Free Web NovelChapter 14: I WAS ONCE LIKE THAT
Chapter 12
Lumi
I looked at him like he’d grown two horn. What does he mean by that question?
I almost laughed.
"Is there another solution that I haven’t heard of apart from divorce?" I was sure whatever was going through my head was visible on my face.
I’m sorry, you can’t blame me. I have low tolerance for stupidity.
He stood slowly and came around the desk. My eyes didn’t leave him, I watched every step he took toward me and felt nothing warm.
That was the thing that struck me most. I kept waiting for something to crack open inside my chest, some last reserve of love or grief or longing, but there was nothing.
Just this clean, quiet stillness that sat in my stomach like something that had already been decided long before I walked through that door.
"Lumi." His voice dropped to that deep voice he always gave me when he did something and wanted to plead.
And it had always worked. I used to live for that voice.
But this time, I’d be the stupid one if it worked on me. freёwebnovel.com
"We don’t have to do this." I didn’t let his words get close to softening me.
"We do."
"Listen, baby..." I cut him off with a look that froze the words right in his throat, forcing him to stop and swallow hard.
"Listen." He tried again. "We can work through this. It doesn’t have to end this way." He took another step toward me. "Think about Theo."
My throat tightened so fast it almost choked me. Theo’s face moved through my mind, those round cheeks, those small hands always reaching, his voice the first time he said mama like it was the only word that had ever mattered.
I pressed my back teeth together and breathed through my nose, realizing he was using our little boy’s name like a bargaining chip. Like Theo was just something he could put on the table between us to watch me fold.
I steadied myself and forced my voice to come out even. Too even, maybe, but I held it there. "Let me make sure I understand. You’re proposing we remain married."
"Yes." Something loosened in his shoulders, the relief of a man who thought the worst was behind him. "That’s what I’m saying. We work through this together, we..."
"And her."
I turned my head toward Sienna, who was standing slightly back from the desk with her hands folded in front of her. Her posture was soft, her face arranged into something patient and open, like a woman who had prepared for this exact moment and knew exactly which version of herself to bring to it.
My stomach turned just looking at her. She was trying so hard to look like a saint now, but it had only been a few minutes since I walked in and caught her half-naked, straddling Callum against his desk.
"We spoke about it," Callum said, his eyes cutting to her in that quick, small glance shared by two people who have already had a different conversation in a different room. "She doesn’t have a problem with it."
Sienna’s chin dipped once, gentle and agreeable. "Callum explained everything," she said, her voice soft and measured. "I don’t have a problem with it. I love him." She paused, then added quietly, as if it were something profound, "I would do anything that makes him happy. That’s what you do for the people you love."
I stared at her, needing a moment to make sure I had actually heard correctly. I needed a beat to process the sheer delusion of this woman standing in front of me, offering to share a man she had spent years scheming to steal.
"So you don’t mind," I said, the words coming out slowly. "Sharing him."
"No." She shook her head with a small, certain movement, and then her eyes moved to Callum—just for a second, just a flicker, but I saw it.
That was when I understood what I was actually looking at. She wasn’t agreeing because she believed it. She was agreeing so he could watch her agree.
Every soft word, every folded hand, every gracious, selfless and accommodating thing she offered in this room was aimed at him like an arrow.
See how good I am. See how easy I make things. See how much I love you.
She thought this was how you made a man stay. But she was wrong.
I looked at her and felt something move through me that was not sympathy and not cruelty either, but something sadder than both.
She was just so utterly convinced. That was the part I couldn’t get past—she was so completely sure that this was love, and that swallowing yourself whole for a man who would never choose you cleanly was what devotion looked like.
I smiled. "I pity you."
Her face stilled instantly, and beside her, Callum’s jaw tightened.
"You let a married man talk you into his bed," I said, keeping my voice calm. Not cold, just perfectly level.
"You let a married man talk you into his bed," I said, keeping my voice perfectly level. "Then you suffered through a pregnancy and gave birth to a son, only to let Callum hand him over to me.
You let your own flesh and blood grow up calling me Mama while he called you Auntie, and you couldn’t do a damn thing but watch. You sacrificed your own child just to be his glorified mistress. All for what?"
Sienna didn’t move a muscle, the silence in the room suddenly suffocating—to them, not to me. I wasn’t done yet; I was going to lay everything bare today and force her to see exactly how disgraceful she really was.
"Even that wasn’t enough," I said, tilting my head.
"Now you’re standing here telling me you’ll share him," I said, a dry, humorless breath slipping past my lips. "That you don’t mind. Because you love him. Because that’s what you do for the people you love."
Her chin lifted just slightly, trying to hold onto that fragile, noble mask.
"Women who don’t know what they’re worth will take whatever crumbs a man places in front of them and call it a blessing," I said, holding her eyes as I let the insult sink in.
"You think he’s your mate, Sienna. You think what you have is a bond. But he cheated on me—someone who is smart, beautiful, loyal, and gave him everything she had for seven years.
I was the package deal, and he still broke it. So if he could do that to me, what do you think is waiting for you? What do you think happens the moment the next woman walks into a room and his bond decides it’s stronger? Get ready, because I promise you, I will not be the last."
Something moved across her face—a crack, thin and fast, but quickly buried. Then her chin came up even higher and her eyes flickered to Callum again, just briefly, the way they kept doing. Checking. Measuring. Making sure he was watching her play the martyr.
"This is why he left you," Sienna said, her voice quiet and pointed as she forced her mask back into place.
"You’re smart. You’re beautiful. No one’s arguing that. But I give him something you couldn’t. Seven years, and you couldn’t give it to him."
I raised a brow, perfectly composed. "And what’s that?"
"Peace," she said.
I looked at her, and then I laughed.
It came out of me before I could decide anything about it—real, full, and completely without bitterness.
What she had just said was so earnest, so genuinely believed, that something in my chest broke open and the only thing that could escape was pure amusement.
I pressed my fingers over my mouth to catch it, but the damage was done. Callum was staring at me in stunned silence, while Sienna’s composure slipped just enough for the raw uncertainty to move underneath it.
They had expected tears or rage—something with sharp edges they could grab onto and use to justify themselves.
Instead, my laughter had taken the floor right out from under them. I let it settle, then looked at Sienna with an expression that had gone completely, genuinely soft.
It wasn’t for her sake, I want to be honest about that, but because I understood now, fully and finally, that she truly believed every single word she was saying.
And that was the most painful thing in this room.
"Peace." I said nodding once. "Okay." I picked up my bag from beside the chair.
"Give him all of it, Sienna. Every last drop. I mean that." I lifted the strap onto my shoulder.
"But remember this moment. Because the day you finally understand what I’m telling you right now, it will already be too late." ƒreewebɳovel.com
I turned my gaze to Callum. He was standing very still, his careful, waiting expression completely gone.
In its place was something I had never quite seen on his face before—not the frantic guilt from the hallway that first night, and not the calculated blankness of a man managing a situation.
It was something far rawer than both. He looked like a person watching something leave and only just realizing they cannot call it back.
I held his eyes for three seconds. Once, I would have done anything to be looked at like that. Once, I would have rearranged my entire life, swallowed myself whole, just to be what he needed.
"I came because I assumed the papers were already ready, given how many times you’ve been calling." I looked between them one last time. "Since they’re not, I’ll give you a few days." I buttoned my coat. "I’ll be back with mine."
I crossed the room, pausing at the door with my hand resting heavy against the frame.
I looked out at the office floor, watching the employees at their desks, completely unaware of how slow their boss was.
I was once like that.
I shook my head once, a quiet farewell to that version of myself, and then I walked out.
