Wife's Bitter Revenge Against Neglectful CEO Husband-Chapter 77: Realization

Rosie met us at the door. She gave me a huge hug.

"What happened? What can I do to help?" Rosie asked.

"Help Min. I’ve got King," I said.

Ben said, "Not necessary. Min is mine."

I did a double take, but I couldn’t tell for sure if he meant Min was his problem or his man, or both. It didn’t matter as long as Min’s injuries were addressed. That, I trusted to Ben.

Rosie helped me get King into the bedroom before I sent her to prep for dinner.

When we were alone, I helped King change into pajamas in silence.

I was buttoning his top when King finally spoke, "I’m tired. So tired."

"You have a right to be tired. We all do."

"I want to sleep," King said.

"Me too."

I helped King into bed and gave him a painkiller. Four times a day, King would forget, at least for a little while. Lucky man.

"Are you staying?" King asked.

"For a while, then I need to go to the church. I’ve got unfinished work to do."

King relaxed into the mattress. "They can do it without you."

"That’s all you know. One day, you’ll see."

"Maybe." And then King was asleep.

Good. I’d had enough of him for a while. I empathized with his pain. His timing for self-inflicted harm was poor. Not only had I run out of patience, I had too many other obligations to devote all of my time and energy to King.

"Please don’t leave me," King said, wrapping his good hand around my wrist. "Just for this one night, can we pretend that you love me and I love you?"

That was a big ask.

"I have tasks to finish, King. Honest."

"I’m asking for eight hours—no, six—give me six hours. I’m giving you a divorce. It’s worth that, isn’t it?"

Why did I have such a hard time telling this man no?

I sighed. "Six hours. Let me call home."

"This is your home. I set it up just for you."

"So is the church."

I called Bea to adjust their expectations.

"Can you do without me long enough for me to take a shower?" I asked King.

"Hurry."

I didn’t exactly hurry. I was surprised that King was still semi-conscious when I returned. He must have been determined to wait for me. My mother had taken the same pain meds when she got really sick. He should have fallen asleep almost immediately.

"Come to bed," King said drowsily.

I laid down on the bed next to him, careful not to bump his injury. King wasn’t as careful as he rolled toward me and snuggled in close. He moaned and grimaced as he sought a comfortable position. His comfortable position was to rest with his head on my shoulder, a leg draped over mine, and his sore wrist lying on my abdomen.

Sure, I could rest this way for a while. But for the long haul, no way. I was strictly a side sleeper. It was only six hours, though. I could make it work for six hours.

"I love you," King muttered.

"What did you say?"

His eyes fluttered open for a moment. He enunciated, "I love you."

Whoa. I didn’t think King had ever said that to me before. Was he serious, or were the meds talking?

"Do you love me?" King asked.

I winced at the question.

"Have you ever loved me? At least a little."

I gave him my most honest answer. "I don’t know."

"Think about it."

Love. Who did I love? My mom. Bea, for sure. Father DiMarco. Stiff, definitely, but not in the way he wanted. And I didn’t think I ever would. Stiff was more like the brother I never had. Any weird or romantic feelings I had for him were more lustbound than the kind of love shared between a man and woman with romantic intent.

I think.

And then there was Jake. I trusted him with my life, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about him.

Safe. I felt safe.

Besides, Jake was still married, and his boys would need all of his attention for a long time.

I never really dated before King. My life on the computer was more important than real-life boys. Maybe that was what I needed. Dating a variety of people to determine if I could love in that special way between men and women.

I could start with people I knew, like Stiff and King, and expand my horizons over time. Maybe Tinder would become my friend. Well, maybe not for finding love, but maybe sex. I mean real sex where people wanted to be with one another.

King shifted in his sleep. His hand slid under my shirt and up my torso to rest between my breasts.

Why now? After all this time, why was King treating me as if I belonged to him?

Why did I consider dating King in the same breath as I considered dating Stiff? The two men were so different and yet the same.

They were both attractive, wealthy men who were devoted to their careers. They were both attracted to me, although for different reasons, and they both thought they knew what was best for me.

They differed in the fact Stiff valued me for my skills. He was observant and sometimes saw more than I wanted him to. He was supportive, a huge flirt, affectionate.

I so craved affection.

King was cold, usually, calculating, focused. He underestimated me at every turn. He liked his routine, craved it even, where Stiff liked adventure. King was normally rock-solid, stable, a fortress. He had the potential of being a good provider if he learned how to love. I’m sure that wasn’t a skill Lettie emphasized in her household.

But maybe the bigger question was what did I like? What did I value and need in my life?

When time was freer, when I wasn’t so tired, when I was older and single, and free of Lettie, I’d take the time to discover more about what I wanted.

Or not.

It was so easy to put off self-development in deference to the problems of others.

What I knew for sure was I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I didn’t want to feel like the only one in a crowd who had no one.

My friends helped, but in some ways, they felt like a Bandaid covering a deep wound, a loneliness that could easily destroy everything good in me.

Is that what happened to Lettie? Did loneliness separate her from humanity for so long that she saw other people as livestock created to soothe her troubled soul?

Did she put what she did to her victims on the same level as how other people eat their feelings? Was it merely a coping mechanism? She fed her loneliness, her desperation with just enough cruelty to fill the void in her soul.

The money was the bonus. It was the fear, the anguish, the loss that fed her, filled her up just enough to continue living.

The only problem, just like with eating your feelings, the longer Lettie depended on cruelty to sustain the loneliness, the more she needed to maintain status quo. That was the real reason she adopted the boys. They were like an intravenous drip, just feeding her enough to keep Lettie going between fixes.

And I was just like her—lonely. If my theory was correct, I could become Lettie.

Just the idea made me shudder. I’d never become Lettie. If I had to look for love every day for the rest of my life, I’d never give up the hope of finding true love.

Who knew? Maybe King was my true love. Maybe when Lettie was out of the way, when King had time to heal, if he could learn my value, maybe we could turn a bad thing into something good.

So, I made the first move toward reconciliation while King was still unconscious and unable to reciprocate, in part because I didn’t know how I would react if he did.

I carefully turned beneath King’s hand to curl into him, to wrap my arms around King and share the warmth of our bodies openly and honestly.

If this was my day for realization, then this was my first step toward living a healthier life where I practiced a little more egocentric behavior and a little less self-sacrifice.

But first, I needed to make sure Lettie got what was coming to her, and Daniel was put away where he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore, and that would take a bit more work.

Fortunately, I had a team of devoted and talented friends who were up to the task. And, I felt totally lucky to have them in my life.

I couldn’t help but wonder, though, how they would feel if they saw me right now, wrapped in the arms of the enemy, considering reconciliation, considering a life with the very same man who had pulled me into this nightmare.

Would Stiff stay? If he couldn’t have me, would he wish me well with the next man in my life? Just the thought of losing him brought a lump to my throat. I’d be lost without Stiff.