Chapter 140 Beautiful boy - Caroline POV
I smooth the wrinkles on my forehead with my fingers. I look at mess. I didn't sleep a wink, not after everything is going wrong.
The equilibrium has shifted, and I have to make it right.
Madison Smith is first on my agenda. What was she thinking bad mouthing Ben on air like that? She had no place to do that.
I always knew she was a rat from the sewers, and now she just proved my theory.
The hierarchy in New York knows their place. We protect each other, cover for each other if we must. If we didn't, we would have been dismantled a long time ago.
The Smiths and Morettis don't know who they are dealing with.
Katherine McDowell was supposed to disappear quietly. She made her bed when she slept with Miguel. All she had to do was sleep in it, die and all is well.
But Madison had to dig up ghosts.
She has to pay.
There's a knock on my dressing room door, and Benedict enters, anger in his eyes like this is all my fault.
"I'm making an official announcement today that I am stepping down. I don't expect you to be by my side." He turns around to walk out.
"When have I not been by your side?" I halt his steps. "Even when you wouldn't look at me. Or when you looked at me like I'm disgusting you, I still stood by you playing the perfect wife. And now you're just discarding me like yesterday's trash?"
Something dies in me then. All these years I held onto this man that never wanted me. I sold my soul for him, gave up things I really wanted so that he could become the best version of himself.
He turns back around and meets my gaze in the mirror. I see the guilt reflected there, but no remorse. He doesn't care that I was silently standing by while he had his moments in the sun.
"You knew what you signed up for when you agreed to marry me."
"So you only just viewed me as what? An acquisition?" I start applying my makeup for the day, to still portray the perfect wife.
"You played your role as I did mine!" He clenches his jaw.
They all look so alike. Him. Miguel. Ben.
I took care of them all. Made them all happy. Gave them what they needed.
Yet this man can't give me respect.
"It won't look good for me if you're going to stand next to me when I step down, and then next to Ben when he inevitably gets convicted."
How dare he?
"Fuck you, Benedict." I get up to choose a dress, dismissing him.
He stands there for a while watching my actions before he leaves.
He never had to ask the question. He knew I would stand by my son no matter what. That boy loves me more than anyone else in this world, and I will do everything for him, I don't care about reputations.
Benedict has left when I go downstairs, and I join Miguel in the dining room.
It's a pity we got interrupted the last time he was here for dinner, I could get some of these frustrations out. We used to fuck so hard when he was living here. Every time his father said something to hurt me, I'd find a way to hurt Valentina.
Benedict never got over that woman. It baffles my mind what he saw in her, but she sure produced a good son. One who served me well when his father angered me.
Now he's masking the disgust when he's looking at me, the same way his father looks at me.
"Has Ben not been down for breakfast?" I ask Samuel who serves me my usual two poached eggs and smoked salmon.
"Not yet." Samuel puts my coffee next to my plate. "Would you like me to check on him?"
"No, I'll do it myself."
He's probably mad at me for not soothing him last night, but I was so upset at the turn of events, I just couldn't bring myself to go to his bedroom.
I really wanted to go to Miguel's room, but Samuel has been so visible lately, I haven't even gotten an opportunity to drug him.
"Ben's legal team will be here in half an hour." Miguel informs me.
What are they even coming to do here when Ben's face is plastered on every single media outlet like there aren't any other things happening in the world? Aren't they supposed to prevent him being smeared all over the news?
"Are you going into the office today?" I like how his shirt stretches across his broad chest.
He surely did become more handsome as a man.
"Yes." He wipes his hands on his napkin, and I wish those hands were on me instead. "As you can imagine, things are not going well with business. I have to go, goodbye."
His scent lingers even after he leaves, making me yearn for him. I probably won't get a chance with him again, and sadness overcomes me when the last time I had him, I wasn't even satisfied. Neither was he.
The realisation makes me think that I have to say goodbye to Benedict and Miguel in one day.
At least I still have Ben.
I will always have Ben.
I know just the thing to cheer him up, so I quickly finish my breakfast and go up to his room. I knock first, but he doesn't answer.
"Ben?" I call out, turning the knob knowing he wouldn't lock the door in case I paid him a visit.
My poor boy is probably a little depressed after everything, and he's still lying in bed under the covers when I open the door.
"Ben?" I walk inside and close the door behind me, and lock it in case that nosy Samuel comes bothering me again. "Ben, Mom is here."
He's not moving under the covers, and I walk up to the bed in the middle of the room and peel the covers back.
"Ben!"
Only it doesn't look like my beautiful boy lying there.
Instead, the man in the bed has a ghostly blue pallor to his skin, and dried vomit running from his mouth pooled on the pillow.
He has the same blonde hair and haircut as my Ben, but this just can't be my beautiful boy.
It just can't.