Chapter 187
[ 503 words ]
Chapter 187:
She had come home seeking comfort. She wanted her mother to hug her and tell her everything would be okay. Instead, she was being interrogated and blamed for a divorce that hadn’t even happened.
“Mom, stop!” Caroline yelled, her voice cracking. “We are not divorced!”
Mrs. Thompson stopped pacing. She looked at the duffel bag suspiciously. “Then why are you here? Alone? Looking like a ghost?”
Caroline rubbed her face with both hands. She had to lie again.
“Jarrod was called away on an emergency deployment for the Pentagon,” Caroline said, her voice exhausted. “He is out of the country. The penthouse is huge, and I was lonely. I just wanted to come home for a few days.”
Mrs. Thompson stared at her for a long moment. The panic slowly faded, replaced by a cold, calculating relief.
𝖳𝘩𝗲 𝗯𝖾ѕ𝗍 𝗿еa𝘥𝗂𝗇𝗴 еxре𝘳𝗂𝗲𝗇c𝖾 𝗼𝗻 𝗴а𝗹ո𝘰ve𝗹𝗌.с𝘰𝗺
She sat down next to Caroline and patted her knee.
“Listen to me, Caroline,” Mrs. Thompson said, her voice dropping into a serious, lecturing tone. “You married into a world of unimaginable wealth and power. You are a Romero now. You cannot just run away when things get hard. You need to be a supportive, submissive wife. Do not give him a reason to replace you.”
Caroline stared at her mother.
The woman sitting next to her was a stranger. The immense gravity of Jarrod’s wealth and power had completely warped her parents. They were no longer her family; they were just extensions of Jarrod’s control, terrified of losing their proximity to the throne.
Caroline felt a profound, crushing sense of alienation. She had absolutely no one in the world but the man who was currently missing in a warzone.
She stood up slowly. She picked up her bag and gently shifted the dog in her arms.
“I’m tired,” Caroline whispered, her voice completely hollow. “I’m going up to my room.”
She walked up the wooden stairs, feeling more isolated and alone than she had ever felt in her entire life.
Caroline pushed open the door to her childhood bedroom.
The room looked exactly as she had left it months ago: the faded floral bedspread, the old wooden desk, the posters on the wall. But the air inside was stale, smelling faintly of dust and old paper. It felt like a museum exhibit of a life that no longer existed.
She dropped the heavy duffel bag onto the floor. The small black dog immediately jumped from her arms onto the twin bed, circled twice, and curled up on the familiar blanket.
Caroline walked to the window and pushed the glass up, letting the cool, crisp autumn night air flood into the suffocating room.
From the kitchen downstairs, the muffled voices of her parents drifted up through the floorboards.
“She is going to ruin this,” her mother’s voice hissed, sharp with anxiety. “She has no idea how to handle a man of his status.”
“Keep your voice down,” her father muttered back. “Let her sleep.”
The words felt like tiny, physical needles jabbing directly into Caroline’s brain. She slammed the window shut and yanked the curtains closed, plunging the room into darkness.
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