THE SPITEFUL BRIDE: Marry To Rival's Son novel Chapter 83

Chapter 83

After a while, Mia walked back slowly into the bedroom, the echo of her feet muffled by the soft rug. The room was silent, no sign of Stefan. It was bathed in early morning light streaming through the large glass doors. Her suitcase sat untouched, still unopened.

She stared at it blankly for a moment, then went to the window. The view was breathtaking….. cliffs meeting ocean, golden sunlight flickering off the waves. She should’ve been smiling. Instead, her chest felt heavy.

She heard footsteps behind her. Her breath caught. But when she turned, it wasn’t Stefan.

A maid had entered quietly with a tray of breakfast. “Good morning, ma’am,” she said with a small bow, setting it on the low glass table. “Mr. Sterling asked this be brought up.”

“Oh,” Mia said, blinking. “Thank you.”

The woman left as quietly as she had come.

Mia sat, her appetite nonexistent. Her eyes flicked toward the hallway. Was Stefan avoiding her? Or was she overthinking everything again?

She didn’t understand him. One moment, he looked at her like she mattered. The next, he walked away like she didn’t exist.

With a sigh, she picked at the plate. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to say if he came back. “Thank you for the trip” sounded too formal. “I’m sorry if I upset you” felt like she was chasing something she couldn’t name.

But before she could sort through the mess in her chest, her phone buzzed.

Elena.

She answered on the first ring.

“Mia!” Elena’s voice was already too loud, too cheery. “I’ve been waiting for you to send pictures! Don’t tell me you’re sulking on your honeymoon.’

>>

Mia tried to smile. “I’m not sulking.”

“That’s a lie,” Elena said instantly. “I can hear it in your voice. What happened? Don’t tell me Stefan’s being a robot again.”

Mia looked out the window, hesitating. “I said something… and he just walked away. No words. Just… left.”

Elena was quiet for a moment. “Did you tell him you love him?”

“What? No!” Mia flushed instantly.

“Then relax. Maybe he just needed a minute to think,” Elena said. “That man probably calculates feelings the way he calculates investments…. slowly and with maximum brooding. Or, he might be busy. Remember he bought a PJ for you, he gat to fill up where that came from. So chill”

Mia gave a small laugh despite herself. “You’re impossible. But you’re still right.

“}

“And you’re in Hawaii with your husband,” Elena said. “Enjoy it. Even if it’s fake. So you’ll have enough to fill me in when you get back. Bye, I have to go. Love you.” Elena already ended the call before Mia could even respond to

her.

After she finished with her food, she decided to speak to him. So she stepped out of the villa into the warm Hawaiian breeze, but Stefan was nowhere to be found.

1/3

She’d checked the other bedroom. The kit

IL

leaving nothing behind but silence and the ghost of his unfinished sentence from earlier.

At first, she waited, thinking maybe he’d just gone out for walk or needed space. But an hour passed. Then another.

A tiny knot twisted in her chest, but she pushed it away.

You’re not going to spend this entire honeymoon sulking offer a man who clearly wants space, she told herself. If he’s out enjoying himself, then you should too.

Elena was right, she needs to make out memories despite it being fake.

So she grabbed her favorite dress, white with soft floral prints that fluttered in the breeze. She tied her hair into a loose bun, applied a soft lip gloss……. and took a pair of oversized shades for later, then she stepped out into the golden morning sun.

The path to the beach was lined with swaying palms and birdsong. Everything around her smelled of salt and coconuts. She made her way to the lounge chairs under the big cream umbrellas by the shoreline. There, with the ocean stretching out like a canvas of blue silk, she finally sat.

Her fingers curled around the glass of pineapple-mint juice a server had brought over, the coldness a sweet contrast to the warmth of the sun on her skin.

The sea whispered gently, waves kissing the sand like a lover’s promise. She let the sound calm her thoughts, let the sun kiss her shoulders. For a moment, she forgot about the awkward silence with Stefan. Forgot the confusion, the constant mixed signals.

The beach wasn’t crowded. Everyone seemed to be coupled up, laughing or holding hands, living out the fantasy of romance under the tropical sun.

Mia glanced at them but didn’t feel the need to be bitter about it.

If Stefan wants distance, she thought, adjusting her shades and leaning back, then he’ll have it. But she not going to waste this honeymoon pretending to be miserable. Fake or not, this is still her honeymoon too. And she deserve to enjoy it.

But even as she told herself that, the sting of Stefan’s absence pinched a little deeper.

It was stupid how much she’d started craving his presence… his voice, his teasing. The way he always looked at her like she was doing something amusing even when she was doing nothing.

She took another sip of her juice and sighed.

Then….. just when she was about to disappear into her thoughts again….. a voice interrupted her solitude.

“Hope you don’t mind me sitting close?”

She turned her head quickly to see a man lowering himself onto the empty lounger beside hers. Tall, tanned, and annoyingly attractive in a very beach-volleyball-captain-meets-Cosmopolitan-cover-model kind of way.

Mia blinked, caught off guard, and tried to gauge if this was about to turn into some awkward flirtation.

But the man held up his hands, grinning. “Chill, I come in peace. No shady business. Just figured we both looked like temporarily abandoned spouses.”

She laughed despite herself.

“I guess we do,” she replied, adjusting her sunglasses. “Bu for the record, my husband went to get something.”

2/3

89/HOPE HE KNOWS THAT

A very big fat lie.

The man chuckled and leaned back. “Nice. Mine went for a spa massage. I refused. I don’t like strangers touching me while chanting ‘breathe in your ancestors.””

That made Mia snort into her drink. “Fair enough.”

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