Try to make me cry

Chapter 12: The Gilded Departure

The silence in my bedroom was so thick it felt physical, a heavy velvet shroud that muffled the morning light. I sat on the edge of my bed, the silk duvet cool against the backs of my thighs. I was dressed in a tailored charcoal silk jumpsuit—seamless, sharp, and utterly devoid of warmth. Over my shoulders, a heavy cream wool coat was draped like a cape, the weight of it a grounding force. My long blonde hair, meticulously straightened, cascaded down my back like a sheet of spun glass.

I didn't look like a woman going to a birthday party. I looked like a woman going to war.

The only sound was the distant, rhythmic thud-thud of the maids moving through the hallway. Then, the inevitable knock. Two sharp raps.

"Madam? The luggage is ready."

I didn't answer immediately. I traced the edge of my jaw, feeling the slight puffiness where the world had tried to break my mask the day before. I stood up, the floorboards silent under my pointed stilettos, and watched as the two maids scuttled in. They moved like ghosts, heads bowed, avoidant. They handled my Rimowa cases as if they were packed with high explosives.

I followed them down the grand staircase. The mansion felt hollow, a museum of expensive things owned by two people who couldn't stand the sight of each other. The air smelled of expensive lemon polish and cold stone.

Outside, the morning air was crisp, biting at my exposed ankles. My red Rolls-Royce sat idling, the exhaust a pale plume of white in the gray light. I paused at the door, looking back at the house for a fleeting second.

“Where is your master?” I asked the driver, my voice flat, echoing in the driveway.

The driver, a man who had seen too much and said too little, hesitated. His hands gripped the car door a little tighter. He looked confused, perhaps by the way I phrased it—as if I were a guest asking about the hotel manager rather than a wife asking about her husband.

“He already left for the airport, Madam. Just hours ago,” he said, his eyes dropping to the gravel.

A cold, familiar ripple of disdain settled in my chest.

So, he left me behind. I wasn’t surprised. Eddie had a talent for making his absences felt like a physical weight. He probably had business to attend to, or perhaps he was spending his final hours of freedom in the arms of whatever mistress was currently in rotation. I didn't care. Truly, I didn't.

I slid into the backseat. The scent of new leather and my own perfume—sandalwood and sharp citrus—enveloped me. Drive, I commanded.

The journey to the private hangar was a blur of gray highway and internal calculations. I thought about the beach party in Hawaii. I thought about my father’s face when he realized I wasn't going to let him swallow my company whole. I thought about the legal bomb I needed Victor to build for me.

When we pulled into the airport, the world became a frantic ballet of high-end service. Staff in crisp uniforms bowed as the Rolls came to a purring stop.

They moved with a frantic energy, desperate to please the Tyrant. My luggage vanished before I even stepped onto the tarmac.

But as I stepped out of the car, the wind catching my hair and whipping it across my face, my smile—the tiny, private one I had for the thought of a quiet flight—faded instantly.

Standing in front of the gleaming white Gulfstream, the engines already whining in a low, hungry growl, was Eddie.

He looked devastatingly composed in a navy three-piece suit, his hands tucked into his pockets. But he wasn't alone. A woman was draped over him, her fingers clutching his lapels, her face buried in his chest. She was shaking, the sound of her jagged sobs reaching me even over the roar of the jet.

I sighed, the sound lost in the wind. Again? Really?

I didn't slow my pace. I walked toward the boarding stairs, my heels clicking a sharp, rhythmic tempo on the asphalt. I intended to walk right past them, a ghost in their melodrama. I didn't want to see her tear-streaked makeup or his tired green eyes.

“Why do you have to go…!?” the girl wailed. Her voice was high, frantic—the sound of high school heartbreak played out in a multi-million dollar setting.

I rolled my eyes. It was a three-day trip to Hawaii, not a deployment to a war zone.

I was ten feet away when his voice cut through the noise.

“What took you so long?”

I didn't stop. I assumed he was talking to the girl, or perhaps a lingering assistant. But then he spoke again, louder this time, the authority in his voice unmistakable.

“Maggie.”

I stopped. I didn't turn around immediately. I stood with my back to them, the wind tugging at my cream coat. I closed my eyes for a second, centered myself, and then slowly pivoted.

“Yes?”

Eddie was looking at me over the top of the girl’s head. He looked annoyed, his brow furrowed. “I’ve been waiting for hours now. What were you doing?”

I tilted my head, the blonde strands shifting like silk. “Oh, you were? And how am I supposed to know that?” I asked, my voice dripping with honeyed ice. “I assumed you had already left. In fact, I wished you had.”

He let out a short, sharp breath that wasn't quite a laugh. “I tried calling you, but I couldn't reach you,” he said calmly, though his eyes were searching mine, looking for the crack in the armor.

A sudden realization hit me. My phone. I had blocked his number weeks ago during one of our silent wars and hadn't bothered to unblock it when I got home.

The girl finally pulled back from him, her face flushed and blotchy. It was her. Bella Levert. A socialite with more pedigree than brains and a long-standing obsession with my husband. She looked at me with a mixture of terror and pure, unadulterated loathing.

Eddie didn't move away from her. In fact, he shifted his gaze down to my hands, then back to my face.

“Did you change your number? I was trying to call you concerning that lady you met at my office. She is—”

“I know who she is,” I snapped, cutting him off. The last thing I wanted to hear was a lecture on the Governor’s daughter-in-law while his latest fling was practically marking her territory on his suit jacket. “Why are you telling me this now? Do you suddenly care about my social standing, or are you just worried about your own?”

“Yet you beat her up,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register.

I stepped closer, ignoring Bella as if she were a piece of stray luggage. “If you knew who she was, Eddie, you should have stopped me. You should have protected her. But you didn't. You sat there and watched.”

“Which woman?” Bella asked, her voice trembling, her face turning an even deeper shade of red. She looked back and forth between us, realizing she was being excluded from a conversation that clearly had teeth.

Eddie didn't even look at her. His eyes were locked on mine.

“Next time I’m talking to him, be a good girl and stay quiet, okay?” I said, turning my gaze to Bella. I kept my voice soft, almost maternal, which I knew was far more terrifying than a shout. “I hate it when I'm talking to someone and I get interrupted.”

Bella flinched as if I’d slapped her. She lowered her head, her lower lip trembling. She leaned back into Eddie, clutching his arm even tighter, seeking sanctuary from the Tyrant.

I turned toward the jet’s stairs, done with the theater. But as I placed my foot on the first step, I caught it.

Bella raised her face. The tears were still there, but the sobbing had stopped. She looked directly at me—not at Eddie, but at me.

And then, she smiled.

It wasn't a smile of greeting or even a smile of victory. It was a dirty, jagged little smirk. A look that said she knew something I didn't. A look that suggested that this trip to Hawaii wasn't going to be the peaceful flight I had imagined.

I paused, my hand tightening on the chrome railing. The wind died down for a split second, and in that silence, Bella leaned in and whispered something into Eddie’s ear.

He didn't pull away. Instead, he looked at me, his green eyes unreadable, and said the words that made the blood in my veins turn to lead.

“Get on the plane, Maggie. Bella is coming with us. Your mother invited her.”

The world tilted. My mother. Of course. The woman who hated me enough to name me after a tragedy had invited my husband’s mistress to her birthday party.

I looked at Bella. She was still smiling, her eyes bright with a predatory glee.

"Welcome to the family trip, Maggie," she mouthed silently.

I didn't say a word. I turned and walked up the stairs, the sound of my own heartbeat drumming in my ears like a war march. The hunt hadn't even reached the beach yet, and the trap was already closing.