Chapter 98 Ninety Eight
Antonia closed her eyes briefly, absorbing the finality.
When she opened them, they were glossy but determined.
“If you say so, ”she said softly.
He didn’t reply immediately.
He had learned something recently.
Love without trust corrodes.
Slowly.
Relentlessly.
“Yes,” he said at last.
She nodded once, as if accepting a verdict.
“When will you be back?” she asked.
“A few weeks.”
“And you’ll call?”
“For updates about him.”
A flicker of pain crossed her face again.
Only about him.
He picked up his suitcase.
At the door, he paused.
Without turning around, he said quietly, “Rest. Don’t stress yourself. Your blood pressure—”
She blinked.
Concern.
Still there.
Even through the walls he was building.
“I will,” she murmured.
He finally looked back at her.
For a second, just a second, the indifference cracked.
Something softer surfaced.
Then he locked it away.
“I’ll see you when I return.”
And then he walked out.
\-----
The city greeted Kennedy with noise.
Air thick with humidity. Horns blaring. The restless pulse of commerce and ambition rising from every street corner. It was a world he understood—contracts, negotiations, calculated risks. Numbers did not lie. Balance sheets did not conceal affairs. Meetings did not withhold life-altering secrets.
Or so he used to believe.
His driver maneuvered through traffic while Kennedy stared out the window, but he didn’t see the skyline. He didn’t see the familiar towers bearing his company’s name. He saw Antonia’s face.
There is no ‘us.’
The words had felt firm when he said them.
Necessary.
Now they replayed differently.
Sharper.
He shifted in his seat, jaw tightening. This was exactly why he needed distance. Emotional entanglements blurred judgment. He had spent years rebuilding after Ruth’s death. Years honoring her memory. Years burying himself in work to avoid confronting the loneliness.
And now?
Now he discovered that even in death, Ruth had not been who he thought she was.
And Antonia—Antonia had carried his child in silence.
He exhaled slowly as the car pulled into the underground parking of his company headquarters.
Focus.
That was what he needed.
\----
The boardroom was already full when he stepped in.
Conversations halted.
Chairs shifted.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Welcome back, Mr. Walton.”
He nodded curtly and took his seat at the head of the long mahogany table.
“Let’s begin.”
For the next several hours, he dissected reports, challenged projections, approved expansions, rejected proposals. He asked hard questions. Demanded accountability. Corrected inefficiencies with surgical precision.
No one in that room would have guessed that the man directing multimillion-dollar decisions had held his newborn son just hours ago.
No one would have guessed that his chest still felt hollow.
He did not allow himself to drift.
Every time his thoughts threatened to wander—to a pale blue blanket, to dark eyes shimmering with restrained hurt—he snapped them back to profit margins and market forecasts.
By early evening, the meetings ended.
“Excellent work today, sir,” his operations manager said as they exited the boardroom.
Kennedy nodded once. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow.”
He walked through the corridor lined with framed photographs, company milestones, award ceremonies, expansion launches.
He didn’t stop walking.
He kept his eyes forward.
It was past nine when he finally arrived home.
The house was too quiet.
The security system beeped as he entered. The lights came on automatically, illuminating polished floors and carefully curated décor.
Nothing out of place.
Nothing alive.
He removed his jacket and loosened his tie, dropping both on a nearby chair.
The silence pressed against him.
He poured himself a glass of water in the kitchen and leaned against the counter, staring at nothing.
His son.
He hadn’t even asked what Antonia planned to name him.
The realization unsettled him.
He had focused so much on structure, custody, legal frameworks—he had forgotten to ask something as simple as a name.
A father should know that.
Frustration prickled beneath his skin.
He walked toward the staircase, ascending slowly.
His bedroom door opened to the same pristine space he had left weeks ago. Bed made. Curtains drawn. Everything in its designated place.
He sat on the edge of the mattress.
And the silence grew louder.
He lay back, staring at the ceiling.
Sleep did not come.
Instead, memories did.
Ruth laughing at some private joke.
Ruth adjusting his tie before an event.
Ruth standing at the top of those very stairs the day she moved in.
I promise you forever, Kennedy.
He had believed her.
With everything in him.
He turned onto his side, restless.
Then his gaze drifted.
The closet.
Her side remained intact. Dresses hanging neatly. Shoes aligned. Jewelry boxes stacked carefully on the shelf.
A shrine.
That was what it had become.
He sat up slowly.
His pulse began to quicken—not with grief.
With anger.
He stood and walked toward it.
For years, he had preserved that space out of loyalty. Out of reverence. Out of the belief that she had deserved that devotion.
He reached for the closet handle.
Paused.
Then yanked it open.
The faint scent of her perfume still lingered.
Something inside him snapped.
“All lies,” he muttered.
He grabbed the nearest dress—a red evening gown she had worn to their third anniversary gala.
He remembered that night vividly. She had looked radiant. Untouchable.
He had looked at her like she was the only woman in the room.
And perhaps she had already been betraying him.
The thought burned.
With a sharp motion, he tore the gown from its hanger and flung it across the room.
It landed crumpled near the dresser.
His breathing grew heavier.
He pulled out another dress.
Then another.
Hangers clattered to the floor like scattered bones.
Shoes followed.
Boxes.
Scarves.
Each item felt like evidence.
Of deception.
Of a marriage he had mourned as sacred.
“You didn’t deserve it,” he said aloud, his voice low and shaking.
He grabbed a framed photograph from the shelf inside the closet.
Ruth’s smiling face stared back at him.
For a moment—just a moment—pain flickered beneath the fury.
Then Austin’s words echoed again.
She wasn’t faithful to you.
Kennedy’s jaw tightened.
With a sharp motion, he hurled the frame against the wall.
Glass shattered.
The sound reverberated through the room.
He stood there, chest rising and falling heavily.
“I sacrificed everything,” he said through clenched teeth. “Everything.”
And she had—
He kicked one of the scattered boxes across the floor.
It slammed into the wardrobe door.