Vanessa only grew more gleeful,as if basking in her superiority.“Do you know why Adrian liked you?Because he’d never seen the world and you fooled him with that fake prim attitude.You don’t understand him at all.Aside from bossing him around,forbidding this and that,what else can you do?Do you know how stifled he felt with you?How bored?”
“But me?”Her voice swelled with self-satisfaction.“I’m his soulmate.I know what he craves—thrill,freedom.I take him street-racing,bungee jumping,to Macau casinos.I give him the life he’s never tasted.I’m his salvation,the only sun in his dark life.You’re nothing but a nagging housekeeper he’s long since grown sick of!”
Each word was a poisoned needle,piercing Clara’s heart.
She thought of Adrian’s ulcer from all those drinking bouts in his early years.Of the serious car crash he’d once survived,the doctor’s repeated warnings that his heart mustn’t be overstrained.No extreme sports.No pushing limits.
Her“rules”for him had been born of a wife’s worry and love.
And he?
To please this so-called soulmate,he had thrown every warning aside—and now used her care as proof she was“boring.”
He was gambling with his life.
Clara’s heart twisted with pain.