Jeremy rolled his eyes with a sigh then pinched the bridge of his nose with his index and thumb as he answered her, his eyes closed. “Whoever did this to you must have held a grudge against you, Cheryl. I don’t think anyone would just target you, and clearly this wasn’t a mugging.”
Cheryl swallowed as she kept her eyes on the man she had gotten married to and her heart broke with each second he kept his unloving eyes on her. She could recall how he had looked at Donna back at the restaurant, all the love she could never get from him were in those eyes, in the way he had focused on Donna.
“Where did you go tonight?” she asked him.
He opened his eyes and arched one eye brow. “I should be asking you that, you’re the one beat up.”
“Yeah, well, but you didn’t.” she said with a frown etched across her eyebrows. “Where did you go to tonight Jeremy?”
He sighed and turned away from her. “I am not obliged to answer to you, Cheryl.”
“You were with her, weren’t you?” she quickly said when she noticed he was about to leave and that stopped him. He turned back around to face her and a corner of her lips twitched in a smile. “You were.”
“And who is this ‘her’ you are referring to, Cheryl.” he asked. “Who do you know that I have been with?”
Cheryl chuckled and looked away from him, picked up the soft sponge and began to wash her arms, the injuries there had since sealed. “You forget that you are a married man, Jeremy. I know you have been with Donna, again.”
“And what if I was?” He frowned. “Are you trailing me now, Cheryl? Spying on me?”
She shook her head with a chuckle. “You were never on my target list.”
His frown deepened as he reasoned what she had just said, and then in anger, he took a couple of intimidating steps into the bathroom. “You were trailing Donna?! how dare you?!”
“You get defensive when it has to do with her! But with me you don’t care?!” she yelled back at him. “I am the woman you got married to Jeremy! You got married to me, Cheryl Declan and not Donna Brooks!”
“And you think that is something I don’t regret?”
Her mouth hung open as she stared at him, her body cooled as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over her and her voice quaked. “What did you just say?”
“If not for father, I would have never considered you, Cheryl! Don’t act like you do not now that!” he eyed her, venom in his eyes as he watched her. “Father wanted you in the family, not me. My choice was Donna, it still is Donna and will forever be Donna. You just got in the way.”
Cheryl remained mute, Jeremy stabbed at her heart repeatedly with his hurtful words and he didn’t bother to care.
“Is it because she offers you what I cannot?” she asked, remembering that Donna had a child with Jeremy, it was the one thing she could never have and she was beginning to regret it.
“And what is it that you cannot give me, Cheryl?” he asked.
Cheryl frowned and her lips pressed into a flat line. Her fingers trembled and her body shivered, not because she had been in the water for too long, no, but she shivered from shame, from anger, was he really going to make her say it? The fact that she could never be able to give him a child.
She lowered her head.
“There is nothing that you can offer me right now to make me consider you, Cheryl.” he continued and she brought her gaze back to him. “You have never given, only taken from me.”
She knew he was talking about his mother, he was never going to forgive her for that, and she knew neither would his father, Ebeneezer.
“You would never forgive me.” it wasn’t a question she asked, because she knew what the answer would be but still, he just might-
“Never.” he cut into her thoughts, his voice cold and harsh as he turned his back to her, walking out of the bathroom. “I could never forgive you.”
Cheryl allowed her body relax in the tub, Jeremy could never love her and this marriage was only just a burden to him, but she knew she could not afford to have this marriage break apart, if she were divorced from Jeremy and no longer a Xiu, she would be out casted from her family - this she knew all too well, and it was because of one reckless mistake she had made that had cost the life of Jeremy’s mum. Ebeneezer no longer vouched for her and her own father saw her as an embarrassment.
She needed to hold on to this marriage and if Donna was going to be threat to her, she was going to have to be cut out of the picture. Permanently.
She must have told Jeremy about the child she had for him, that must have been what had gotten him to be excited, as long as the child was there, Jeremy would find a way to get rid of her, to kick her out of the Xiu house and into the arms of her retribution.
She knew she had done a lot of bad things, she had pissed off so many people who could not brig harm to her just because she had the Xiu name attached to her, even if Ebeneezer would not exactly protect her. The Xiu name was her armor. And she desperately needed this armor.
Donna would have to go, she reasoned in her mind as she pulled the drain plug, allowing the blood stained water drain away. She stood and stepped out of the tub, walked into the bathroom stall and turned on the shower, steam soon filled the stall because the water was hot, but it was just around the right temperature for what she needed right about now.
Donna would have to go, but first she would focus on the child, that was Donna’s ticket to getting into the Xiu family, and it was Jeremy’s excuse to his father to allow him get married to Donna.
Cheryl knew just how desperately the old man needed a grand child and with her as the Xiu’s daughter-in-law, a grand child would never come.