Chapter 100 The Proposition
\[Lilia\]
I froze in my place, my heart breaking as I stared at them eat each other’s faces. Kael snaked his arm to Sabina’s waist pulling her closer to him. I just don’t know what to do. I just stood there, dumbstruck. So this is what it feels like, watching the man I cared about kissing another woman instead of me.
It hurts so much. It felt like someone had their claws on my chest and tore my heart out, and all I could do was stand there motionless having no control over what was happening.
Kael seemed to have forgotten all about me. All his promises, the things he said that day. The ‘Not hurting me’ part while he buried himself into me.
I am so naïve. A fool to believe the mere words of a man. Well, like what Sasha said, I should make myself stronger, and in that way, no one could ever hurt me.
I felt something wet trickling on my face and immediately wiped it away. Taking a deep breath and steeled myself as I forced my feet to move. To take the first step forward of acceptance that Kael and I will not and will never have any future and everything that happened between us. The things he said were all just in history. I was the only one holding on to that shit, and now I’m in pieces.
“Oh, hi. We didn’t see you there,” Sabina chirped soon as I was about to open the fridge and was hoping they won’t notice me, but this woman right here knows precisely what she’s doing, and she was doing it on purpose. To have me see them kissing and see what my reaction will be.
She saw me enter the kitchen, deliberately initiating the kiss, and Kael went with her antics.
I took a few slow, deep breaths, wiped away any signs of emotion that could have been visible on my face, and turned to look at them. Kael’s mossy gaze burned on narrowly, his brows dipped low and the corner of his jaw clenching. I am not sure if he was angry that I disturbed them or that he simply didn’t want to see me.
Pain twisted once more in my chest, but I ignored it just as I kept doing for the past few days.
“Ignore me, please. I’m just here to get water and then head back to the gym,” I said and proceeded to open the fridge. However, Sabina spoke again, and in my peripheral vision, she wrapped her hand around Kael’s waist.
“Lilia, right? I heard a lot about you from the maids about being Kael’s acquired pet, and since I am his fiancé, his future wife, that makes you mine too, right?” She queried, putting up an innocent smile and fluttering her eyelashes while moving her gaze to Kael and me.
I keep the exasperation on my face, biting the inside of my cheeks and curling my fingers around my tumbler in control, composing myself and keeping a mantra inside my head not to smack it on her pretty face.
So instead, I forced a smile in response, shifting my attention to Kael, meeting his intense gaze, and refused to give him any satisfaction of cowering myself in front of his so-called fiancé.
“Uh, why don’t we ask Master Kael about that?” I answered. “I don’t think he told me clearly about my role of being a pet,” emphasizing the part calling him master. I never called him that, and he never insisted I do. I said it to annoy him, and it seems to be working. For a fleeting second, the corner of his eyes twitched, and his lips turned into a thin line.
“Can we share her, Kael babe?” Sabina pouted, turning her attention. Her high pitchy tone vexes the hell out of me, and it makes me want to pull my eardrums and force them on her to swallow them.
She acted so innocently, but I know behind those façades is a witch ready to pounce, and she is even making her first move to ensnare me into the web of her fingers.
“Whatever suits you well, Sabina,” Kael blankly responded, shoving his hands into his pocket without bothering to remove Sabina from clinging to him like a gecko.
Another shot of pain crosses my chest. Even though it seems impossible, a part of me still hopes that he will show me something that he doesn’t want this. That he still cares for me and all of these were just a front and that I matter to him, and he regretted everything he said to me the other day.
But no.
He just proves to me what kind of asshole he is.
A handsome beast with no heart.
The rage I was feeling flared up once more, but I was able to keep it under control and put on a blank face while staring directly at the man who had broken my heart into a million pieces.
“Great, I don’t mind if we share a pet,” Sabina squealed, and it took me a lot of effort not to make a face in front of her and keep a friendly expression. Good thing the coolness coming off from the fridge drifted through my sweat-covered body, cooling me somehow and making me relax even though I was boiling on the inside.
“Once Kael and I marry, or even the night of our honeymoon, I’m sure we can do fun things. The three of us,” she added, turning her gaze on me as though she was waiting for my approval. Knowing too well that I don’t have a choice but to ride on with her.
This woman is sick. She acted all concerned the first time she saw me, and for a moment, I thought she was kind, different from the other rich woman. Yet now, she’s infuriating me, and she’s purposely doing it. I could see it in her eyes, glinting deviously and nefariously. No good is coming out of them.
“Whatever suits you well, Ms. Sabina,” I smiled and repeated exactly what Kael had said before diverting my attention away from them, pulling out a jug of cold water and pouring it on my tumbler. Then put it back, close the fridge, and walk away without giving them another glance.
He told me to treat that witch with respect. I could put on an act, but if you really got to the bottom of it, that would be the last thing I would be doing.
“Fuck them with respect,” I muttered once I was out of their earshot.
That’s more like it.
The old weak Lilia is gone, and I don’t want that old self of mine back. I am going to bury her in the most inaccessible part of my consciousness so that she can rot away and be forgotten. Then put up a wall around my heart, shielding it from further damage and preventing myself from experiencing further torment in the process. I already have too much on my plate, and I don't think I have the mental capacity to take on any more. I'll be a wreck all over again.
I am a strong woman. Sasha believes that I could be. Aya too.
I may be in this shit hole with no escape, and Kael might be treating me like trash, but there are people who take on my side. Val might be his loyal man, but his sympathies are with me, and that is the only thing that truly matters.
I don’t care about the rest.