"Rebecca," Venessa opened the door after hearing the frantic sound of the door bell ringing, to find Rebecca standing in front of their door. She never invited herself in for a year by now since she and Stefan decided to get a divorce.
Not that they shared any intimate relationship like they used to when she first got married to her brother. But Rebecca maintained her distance even more after they signed the papers. To find her in front of her doorsteps did take her aback.
"What brings you here?" Venessa stepped aside to make room for her to enter while smiling a bit in surprise.
"Stefan, is he here?" Rebecca asked, not bothering to come in.
Stefan usually stayed at his office and the personal suite he had adjacent to his office room to spend nights there. That was the common scenario in their household while Venessa was always home alone at night. Stefan only came home to collect documents from study or get a new change of cloth for office and business meetings. She doesn't remember when was the last time they shared a meal together in this house. Even if he stayed home once in a while, being lonely was a constant thing for her anyway.
Fortunately, Stefan was home quite early today. Must be a miracle.
"I think he is in his study," Venessa pointed towards the second floor. "Would you like me to bring you something there?"
Venessa added as she saw Rebecca charge towards his study.
Rebecca halted on her steps and looked back at her. "No, I don't need anything, Venessa. In fact, I am quite shocked to see you are polite enough to ask me something to have here. If I were you, I would have left this house and that douchebag who doesn't even know how to handle himself. I thought you were one year older, but you seem to act dumber than he does."
Rebecca was spewing bitterness all over on her with her words. Venessa didn't know the reason behind it but she couldn't let it digest silently.
"If you know I'm older than your brother, then please respect that. The divorce isn't finalized yet and I'm still his wife. Please do not try to cross the line by insulting my husband," Venessa replied plainly, although her tone felt a little aggrieved.
"Beck," to her surprise, she found Stefan on the top of the staircase. "Calm down, what happened?"
She didn't mean to defend him in front of his own eyes. But she didn't deserve the behavior Rebecca was showing no matter what the reason was.
"I'm sorry, Venessa. But if you still had the last bit of self-respect left for you, you wouldn't want to defend this man. I get it, you guys are so mature and responsible individuals that you think marriage can be dealt with like a business deal. Nevertheless, I don't even care about whatever you guys do with your life. I have stopped pushing my ideology on both of you for a long time. You guys go separated or stay together and keep burning each other, do I care? No."
She blurted out all of it while looking at Vanessa and then finally she let her eyes settle on her brother. And then she felt like her wrath surging out with new energy.
"What I care about most is my best friend, Stefan! You ghosted her, I didn't do a shit. You left her, I didn't do a shit. You came up with your business marriage idea, I didn't stop you. You even invited her to your wedding, I still didn't question you a single thing. But why do you keep testing my patience? What do you want from her now, Stefan? Do you want her to die because of you? Do you want her to always suffer because of you? If that's what you want, then don't even dare to call yourself my brother. I will forget about the fact that I ever had a brother…."
"Rebecca, stop it. The business deal, it wasn't your brother's idea alone. My father was the one who made the offer," Venessa interrupted her, as the matter was almost out of the hand.
"I blocked all the news from today," Stefan finally spoke out, slowly stepping down from the stairs.
"What news?" Venessa couldn't help but ask.
Rebecca furiously glared at her brother, barely noticing Venessa's question.
"It's nothing," Stefan replied.
"It's fu*king not nothing Stefan. Listen, if I ever spot you near her, you will have to face me, you get it? I can't even believe I went easy on you for all these years. You fu*ked up your life, now you want to fu*k it up for everyone else, don't you?"
Venessa didn't know what exactly happened, but somehow got a hunch about what was going on.
Rebecca turned around instantly, ready to take off with her charade but then her eyes fell on Venessa being all dazed.
"I don't know what you guys take your lives as, Venessa. I wish I did. But if you ever thought about starting an actual family with this man in the past six years, it's a good thing you never indulged yourself into the idea. Do you know why? Because he couldn't keep a woman he loved freaking crazy beside him and couldn't love a woman he married with vows. What kind of woman would want a man like him?"
Venessa shuddered in Rebecca's response. Each and every word buzzed on her vision playing a painful illusion. It's not like she never thought about forgetting her past and starting fresh with the person she married. But the idea was indeed kept as an idea and got buried inside the memory lane for countless reasons.
She never saw Rebecca talking so harshly to anyone, let alone her brother. That's why it was so hard to digest, even for her.
Rebecca strode out from their side, leaving them behind in the pin-drop silence of the house. Venessa's eyes became teary but she didn't let her tears fall. Her eyes darted to the man she is married to, to the man who soon will be nothing to her, to the man she shared nothing but a bunch of hateful memories throughout the last few years.
She took a few doubtful steps towards Stefan and finally stopped when there was less than a foot of distance between them.
The man standing in front of her was just a selfish man who looked warm-hearted and charismatic. But deep inside, he was just a self-centered bastard who never put someone before himself. Not even for the girl he loved like a madman, God knows for how long.
Venessa knew he was so desperate to get her back not because she loved him but because he wanted her back. She never came to grow emotion for this crude man as the memory of her previous love treasured a man much more gentler than him. And yet the pity and empathy she felt for him was non-negotiable.
She let her eyes find his blue ones, now so cold and hurt, yet trying hard to cover it with indifference.
"You can't force her to love you, Stefan Ashford. Don't you love her so much? Then treasure her, win her back," she held his gaze as she uttered those words. Venessa was finally doing what she wanted to do for a long time. She was now able to visit Arthur's restaurant without caring about the eyes of others. Because Stefan and she will be soon divorced and she doesn't need to maintain the image of Mrs. Ashford.
"I just wanted to talk to her today, but someone recorded us and posted it on social media," it was probably the first time she saw him explain something himself even though she didn't ask him to. But soon she realized why he started explaining.
"When I found out about it, I assigned my IT team to block all the news portals and clean the history," he continued.
"But they told me it was already done before they could start with it. You know who handled it before me?"
Venessa's eyebrows tilted in question.
"Arthur Davenport. He did that."
And then she felt like the floor beneath her legs was crumbling. She couldn't hold Stefan's gaze anymore, finally understanding why all the explaining was important.