Page 34 of Entangled

She only smiled. “It got me what I wanted. I never needed to fuck another man to benefit my father, I only needed to fuck you. And after that, I didn’t even need to do that, Gian. So yes, I got what I wanted.”

“Yes, stuck in a marriage with me. Where we despise one another, where you lied to me about everything and tricked me with a fake pregnancy, and then losing—”

“I apologized for all of that!”

Gian spun fast on his heel, not hiding his anger. “That’s the problem. You think because you spit out a few sad words, that it fixes what you did. It doesn’t fix it, Elena. You’ve trapped me into this fucking hell with you. I’m so goddamn happy that you don’t mind because of all the wonderful things you have, because fuck me, right? Fuck me and everything I might have wanted from life, Elena.”

“I was taught that feelings didn’t matter in this life, Gian. Only the end goal. Perhaps you should learn the same. My bad, that I happened to meet my goals before you did.”

Feelings only mattered when they were hers.

That was what she meant to say.

Gian was not stupid.

“Get the fuck out, Elena.”

“In a minute.”

Gian snarled a warning at his wife over his shoulder, done with her nonsense and games for the day. Elena barely reacted. In fact, she continued standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and her eyes nailed to his back.

“What do you want that you haven’t already bothered me with?” he asked, reaching his limit of patience.

“Who were you really with last night?”

Gian’s shoulders stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”

“Who were you fucking?” Elena carefully enunciated each word. “That’s why you didn’t come here last night or to church this morning, right? You’ve got scratches all down your back. Jesus, she must have liked whatever it was you were doing to her. Doesn’t that hurt? That’s one thing you’re quite good at—making a woman come again and again, I remember that well. Did she scream your name like a good little whore? Was it loud enough to drown out me and everyone else filling your thoughts?”

Gian reacted only to the fact Elena used the word whore. He spun fast on his heel. Elena took a giant step back, far enough out of the doorway that Gian was able to grab the door and slam it closed without hitting her.

Her voice stopped him before he closed it completely.

“Oh, someone’s touchy. Is it her again, Gian, the one from before?”

Gian let the door slam in her face, determined not to give Elena a thing unless she pried it out of his dead hands. When a man gave her an inch, she took a mile and ran with it until he was a bleeding, useless, broken mess trailing behind her. It was just what she did, it was what she had been taught and Gian refused to ever play those games with his wife again.

The last time he had, he’d lost. Lost his freedom. Lost his rights. Lost what he thought was his child. He just fucking lost.

So no, fuck her, and her games.

“Cara, right?” Elena asked from behind the wood. “That’s her name, isn’t it? Are you screwing that whore again?”

“Go to hell, Elena, before I fucking send you there.”

She laughed at him.

He wasn’t surprised.

Story of their life …

“Elena didn’t want to come?” Celeste asked as Gian kissed his mother’s cheek.

He readied to speak the lie he had prepared, but whether or not his mother would fall for it was another story.

“She’s not feeling well,” he said.

Celeste frowned. “She was fine at church this morning. Wasn’t she, Frederic?”