Vincent was sitting in his home office, drinking bourbon as he spent Christmas Eve watching the garden that had been lit with bright lamps all around for that spirit of Christmas.
He sighed and drank a big gulp of the bourbon straight from the bottle before throwing the nearly empty bottle to the floor.
His face had gotten reddish as he drank the whole bottle all by himself.
He wanted to warm himself on this cold and lonely night, but the drunker he got, the lonelier he felt.
And as he got lonelier, only one person was lingering in his mind right now.
"Chloe…" Vincent murmured his wife's name, the official one he married ten years ago.
He had a lot of memories of Chloe. They dated since high school.
Chloe was admitted through a scholarship because of her brilliance. His school was filled with the elites, yet Chloe wasn't intimidated at all.
She just showed her most genuine self, admitting that she got a scholarship and she wasn't as well-off as the other high school students. So she couldn't hang out with the rest of them outside of school or do extracurricular activities because she had part-time to do.
She was naturally beautiful and popular. She hung out with even the mean girls without a problem at all. She was just THAT likable and charming.
Vincent was one of the most popular guys in high school. He wasn't the one who would sway over beauty since he had seen so many beauties in his life.
Yet, Chloe was different.
He was interested in her the moment he saw her smile as she chatted with her friends on the school grounds, and the more he learned about her, the more interested he got.
He knew he had a lot of competition since Chloe was very popular, but he was a man who liked the thrill of the chase, and the moment he got her, he felt that he was the luckiest man on earth.
They became a school couple, and they were really popular.
Vincent had to admit back then. He really thought that they would stay together forever.
But as they graduated from high school and got to the same university, Vincent realized that Chloe's charm was just too much.
She was very popular, and if she wanted to cheat on Vincent, she'd be able to find a man in less than a minute since she got so many admirers.
He feared that Chloe would leave him as she began to feel like Vincent was inadequate for someone as beautiful and brilliant as him. That insecurity led him to marry Chloe when they were 25 years old, a young age to marry for a man like Vincent.
But he did it because he wanted to trap Chloe into a marriage, so she wouldn't dare to cheat on him.
But on that day during their wedding ceremony, Chloe looked absolutely stunning. She was so beautiful that she didn't only captivate Vincent but also every man in the venue.
From then on, he realized he had to knock the bright light out of her. He knew that Chloe leaving him was inevitable. She would find a better man out there because she'd continue to seduce men even if she didn't mean to.
"Chloe… don't you realize that the humiliation, pain, physical abuse, and gaslighting were all because I love you?" Vincent murmured. "I love you so much, that's why I don't want you to leave. I know that a woman like you must be unfaithful because you'll think that you're too good for me. That's why I want to make you an obedient woman."
"But in the end, my father was right," Vincent gritted his teeth. "No matter how hard I try to stop you from leaving, you'll still leave me. Once a bitch, always a bitch."
Vincent clenched his fists. The more he imagined Chloe under a man other than him, the more pissed off he got.
"See what happened when I gave you enough time. You started being ungrateful and attacked me with rumors. You're truly a cruel woman, Chloe," Vincent said.
Vincent walked out of his home office and went to his master bedroom. He sat on the same bed where he usually saw Chloe curled up, with her trembling body as she had experienced plenty of shocks from physical and emotional abuse, sometimes even both.
Vincent didn't like hurting his wife, but each time he saw a bit of hope in Chloe's eyes, he'd turn paranoid instantly.
He began to imagine if Chloe was secretly fucking anyone without him knowing. His paranoia turned awful to the point that he replaced all of the workers in their mansion to be female-only so that Chloe would have no chance of an affair.
He made sure to track Chloe's activity every day, ensuring she didn't run off with another man. He also tracked Chloe's spending, ensuring she stayed poor despite being married to him, so she would know her place as a woman taken from a poor living condition by a generous man like Vincent.
Vincent scoffed, "Even all that still doesn't stop you from running away and cheating on me. You called me a cheater, evil bastard, jerk, asshole. Yet you're the bitch who cheated on her own husband, you have no loyalty, Chloe Gray."
Vincent got up and stared out the window.
The huge pine tree had been erected in the garden and decorated with Christmas ornaments and colorful lights. It looked beautiful, but Vincent felt nothing but numbness.
Usually, he would be celebrating Christmas today with many of his business partners. They would surround him and fawn him over all of his achievements. Sometimes he'd engage with a kiss or even more with a few of the female guests. Christmas would be a lively party for him, but not for Chloe and Mackie.
He kept them locked in either the Master bedroom or in Mackie's room, making sure that the public didn't see them because he just knew that 90% of the men in his party would be coveting his wife.
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