Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 388

Chapter 388

And now there was a baby on the way. That meant my plans had to change. One percent of the money I had was way more than what Jonathan made in a year, but t’had no interest in showing off to any of them. What good would it do? I did not care about pleasing them.

Vivian began to cry.

Not real tears. Real tears require real feeling, and Vivian had never wasted either on me. But she cried beautifully, delicately, the way she did everything, her shoulders shaking, her voice breaking as she held up the necklace for the whole room to see.

“I cannot believe this.” She sobbed. “My own sister. On my birthday. She gives me this.”

Jonathan rose at once and wrapped his arms around her, his face twisted with righteous fury. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. When we get home, I’m going to give you’much more expensive gifts. You deserve the best, and I’m going to give you tire best.”

Vivian smiled through her tears and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You’re the best husband in the world, Jonathan.”

I sat down on my stool, ignoring the drama, and pulled out my phone.

But they were not done with me.

“Patricia, dear.” My aunt leaned forward, her voice dripping with false concern. “You work so hard. All those hours in that lab. What do you have to show for it?”

“I have my work.” I did not look up from my phone.

“Work, work, work.” My mother clicked her tongue. “At your age, a woman should be thinking about settling down. But all you do is bury yourself in that run-down lab with your test tubes.”

“It’s not run-down, Mom. It’s a research facility.”

My mother looked at me, and something hard came into her eyes. “You know, if Vivian had been my firstborn, I would have stopped there. There would have been no need for me to have another child. But since I had someone else as my first child, I knew I still had to give birth again to have the ideal child. And Vivian did not disappoint me.”

The words landed like a slap. I kept my eyes on my phone, scrolling through emails I was not reading, telling myself I could not hear them But every single word made it into my ears, and every single word left a mark.

“You know, Patricia,” Jonathan drawled, leaning back in his chair with a smirk, “maybe if you spent less time in that lab and more time in the kitchen, a man might have kept you.”

“Jonathan.” Vivian patted his arm, giggling. “Be nice. Pat can’t help that no man wants a woman who thinks she’s smarter than everyone.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s very smart,” Jonathan said. “Smart enough to be broke, apparently.”

“At least she has her little experiments,” my uncle added, chuckling. “What was that you were working on, Patricia? Trying to cure aging? At this rate, you’ll need to cure your own loneliness first.”