Found A Homeless Billionaire Husband for Christmas – Episode 03
“Carl, how could you cheat on me with my cousin?” Victoria heard the accusation leave her mouth before she could find a gentler explanation. There was no gentler explanation on either of their faces.
Carl did not deny it. Discovery seemed only to free him from a conversation he had not bothered to begin. “There’s nothing left to say. You found out. We’re over, Victoria.”
“No.” Her refusal came instinctively. An engagement could not simply disappear because she had walked into the truth. Tomorrow they were supposed to make their marriage official.
“We’re engaged. We’re getting our marriage license tomorrow. Did you forget?” She searched his face as she spoke. Surely some part of what they had planned still meant something to him.
He turned the ring into another weapon. Was that cheap, worthless thing all it had taken to keep her faithful? The promise she had worn proudly became evidence, in his telling, that she was a fool.
“You’re dumber than I thought.” He told her to stop clinging to him and let go. His impatience hurt almost as much as the words, as though she were delaying something trivial.
“We’ve been together for three years.” Victoria could not make those years fit beside the ease with which he dismissed her. There had been time, trust, an entire future she had believed they shared.
“Why would you do this to me? What did I do wrong?” She hated needing to ask. Still, she wanted something that would make sense of the stranger wearing the face she knew.
“You’re not good enough for me anymore.” Carl delivered the answer without difficulty. He had apparently already decided that his betrayal was simply an improvement in his circumstances.
Three years in New York and she was still waiting tables, he said. The clothes she wore and her old cowboy boots became proof that she had failed some standard he had never mentioned while asking her to marry him.
She was not on her Texas ranch anymore. He said it as though her home were something embarrassing she had foolishly brought with her. Victoria stood at her workplace while he mocked the life she had worked to build.
Her cousin eagerly joined in. Carl was now the manager of the top American branch of the Jones Group. The promotion apparently explained everything: he was important, and Victoria no longer deserved him.
“Only someone like me deserves to be with Carl.” Her cousin seemed pleased to pronounce the judgment. Betrayal had become a contest Victoria had not known she was entering.
She should go back to Texas, her cousin continued. Go where she belonged, herding cattle. Every insult reached beyond Victoria herself to the place and people she had come from.
“You’re an asshole.” Anger finally gave her a sentence that did not ask him to understand her. She could not keep standing there while they congratulated themselves on humiliating her.
Her cousin immediately appealed to Carl, demanding that he go after Victoria. The confrontation shifted. What had been a cruel conversation was becoming something Victoria could no longer meet with words alone.
“Crazy bitch!” Carl came after her with fury in his voice. Victoria had wanted an explanation from her fiancé. Now she had to face the possibility that he meant to hurt her further.
“Don’t you lay a hand on her.” Simon’s voice cut into the confrontation. He stepped between Victoria and Carl, and for the first time since recognizing them at the counter, she had someone standing on her side.