Chapter 7
Adelaide POV:
My friends, their faces a mixture of fury and terror, watched Alonzo rush out of the restaurant with an unconscious Cinnamon in his arms. It was Jaxon who knelt beside me, his hands gently checking for a pulse, his voice shaking as he called for an ambulance.
I woke up, once again, in a hospital bed. The monotonous beeping of a heart monitor was the soundtrack to my life. A nurse was adjusting my IV drip.
"My friends...?" I rasped, my throat dry.
"They had to leave," the nurse said, her voice soft with a pity that grated on my raw nerves. "Some emergency with their families' businesses. They said to tell you they're sorry."
I knew what that meant. Alonzo's warning. He was isolating me, cutting me off from my support system.
"Don't call them," I told the nurse when she offered to phone them for me. "I'll be fine on my own."
I wasn't fine. I was shattered, physically and emotionally. But I was done being a burden. I was done letting my proximity to Alonzo poison the lives of the people I cared about.
The days that followed were a blur of pain, medication, and solitude. I learned to eat with my non-dominant hand. I learned to navigate the room on crutches. I learned to change my own bandages. I became an island.
When I was finally discharged, I took a taxi not to a new apartment, but back to the cold, sprawling mansion I had once called home. It was time to pack.
I moved through the silent house like a ghost, gathering my belongings. My clothes, my books, my design sketches. I was ruthless. Anything that held a memory of Alonzo, I left behind. The jewelry he'd had his assistant buy, the first-edition architecture books he'd gifted me for my birthday, the photo from our wedding day.
I threw it all into a large trash bag. I wanted to erase him. I wanted to burn away the last five years until nothing remained but scar tissue.
I was in the middle of clearing out my art studio when I heard the front door open.
It was Alonzo. And he wasn't alone. He had his arm wrapped possessively around Cinnamon's waist, guiding him into the house as if he were a visiting royal.
Alonzo didn't spare me a glance. He was too busy fussing over his lover.
"I'll have the staff redecorate the master bedroom to your liking," he was saying, his voice soft. "Tell me again, you prefer Egyptian cotton sheets, 1200 thread count, right? And the room must be kept at a constant 72 degrees. No, 71. You get hot when you sleep."
He went on, listing a dozen minute details of Cinnamon's preferences, things he had learned and memorized, things he cared about.
I remembered the day I first moved into this house. I was 22, nervous and full of hope. Alonzo wasn't there. He had his assistant show me to a guest room. "Mr. Taylor prefers to sleep alone," the assistant had informed me coldly. "This will be your room. Make do."
The difference between being loved and not being loved was a chasm a million miles wide. I was standing on one side, and they were on the other, and the distance was insurmountable.
"What are you still doing here?"
Cinnamon's sharp voice cut through my thoughts. He was pointing at my simple grey sweater. "And what are you wearing? That's the same color as the sweater Lonzo is wearing! Are you trying to wear matching outfits with him? How shameless can you be?"
I looked down. It was a coincidence. A stupid, meaningless coincidence. "I..."
"Take it off," Cinnamon demanded, his voice rising. "I don't want to see you wearing the same color as my Lonzo. It disgusts me. Take it off right now!"
Before I could even process the absurdity of the demand, Alonzo spoke. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion.
"You heard him. Take it off." He gestured to two maids who were hovering nearby. "Help her."
I backed away, horrified. "No! You can't be serious!"
The maids looked at me with pity, but they moved to obey. They worked for Alonzo Taylor. Their loyalty was to him.
I tried to fight them off, but I was weak, still recovering. They were methodical, efficient. They peeled the sweater off my body. Then my t-shirt. Then my jeans.
They stopped when I was standing in the middle of the grand foyer, in nothing but my underwear, my body a canvas of yellowing bruises and surgical scars. I stood there, exposed and trembling, under the cold, indifferent gaze of the man I had married and the triumphant, contemptuous smirk of his lover.
Alonzo looked me up and down, his eyes lingering for a moment on the scars, a flicker of something unreadable in their depths before it was gone, replaced by his usual coldness.
"See that you're more careful in the future," he said, his voice a dismissive drawl. "Cinnamon doesn't like to be upset."
He then turned, wrapped his arm around Cinnamon's shoulders, and led him up the grand staircase toward the master bedroom, leaving me to stand there, shivering and stripped of the last vestiges of my dignity.
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to cover my nakedness, my shame. I felt like I was going to be sick.
I stumbled, almost crawled, back to my room, the cold marble floor chilling me to the bone.
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