Hatred Buried in That Winter Chapter 2

It was the first time she had ever brought another man into our home, and it was the first time I completely lost control in front of her.

I destroyed everything I could get my hands on in the villa. A shard of glass flew and cut Tristan’s face.

Genevieve rushed him to the hospital in a panic, completely ignoring me as the stress triggered my old leg injury. I collapsed on the floor, pleading with her.

"Genevieve, my leg… it hurts."

As she helped Tristan out the door, she threw back one last line: "Stop pretending, Alistair."

So I went to the hospital alone.

I had just finished my examination when the doctor told me, "You were two minutes away from losing that leg for good."

Then, he handed me a file. It was Genevieve’s.

"Mr. Sterling, your wife is three months pregnant. You need to take good care of her."

The news washed away my anger. For the sake of our child, I could forgive her for tonight.

When I stepped out of the office, I ran right into her.

"Genny, you're pregnant."

Her face was a mask of indifference. "I'm getting rid of it. I owe Tristan my life. I have to pay him back first."

For Tristan, she was willing to abort our child.

"Genevieve, you dare. If you get rid of this baby, we're getting a divorce."

I thought the threat would work.

Instead, she slapped me. Then she tried to force me to apologize to Tristan.

"You're so childish, Alistair. Tristan is the one who's hurt right now."

The pain of being compared to another man by the woman I loved was a knife in the heart.

I was forced to apologize.

I went back to my family's estate, expecting her to come and coax me back.

But in the end, I was the one who couldn't stand it. I caved first.

When I opened the door to our home, I found Tristan lying in our bed. He was wearing a pair of silk boxers, a gift she’d given me.

The sight broke something inside me. I went mad.

I grabbed Tristan and tried to throw him out of the house.

But he fell down the stairs.

The fall landed him in the hospital. The doctors said he had a severe head injury and would likely be brain-dead.

It was a death sentence for him, and a life sentence for me.

She looked at me with that same, crushing disappointment. "You're a murderer, Alistair. Do you realize that?"

A murderer?

I didn't push him.

I tried to explain that the staircase wasn't that high, that he had slipped on his own.

She wasn't listening. She just kept accusing me.

"A pampered heir like you could never understand what Tristan has been through. In your world, his life is cheap, isn't it?"

I had nothing to say. Faced with this version of Genevieve, so fiercely protective of another man, the words wouldn't come. Silence and a bitter smile were my only defense.

She shoved me. "There you go again. You just shut down. You think this is funny?"

Then, she delivered the final blow.

"By the way, I had the procedure yesterday. The baby is gone. Consider it punishment for what you did to Tristan."

She threw the clinic report at me.

The baby was gone.

It felt like a million tiny threads were sewn into my skin, all pulling at once, trying to flay me alive. The pain was unbearable.

I pulled myself together enough to say one thing. "I see."

But my punishment wasn't over.

She sent me abroad.

"You can come back when Tristan wakes up. In the meantime, you can reflect on your attitude."

The final outcome of our "silent treatment" was this: she dumped me in a foreign country, stripped me of all my money, and cut off all my contacts. She left me with nothing and no one.

She said it was for my own good.

"Alistair, you need to feel what it's like to truly suffer, like Tristan did. Only then will you understand."