Chapter 2 A Burden #2
As she spoke, she naturally reached toward Vincent and took the whiskey glass from his hand.
The movement was so familiar that no one at the table found it strange.
Holding the glass near his lips, Alexa looked at him expectantly.
Vincent didn't even hesitate.
Without lifting a finger to take the glass back, he parted his lips and drank the whiskey she offered him as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
The sight instantly drew several knowing smiles from the people around them.
A victorious smile spread across Alexa's face.
Only after he finished did she lower the glass, tilting her head slightly as amusement danced in her eyes.
"How many times has this happened already?" she asked with a light laugh. "Juliet sees you with another woman, gets jealous, throws a tantrum, and then comes running back afterward to make up."
She shook her head as though she couldn't understand it.
"If it's already this bad now, I can't imagine what it'll be like after you're married."
A soft laugh escaped her lips.
"I think you're going to be dealing with this for the rest of your life."
"So what if he gets tired of it?" Nolan said with a dismissive shrug.
Leaning back in his chair, he casually draped an arm over the backrest, a smug smile playing on his lips.
"If she keeps causing trouble, he'll just replace her with another woman." He scoffed. "It's not like men like him have a shortage of options."
His voice dripped with mockery.
"It's not like he loves her anyway."
The table fell quiet for a brief moment before Nolan continued.
"This was always a marriage of convenience. His parents wanted him to marry her, so he agreed. That's all there is to it."
He raised his glass and took a slow sip, his expression indifferent.
"Now she'll just have to deal with whatever comes with being in a forced relationship."
Griffin snorted in amusement. He lazily swirled the whiskey in his glass before bringing it to his lips.
"She's just another responsibility Vincent got stuck with." He smirked. "More of a burden than a fiancée, if you ask me."
"Jesus Christ." Nolan let out a groan and ran a hand through his hair. "I can't even imagine living with someone like that."
He shook his head as if the thought alone was exhausting.
"She has no one but Vincent in her life.
Imagine how much worse she'll be once they actually get married.
She'll literally stick to him every second of every day.
I get that they were childhood friends, but for fuck's sake, marrying that woman?
" He laughed in disbelief. "Especially since she's an orphan.
She'll have no one else to depend on but Vincent.
She's going to cling to him until one of them dies. "
Nolan grimaced before turning toward Vincent.
"Oh God, what kind of life is that?" he muttered, his face filled with disgust. "Are you seriously going to deal with that for the rest of your life?"
Juliet's face gradually lost all color with every word spoken in the room.
It felt as though someone was tearing pieces out of her one by one while she stood there helplessly watching.
Her body went rigid. Her fingers curled tightly at her sides as she listened to every cruel word, yet the thing that hurt the most wasn't what they were saying.
It was Vincent's silence.
He didn't deny a single word.
Not even once.
A bitter ache spread through her chest.
‘I always patched things up with him because I thought he wasn't serious, she thought. Every time I saw him with another woman, I told myself he didn't realize what he was doing. I thought he was careless... that he never meant to hurt me.’
Her throat tightened.
But he knew.
He had known all along.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it anyway.
He wanted her to get hurt.
He wanted her to get jealous.
He wanted her to fight with him.
Juliet stared at Vincent, unable to look away.
The man sitting there looked exactly the same as he always had, yet somehow he felt completely unfamiliar.
The friend she had known since childhood suddenly felt like a stranger.
Her gaze searched his face desperately, looking for the boy she used to laugh with after school, the boy who had stood beside her through countless years of her life.
But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find him anymore.
Maybe he had disappeared a long time ago.
Or maybe she had never truly known him at all.
A painful realization settled over her.
She had been so desperate for love, for someone who would stay, that when Vincent had asked her to marry him a year ago, she had agreed almost immediately.
Simply because they had been childhood friends.
Simply because she had wanted to believe someone had finally chosen her.
They say you're blind when you're in love.
But once your eyes finally open, you realize just how much you tolerated in the name of it.
Juliet Gray had never believed in love.
She certainly didn't believe in that saying.
In her mind, if a person was smart enough to drive a car without running over the person they hated most, then they were smart enough to recognize when someone was trying to trap them in the name of love.
How wrong she had been.
"I didn't know your friends made fun of me in front of you," she whispered, her voice trembling. "And you never said a word to defend me."
Humiliation burned through her like fire.
Her face felt unbearably hot, and tears gathered in her eyes before she could stop them. The room in front of her blurred, but the voices she had just heard echoed with painful clarity inside her head.
She had expected many things from Vincent over the years. Anger. Arguments. Coldness. Indifference.
But betrayal?
Never.
He had been part of her life for as long as she could remember. They had grown up together, attended the same schools, shared birthdays, holidays, and countless memories. She had always believed she knew him better than anyone.
Yet at that moment, it felt as though someone had taken a hammer to a mirror.
Everything shattered.
The image she had of him.
The trust she had placed in him.
The excuses she had spent years making on his behalf.
All of it cracked apart right before her eyes.
And the realization that he had only asked to marry her because he pitied her felt like a knife being driven into her chest and twisted mercilessly.
At that moment, Vincent lifted his eyes toward the doorway.
Their gazes met.
Juliet froze.
His dark eyes locked onto hers from across the room.
There was no surprise on his face.
No shock.
No panic.
No guilt.
Nothing.
It was as though he had known she was standing there the entire time.
For several long seconds, he simply looked at her.
Then a faint smile curved his lips.
Slowly, he lifted the whiskey glass in his hand. Tilting it slightly in her direction, he raised it in a silent toast.
A mocking toast.
The gesture hit harder than any insult.