Love And Revenge: A Tale Of Yesterday's Desire

“Congratulations, ma’am, the results are out, and you are two months pregnant.” The doctor’s voice was calm, professional, and steady. Too steady for words that felt like they had just split me open. He stood across from me, holding the results, waiting for a reaction, but my mind had already drifted somewhere dark and distant. “Pre… pregnant?” I whispered. “I… I’m pregnant?” The words tasted strange in my mouth, like a language I didn’t fully understand. For a moment, I wondered if something was wrong with me. Maybe I had misheard him, or maybe my ears were betraying me, just like my life had betrayed me ever since I married Dominic. I sat there, frozen, unsure whether to laugh or cry. Happiness flickered in my chest, fragile and trembling, but fear wrapped itself tightly around it. Dominic’s face appeared in my mind without invitation, and suddenly, the joy felt dangerous. I was happy, and at the same time, I was terrified. When I stepped out of the hospital, Patrick was already waiting. He bowed slightly and opened the car door for me, his lips curved into a small, polite smile. For a second, I thought about returning it. But my face refused to cooperate. The drive home passed in complete silence. Patrick usually filled the car with lighthearted jokes, but today, he said nothing. Maybe he sensed the storm inside me, or maybe I had finally learned how to look as broken as I felt. “We’ve arrived home, madam,” he said softly. I blinked, startled, as if I’d been pulled out of deep water. I hadn’t even noticed the journey. I hadn’t noticed anything at all. I gave Patrick a small smile, but it faded almost immediately. My eyes lifted to the towering gates of the estate as they slowly swung open, welcoming me into a place that had never truly felt like home. “Thank you, Patrick,” I murmured as I stepped out of the car. Inside, the maids bowed and greeted me as usual, holding the doors open. I didn’t see the concern in their eyes, I barely saw anything. My thoughts were already racing ahead. How was I supposed to tell Dominic? And with every step I took, the doctor’s voice echoed in my head. A life is growing inside you. I pressed a hand against my stomach unconsciously, I was pregnant, pregnant with Dominic’s child. The realization made my chest ache in a strange, tender way. I was happy, desperately so. At least now, I had something real. Something that was ours, something I could love without conditions, without rejection. Even if Dominic never loved me. I promised myself then and there that I would protect this child with everything I had. It still felt unreal, that the one night, the only night Dominic and I had ever truly been together, had led to this. Foolishly, painfully, hope crept in. Maybe this would change things, maybe now, he would finally love me. Dominic had never married me because he wanted to, he married me because of his father. “You either marry Eliana or forget about inheriting my company,” Ray Grayson had said after Dominic recovered from his kidney transplant. “She saved your life. You owe her that much.” Everyone had expected Dominic to die, both his kidneys had failed, and none of his family members were a match. Even the available donor kidneys weren’t compatible. Time was slipping away, fast. Ray Grayson was already battling terminal cancer. Watching his only son fade had broken something in him. I had been his caregiver, someone he trusted, someone he spoke to in quiet moments. “If anything happens to my son,” he once told me, his voice trembling, “I will die too.” I couldn’t bear to lose him, and I couldn’t bear to lose Dominic. So I volunteered, and thankfully, I was a match. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t think about the risks or the pain, I had already fallen in love with Dominic long before that day, even if I never said it aloud. Saving him mattered more than anything else. I gave him my kidney out of love, for him and for his father. I never imagined Ray would ask me to choose between money and marriage, and of course I chose Dominic. I was already hopelessly in love with him, but Dominic despised me. When he agreed to the marriage, I was shocked. I knew about Viviana, his childhood sweetheart, his first love, the famous model he had been with for years. Standing beside him, I felt like an intruder. Like someone who would never belong. Yet he chose me, and blinded by love, I said yes. That was when my nightmare truly began. The man I married was nothing like the man I had imagined. He was my worst nightmare. We lived in the same house but slept in separate rooms. He never looked at me like a husband looks at his wife. He never took me out, never spoke to me gently, never tried. “I only married you because my father forced me,” he said once during one of our arguments. “I need company, so don’t expect me to be seen with you or to share a bed with you. I can’t wake up every morning to your annoying face.” He never touched me. He stayed out late, and some nights, he didn’t come home at all. In five years of marriage, he never once asked if I was okay. Never asked if I was sick, never asked if I needed anything. Until the night he came home drunk. I had never seen Dominic like that before. He barely drank, never enough to lose control of himself. I helped him to his room, steadying him, helping him undress. I was turning to leave when his hand suddenly closed around my waist and he threw me onto the bed. I panicked. “Stop, Dominic. You’re drunk.” But he kissed me before I could say anything else. His lips burned against mine, fierce and desperate. His hands held me as if he were afraid I would disappear. Objects crashed to the floor as he pulled me closer, the sound sharp and loud in the room. I struggled at first, confusion and fear tangling inside me, but something in me gave in. He kissed me like he was starving, and I let him. He devoured me with the hunger of a famished man, and I yielded like a sword doing its master's bid. My fingernails tore down his back, scoring furrows across proud muscles that did not flinch. He laid me against the bed and kissed me as if he would steal my breath. Our bodies wrapped around each other in a dance of dominance and submission, a game of desire and hunger that neither of us could possibly win without losing something more. When I screamed, it was not due to pain, but out of joy and satisfaction. Afterward, I lay against his chest, my heart racing, my fingers buried in his hair. “Viviana.” The name shattered everything, and I froze, that wasn’t my name. Tears filled my eyes as reality crashed down on me. I slipped out of bed and returned to my room without a word, my chest aching with every step. I waited for an explanation, but none came. Dominic left early the next morning. Weeks later, he traveled for work, and when he returned, we never spoke of it again. The memory tightened around my chest as I climbed the stairs toward his room. It was Sunday, so Dominic was home. He hated being disturbed, especially by me, but this was something I had to tell him. “Dominic…” I began as I pushed the door open . And then I froze, because what I saw made my blood turn to ice.