Chapter 17 A Home With His Wife
The smile on her lips widened.
For the briefest moment, disappointment flickered across her face at the fact that he hadn't even recognized her.
But she quickly concealed it.
It had been days since Ivan had contacted her.
Before Rose, he had showered Jessica with expensive gifts, constant messages, and endless attention. But over the past few weeks, he had seemingly forgotten she existed.
Jessica had been furious about it.
Then Rose's message had arrived, telling her that Ivan was in the hospital and asking her to come.
Jessica had immediately seen the opportunity.
She wasn't going to let it slip away.
She knew Rose had once loved Ivan deeply, and she also knew that Rose could easily reclaim him if Jessica allowed her back into his life.
So Jessica had no intention of stepping aside.
She had waited too long to have Ivan's attention again.
“You were in an accident? Why didn’t you tell me?” Jessica said, leaning toward him.
She lowered her face, intending to kiss his cheek, but Ivan abruptly shoved her away.
Jessica stumbled backward and dropped into the chair behind her, twisting her ankle awkwardly in the process. A sharp cry escaped her as pain shot through her foot.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she snapped, her face twisting with pain and anger. “Why did you push me?”
Ivan barely looked at her.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded, his voice cold and furious. “Where is Rose? I asked for Rose. Why are you here? I never called you.”
Jessica stared at him in disbelief.
“Rose told me you wanted me to come,” she said, still rubbing her ankle. “She said you were asking for me.”
That was enough to shatter whatever patience Ivan had left.
The anger he had been holding inside for days exploded, but beneath it was something far more frightening—the realization that Rose had never intended to come to him herself.
Even now, while he was lying injured in a hospital bed, she hadn't come.
She had sent Jessica instead.
His face tightened as anger and hurt collided inside him. Without another word, Ivan threw the covers aside and climbed out of the bed.
“Ivan!” Terrence immediately stepped forward.
Ivan stopped and looked up.
He hadn't even noticed Terrence enter the room. He was now standing near the door, his expression tense as he watched Ivan pull himself upright.
“What are you doing?” Terrence asked again.
Ivan ignored him.
He roughly pulled the IV from his arm and tossed it aside before grabbing the clothes that had been left on the chair. He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later dressed in his own clothes.
Terrence stared at him in disbelief.
“Are you out of your mind? You're still injured. Look at you! Your body hasn't even healed. The doctor said you need to remain under observation for at least twenty-four hours.”
Ivan didn't even acknowledge him.
His attention shifted to Jessica.
He pointed toward her, his expression hardening.
“Don't let her come anywhere near me again.”
Jessica's eyes widened.
“Ivan—”
“I told you Rose doesn't like her,” he snapped, cutting her off. “Why is she here? I never asked her to come. Who the hell told her to come here?”
His voice rose with every word.
“From now on, I don't want her anywhere near me. Do you understand?”
Terrence stood frozen for a moment.
He had never seen Ivan treat Jessica like this.
For years, Ivan had been so consumed by his obsession with Rose that Jessica could barely get his attention, yet he had still never been this openly dismissive of her. A single message from her used to be enough to make him respond immediately.
Now, he couldn't even be bothered to look at her.
Jessica's face hardened with humiliation and anger.
“Ivan, I—”
But he had already turned away.
He stormed out of the room without another glance in her direction.
“Ivan, wait!” Terrence hurried after him. “You can't leave. You're still not medically cleared!”
Ivan didn't stop.
He continued down the corridor, ignoring Terrence's protests until he pushed through the hospital doors and walked outside.
***
Rose had barely stepped inside the house when her phone began ringing.
She pulled it from her purse and glanced at the screen.
Her brows immediately drew together. Troy rarely called her, and when he did, it was usually because her father had asked him to.
She answered at once.
“Troy? Is Dad okay?”
“Miss Rose,” Troy said, his voice tense, “everything is fine, but there’s a problem at the house.”
Rose’s expression changed instantly.
“What happened?”
Troy hesitated for a moment before answering.
“Mr. Carrington is here. He came looking for you. When he realized you weren’t here, he started causing a scene. He’s broken several things inside the house and refuses to leave. He keeps demanding to see you.”
Rose’s brows knitted tightly.
“He’s still there?”
“Yes, Miss Rose. He’s been here since this morning.”
That was all she needed to hear.
Rose turned around immediately and hurried back outside. Her steps quickened as she approached the waiting car, where her driver was standing nearby.
“Please take me to my house.”
The driver nodded and opened the door for her.
Rose climbed inside, and the moment the door closed, the car pulled away.
Her mind raced the entire way.
She was worried about Troy. More than that, she was worried about what Ivan might do to him. Her father had always been difficult, but if he was angry enough to start destroying things, there was no telling what he might do next.
They reached the house within minutes.
Rose pushed the door open and hurried inside.
She stopped dead.
Broken glass covered the floor. Several pieces of furniture had been knocked out of place, and the once-orderly living room looked as though a storm had torn through it.
Ivan stood near the couch, his face twisted with rage.
“Call her!” he shouted at Troy. “Call Rose right now! I'm not leaving until she gets here. Tell her to come back!”
Rose's heart tightened.
“Ivan?”
Ivan spun around.
The fury on his face disappeared for one brief second when he saw her.
Then it returned twice as fiercely.
Rose barely had time to react before he crossed the room and grabbed her by both shoulders.
“How could you do this to me?” he demanded, his fingers tightening around her arms.
Rose frowned at him, completely bewildered by his behavior.
“What is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind?”
Ivan's jaw clenched. Her words only seemed to fuel his anger, and his fingers tightened around her arms.
“Then tell me how you could send Jessica to the hospital to see me!” he demanded.
“It was supposed to be you and me. You're the one who was supposed to come.
Instead, I get into a serious accident, and you don't even bother to see me.
You send Jessica in your place like I don't matter to you at all.”
His voice cracked with frustration.
“What the hell is wrong with you? You loved me. You still love me. I don't believe that you've stopped loving me. I don't believe it. There's no way you could just stop caring about me.”
Rose grabbed his wrists and roughly pulled herself free.
“I have nothing to do with you anymore.”
Her voice was firm, exhaustion evident in every word.
“Whatever we had is over, Ivan. How many times do I have to repeat myself? I'm tired of having this same conversation with you. What are you even doing in my house?”
Ivan stared at her.
For the first time, he seemed to truly notice how little emotion crossed her face. She had heard that he had been injured. She had seen him standing in front of her, bruised and furious, yet there wasn't even a flicker of concern in her eyes.
She looked at him as though he were nothing more than an inconvenience she desperately wanted to get rid of.
His expression faltered.
Ivan took a step backward, his foot trembling slightly beneath him.
The anger in his face slowly faded, replaced by something far more vulnerable. His voice dropped when he spoke again, rough and unsteady.
“If... if I hadn't done that—”
He swallowed hard.
“If I had never hit you, would we be married by now?”
The question came out almost painfully, as though he already feared the answer but needed to hear it from her anyway.
Rose's expression didn't change.
“There are no ‘ifs,’” she said quietly. “It happened. You hit me, and everything that followed happened because of that. I made my choice, and I chose what I wanted for myself.”
Ivan's face fell.
Rose looked away for a moment before continuing, her voice steady.
“And honestly, it wasn't only because you hit me. You never respected me. You never cared about me. You never made me feel like I mattered to you.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“I would've left you eventually, Ivan. Maybe not that day, maybe not that month, but eventually. It wasn't just the slap that destroyed our relationship. It was the way you treated me throughout our entire relationship.”
Ivan stared at her, disappointment written all over his face. The longer he looked at Rose, the more that disappointment twisted into anger.
“I’m a better man than the one you married,” he said bitterly.
His jaw tightened as he stared at her, his heart breaking even as his expression hardened.
“You married a monster, Rose. I'm not a monster. What I did was a mistake. You can't punish me for one goddamn mistake while you're willing to spend the rest of your life with someone like him.”
Rose frowned, completely confused by what he was implying.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the man you married.”
Ivan's voice rose again, his anger returning.
“The man who hits you. The man who abuses you. That's the man you chose to marry?”
His gaze dropped briefly to her wrists, lingering on the faint marks he had noticed the last time he had seen her.
“I saw the marks around your wrists the last time I came here.” His jaw tightened as he looked back into her eyes. “He abused you. He hurt you. Yet you’re furious with me because of one fucking slap?”
Rose stared at him, her lips parting in disbelief.