Chapter 9

Suhang stood in front of me holding his phone. He was soaked from head to toe, a bath towel wrapped around his waist, water still dripping from his hair. He hadn’t even had time to wipe himself down before he rushed out-phone in hand, eyes full of panic.

When he saw me sitting at the computer, our eyes met. The air seemed to congeal.

“Where’s the email in the recycle bin?” I asked first. My voice was calmer than I’d expected.

His throat bobbed. “What email?”

He was playing dumb, but the tension in his eyes gave him away.

“The email you just deleted! Who is that person?” My voice shook.

“I didn’t delete any emails. Honey, you’ve got to be misunderstanding something. I get random spam all the time, so I set the system to clean it out automatically on a timer.”

He was a good liar-his tone didn’t waver.

“Then why did you suddenly run out here?”

“I…” He finally got stuck.

I couldn’t hold it together anymore. Tears poured down as I screamed:

“The person that night wasn’t you at all, was it? You don’t have to love me. You can divorce me. Why would you do this to me? Why would you humiliate me like this?”

I lunged forward and hammered at his chest. He caught my wrists. “It was me! Of course it was me!”

His gaze was resolute.

But I knew he was lying. I looked at him with contempt.

Clenching my teeth, I spat it out, almost vindictive. “It wasn’t you. Absolutely not. What happened that night-you couldn’t do that.”

His eyes reddened. He suddenly yanked me into his arms, then sealed my mouth with a cold, savage kiss, demanding and frantic.

I twisted my head away, disgusted.

“What are you doing?”

He lifted me up in one motion and threw me onto the big bed. His dripping chest pressed down over me.

“Look clearly-was it me or not?”

His eyes were shimmering with tears. Droplets fell from his lashes onto my face, and I couldn’t tell what they were.

It was the first time we’d done it with the lights on, and it was also the first time I’d ever seen him like this-so forceful, so fierce.

I couldn’t withstand him.

He was still wet, his skin cool. Holding him felt like wrapping my arms around a whale rising and falling on the sea’s surface, letting him carry me through suffocating depths and surging waves.

I saw how unrestrained he was. I saw the raw lust in his eyes, and a desperate, to-the-death kind of entanglement.

“I love you, honey. I love you!” he panted.

It was the first time he’d ever said he loved me.

But what did that even mean? What could it prove?

Afterward, he slept with his arms around me, holding me tight enough that I could hear his heartbeat.

“I love you, honey.” He whispered it into my ear again, so softly it was like he was afraid of shattering something. “I’m so scared of losing you… can you believe me?”

I didn’t answer. His warmth seeped into my back-too warm. I’d waited so long for that warmth, and yet it stung, almost cruel.

I wanted to believe him too. But I’d seen those deleted emails with my own eyes.

Those words gave off a stench I could barely comprehend.

At that moment, it felt like a bottomless shadow had been carved between us.