Dangerous Love: You Are My One and Only Bride novel Chapter 1583

Years of care and dedication had not awarded the man any reciprocation. It was only a matter of time before her husband wore out his senses and devolved into the same unstable mess that Shelly was. He started drinking hard and physically abusing her when prompted by liquid courage.

Shelly thought that receiving his abuses was the only way to get even with what she owed him. She forgave him every time.

When the alcohol passed, the man’s sobriety would be marked with tears of guilt as he gawked at the bruises all over Shelly’s body. He would always throw in an equal-part apology and equal-part relentless inquisition. He could not stop asking why Shelly refused to love him, and why she balked at bearing him a progeny.

And Shelly would always reply, “Because you remind me of my sister. I’m only your wife because she arranged my life that way; you’re a cage she’s prepared for me. I want to go home—my home, where my son is! I hate them… I hate them all. I want them all dead!”

For the past thirty-odd years in her life, Shelly lived like a prisoner exiled to a foreign soil, bereft of a chance to go home. Her life’s purpose was to be used as a prop for her sister. But her husband had tacitly allowed Shelly to return to America once or twice to see Mark, hence those few short visits he remembered during his elementary school years.

Shelly had tried hard to slip under her sister’s radar, but ultimately, Mrs. Tremont found out about it. In retaliation, Mrs. Tremont threatened her husband somewhat, forcing him to take her away and forbade her from returning to the country.

By then, the feelings her hapless husband had harbored toward Shelly also began to mutate. Her role as the center of his universe began to wane, and he stopped tormenting her the way she tormented him. He started spending his time and devotion completely on alcohol and other hedonistic indulgences, and yet he could not let Shelly leave, either.

In the end, the only thing left between them was mutual hatred… and a dash of Shelly’s regret for subjecting her husband through hell.

Still, not even regret could stop Shelly from murdering her husband—the man whose reward for cherishing her was to be tortured into insanity. As the days passed, Shelly’s obsession with returning home redoubled. She disregarded everything but her singular goal and began to lace her husband’s food with slow-building poison.

Day by day, she watched his body wither, and when life finally escaped him, Shelly immediately flew to America and back to Mark’s side.

The silence lingered for a very long time until Shelly broke the spell with a delirious smile. “To be honest, my vengeance had been exacted a long time ago. What’s left in me was pure obsession to return to you,” she admitted. “Since we’ve opened this can of worms, then there’s no reason to fear letting you know even more, yes? You remember that plane tragedy? I was the one who convinced my sister to go through with it.

“She had gotten afflicted with an incurable disease by then, and amid her despair, she suddenly thought of reconnecting with me, of all people! It turned out that she had no one else to pour her heart out to, you know; what a poor, pathetic thing. She had bawled over the phone, and all her angst concerned you—she spoke as though you were her actual, biological son. Couldn’t calm herself from the fear of that bastard son stealing away what she thought belonged to you alone.

“So? I gave her an idea. She couldn’t stomach the thought of another woman taking over her role after she died, could she? Couldn’t stand the thought of that slut marshaling her lil’ bastard into contesting for that Tremont inheritance, could she? I told her that if she lost her man’s heart to some slut out there while she was alive, then she should take his heart with her to the afterlife. Oh, who knew she would really buy it?” Shelly continued. “When I first heard of her death, I was surprised to find a lick of sorrow in me. But oh, it couldn’t compare to the giddy thrill of revenge at all! She tormented me for years, and in the end, she didn’t earn a single happy ending herself.”

It did not matter if Shelly was talking about the real circumstances of Mark’s birth or anything else. Every revelation he heard these few hours had been a blow to his head.