The Day I Stopped Waiting Was the Day He Started Begging novel Chapter 51

"You're overthinking it."

Madeline turned to glance at him.

"Weren't you supposed to be working late?"

York leaned directly against the vanity, toying with her hairbrush.

"What, tossing me aside after you've used me?"

"Ms. Monroe, that's a bit cold, isn't it?"

Madeline snatched her brush back, her tone flat.

"You're twisting the facts."

York let out a low chuckle.

"Want to know why Vivienne Vance got a divorce?"

He didn't wait for her to speak and continued, "It's quite funny, really. Vivienne supported his whole family with her talent, but her husband believed he could have been just as successful without her."

"So he was always out boasting, lapping up the admiration of others."

"He spent her money living it up, then came home and threw tantrums at her. In the end, on the day their divorce was finalized, Vivienne literally stripped him of everything he owned, and her fans even caught it on video."

"I actually had a hand in that case."

Madeline looked thoughtful.

"That definitely sounds like her style. A deadbeat jerk like him deserves exactly that kind of punishment."

York crossed his arms and suddenly leaned in, his dark gaze locking onto hers with intense depth.

"Madeline, I'm not like him. I don't hit my wife, and I don't leech off her."

Therefore, he wouldn't allow their marriage to come to an end.

Madeline remained unmoved, leaning back against her chair. Her thick lashes fluttered, and her eyes held no joy at his words, only a profound, complex depth.

People forever trapped in the past had no future.

Madeline no longer allowed herself to dwell on the two years York had been gone.

She could never face him calmly, let alone act like him—pretending he had amnesia, brushing everything off as if nothing happened, living in self-deception.

Evie's condition, the drama with the Yates family, York's sheer unpredictability...

It all combined into a desperate urge to wound him with her sharpest words every time she looked at him.

For a moment, the bedroom descended into a silence that made Madeline increasingly agitated. She turned to look at York.

She saw him stub out his cigarette.

"Maddy..."

Bzz... bzz...

Madeline's phone vibrated. She glanced at the caller ID and answered it.