it worse. It was like he'd opened the floodgates to Mia's tear ducts. She'd been crying silently before, but now tears were falling like broken beads, one after another.
James frowned slightly, watching the tears multiply no matter how much he wiped.
He stopped wiping.
His slender fingers moved down to grip her chin. He used a move that usually worked when he made her cry during their intimate moments—he leaned down and kissed her.
Blocking her mouth to make her forget about crying.
Except in bed, he didn't like seeing her cry at other times.
This kiss made Mia break down and cry out loud.
She was so upset right now, and all he could think about was that kind of thing.
Mia thought about how obsessed James had been with doing this with her over the past few years.
She shook her head from side to side, her uninjured hand hitting his shoulder, resisting intensely.
But after James kissed her, his large hand fell on the back of her head, running through her long hair and tightening.
His kiss, like the man himself, was domineering and forceful, leaving her no escape.
Unable to break free, Mia bit down hard in anger.
When James pulled back in pain, Mia saw his bleeding lip and her heart clenched.
But quickly, she pushed down that feeling of distress.
Biting her own lip lightly, she looked at James and accused him with grievance, "James, the woman you love is already back. Are you still being so good to me, your substitute, just because you like my body?"
He didn't love her.
He only loved her body.
All his kindness to her was only because he liked her body.
And she had mistaken it for love, falling deeper and deeper.
She even felt pain in her heart at the thought of divorcing him, as if someone was going to rip it out of her chest.
In the master bedroom, the warm-toned lighting softened James's hard features.
His lip was bleeding. His tongue swept across it, licking away the blood, the metallic taste spreading through his mouth. His eyes darkened.
He looked down at the emotionally broken Mia in his arms, amused and exasperated by her nonsense. He asked helplessly, "Mia, what's going on in your head?"
Such a mess.
"You!"
Mia blurted out.
Her head was full of him!
Her heart and eyes were full of him.
After saying it, she felt pathetic. "You and Amelia!"
At the mention of Amelia, Mia's heart twisted into a knot again. Feeling wronged and heartbroken, tears that had just stopped began welling up in her eyes again.
"I saw it with my own eyes! You were holding Amelia with such a worried look, rushing into the hospital. I was lying on a gurney, in so much pain I was barely conscious, almost dying, and you didn't even notice!"
"James, the person you love is Amelia. I'm just a replacement!"
The more Mia spoke, the more her heart ached.
She was angry at herself for being weak, and even angrier at James for treating her this way.
Mia's heart hurt too much with nowhere to vent, so she lowered her head and bit James.
Her teeth sank deep into his flesh. Only when she tasted blood in her mouth did she suddenly come to her senses and release him, pulling back.
Her eyes fell on the bite mark below his collarbone. The wound was deep and bleeding.
He hadn't cried out in pain, but she felt distressed first.
Mia bit her lip hard. How could she be so useless?
"Can you listen to me now?"
James kept one hand firmly around her still-slender waist, his thumb wiping away the bright red from the corner of her mouth.
"What else do you have to say?" Mia raised her head, looking at him with red, swollen eyes.
"What? You've already convicted me?"
James was calm and composed, his stunningly handsome face completely open.
Mia looked at him and hesitated.
She couldn't help thinking—he looked so open about it, maybe there was some misunderstanding?
She pressed her lips together, tilted her head slightly, and put on an expressionless face. "Go ahead then!"
She still wanted to hear his explanation, weak as that made her.
"Amelia and I have known each other since we were kids, and she did me a big favor. Plus, her parents died early and she doesn't have many people to take care of her. Yesterday she had a stomach hemorrhage, the situation was critical, and she called me."
"Under those circumstances, shouldn't I have taken her to the hospital?"
Mia didn't want to answer. She bit her lip even harder and asked coldly, "If you're just friends, would you be that worried about her?"
"Are you sure you saw clearly?"
James's counter-question stumped Mia.
Did she see clearly?
Actually, she wasn't too sure.
At the time, she was in so much pain that she wasn't fully conscious.
Was it really what she saw, or had she jumped to conclusions and imagined James being worried about Amelia?
Especially with James looking at her so openly, Mia clearly started leaning toward the idea that she had seen it wrong.
She couldn't hide her emotions—everything she was thinking was written all over her face.
James raised his hand at the right moment to comfort her, stroking her hair. "Yesterday was my fault. I wasn't by your side when you were in the most pain. It won't happen again."
Mia's eyes reddened. "There'll be a next time?"
"No, there won't be. From now on, I promise to put you first."
James understood Mia's emotions deeply. Seeing she was appeased, his thin lips kissed her palm.
Mia still felt wronged, but after hearing his explanation, she wasn't as angry as before. She pulled her hand back and said "fiercely," "Be serious, I'm not done asking questions yet!"
She had always been easy to coax.
She believed everything he said without question.
But this time, it wasn't so easy to move past.
James gestured for her to continue.
"That night you were drunk—when we were making love, at the very end, who were you saying 'I love you' to?"