The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 204

Chapter 107-1

Claim

My eyes open, and Tinstantly realize that by doing that, I’ve made a grave, irreversible error in judgment.

The sun isn’t just shining into the master bedroom, it’s carrying out a targeted, hyper-specific assault against my retinas.

I lie completely frozen on my back, afraid that if I move my head even an inch, my brain will detach from my spinal cord, and rattle around in my head like a loose pebble.

“Oh, sweet mercy,” I whisper to the ceiling. My voice sounds and even feels like sandpaper being dragged across dry gravel. “Oh, dear Lord.”

I’ve had chemo sessions that left me feeling more human than this. At least with the chemo recovery there was a clinical explanation for the misery; right now, this is pure, self-inflicted stupidity born of silver tequila and an 80s playlist.

Slowly, using the utmost precision and a level of caution usually reserved for disarming unexploded bombs, I roll to the edge of the mattress. My tongue feels like it’s been preserved in salt and left out in the desert to bake.

The third one was mostly juice, I think bitterly. Or was it the fourth?

Either way, Jade is a menace to public health.

I manage to sit up, resting my elbows on my knees and burying my face in my hands. The world tilts, spins twice, and then slowly, lurchingly rights itself.

On the nightstand, my sunglasses are sitting right beside my phone. I don’t know if I put them there or if Locke left them out of sheer pity, but I snatch them up like a drowning woman reaching for a life preserver and jam them onto my face.

Equipped with total darkness and a profound sense of regret, I stand up.

My knees buckle immediately, but I manage to steady myself against the bedpost. I’m still wearing Locke’s oversized black t-shirt that falls halfway down my thighs, and my hair feels like a bird’s nest that went through a jet engine.

I shuffle out of the bedroom into the hallway, dragging my feet because lifting them requires a level of muscular coordination that I simply do not possess today. As I enter the vast open-plan living room, the sound of low, muffled laughter floats toward me, followed by the clinking of glass and the terrifying, violent hiss of an espresso machine.

At the exact same time, from the far wing across the massive expanse of the penthouse, the guest room door creaks open.

Jade emerges looking like a survivor of a minor natural disaster. She’s wearing one of Mayhem’s gray thermal shirts, which drapes over her like a tent, and a pair of massive, bug-eyed tortoiseshell sunglasses that cover half her face.

“Are you alive, Jade?” I ask across the room, keeping my voice down to a strict, non-lethal whisper. “Do you want to be?”

1/2

Chapter 102-

Jade freezes mid-step, holding onto the doorframe as if the floor beneath her might open up at any

moment.

Clem

“No,” she whimpers, not moving a single muscle. “I’m a corpse, and I’m speaking to you from beyond the veil. Don’t make any sudden movements, Zara. The air molecules vibrating against my ears are causing me physical agony.”

“I told you the third drink wasn’t mostly juice. Or fourth. Fifth?”

“I don’t need your revisionist history right now, she groans, dragging herself across the hardwood toward the kitchen. “Someone’s tap dancing on my head. Why did we do this again?”

“Because we required a strategic physical release,” I remind her, quoting her verbatim. “As you said, about ten hours ago.”

“I was young and foolish ten hours ago,” Jade says, taking tiny, slow steps. “I’ve grown wise through immense suffering. Is there coffee?”

“I hear the machine.”

“Take my hand, Zara. If I collapse, leave me behind. Save yourself.”

“Deal, and ditto.”

Arm in arm, supporting each other like two soldiers retreating from a lost front line, we stagger the final few feet toward the kitchen.

The scene that greets us is nothing short of infuriating.

The penthouse is spotless. The cardboard take-out containers are gone. The giant wooden vase Jade knocked over has been uprighted, the stack of leatherbound books neatly aligned on the side table, and the island wiped clean of salt and lime slush.

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