13
“Bad mom!”
Addy is a bad mom!”
Wes and Nolan pointed at her and said.
Addison stepped in from the balcony.
By the time she reached Reuben, her eyes were already brimming with tears.
“Reuben, I never thought Wes and Nolan would frame me… How could I ever hit them?” Addison bit her lip, voice trembling.
Reuben hesitated for a moment.
“Go on. What really happened?”
“Wes and Nolan didn’t want to go to school. I tried to reason with them, but they started slapping their own faces, saying if they got hurt, I’d have to let them stay home,” she said, her eyes growing redder, tears threatening to spill.”I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to worry you. I never imagined they’d do this to get back at me…”
Addison let the words trail off, her expression so fragile and wronged that the unspoken message hung heavy in the air.
Reuben turned to Wes and Nolan, his face hardening with anger.
“You’d actually slander Addy like this? She cares so much about you, and this is how you repay her? How old are you, and you already know how to lie?”
“No, Dad!” Wes yelled, “Addy did hit us, and she wouldn’t make food for us!”
Nolan sobbed uncontrollably.
“Addy’s a bad woman! We’re not lying!”
But after a long day of dealing with company matters, Reuben found their crying only grated on his nerves.
He called Chelsea to take Wes and Nolan back to their room, ordering her to lock the door so they could “think about what they’d done”.
Then he pulled Addison into his arms.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Addy,” he murmured, his voice laced with remorse.
“It’s alright. Wes and Nolan are still young. Silly ideas pop into their heads sometimes.”
Addison dabbed at her tears, her tone thoughtful.
She leaned closer, her lips brushing his, and the kiss deepened, neither willing to pull away.
Words faded.
Reuben’s desire flared.
He pinned Addison to the bed and had sex with her.
In the other room, Wes and Nolan huddled together, hungry and furious.
They were forced to listen to the sounds of Reuben and Addison’s intimacy.
The boys teetered on the edge of collapse, their cheeks streaked with tears.
I miss Mom,” Wes whimpered.
Me too. Mom never treated us like this. Addy’s mean. I want Mom back,” Nolan sobbed.
But Reuben noticed nothing.
He lost himself in the room, tangled with Addison in a frenzy of passion, changing different postures until both became exhausted.
Addison drifted into sleep, but Reuben couldn’t fall asleep.
He looked at Addison’s face, yet his thoughts wandered to someone else.
Evelyn still hadn’t come back.
The divorce papers, that note… they clung to his mind, a persistent ache.
Only relentless work numbed it.
The moment he paused, longing for Evelyn crept in.
He thought, She was never like this with me.
“Back then, she’d only ever followed shyly, baring her feelings with cautious care.”
Even as Addison’s stand-in, Evelyn was never Addison.
རྞ ཥ ཤྲུ ྋ ཚ
Reuben’s fingers traced Addison’s eyelids and found they didn’t look alike at all.
He climbed out of bed, stood on the balcony for a long while, then finally texted his assistant, Simeon West.
“Find Evelyn. Tell her Wes and Nolan miss her. Tell her to come back. I’ll let the past go, even that divorce joke of hers.”
Sending the message eased the tightness in his chest.
He slipped back into bed. Addison stirred, her eyes fluttering open sleepily.
“What’s wrong, Reuben?”
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
He pulled Addison close, but his thoughts lingered on Evelyn.
