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Rodney’s POVE
12
I whipped around in shock–only to see a video of me and Harper playing across the massive screen.”
In the footage, her face was flushed, her expression unmistakably intimate, while my body pressed over hers.”
One glance was enough for anyone to understand exactly what we were doing.”
The clip was brief. I hadn’t even had time to feel anger before the images changed.”
Now it was a slideshow–photo after photo of me and Harper, each one showing us together, hand in hand, with a small child beside us whose face was pixelated.”
Even the dates were thoughtfully labeled in the corner of each image.
Before I could process this, another barrage hit me–a flood of text messages flashing across the screen.”
Thousands upon thousands of them. Every single one sent from Harper, filled with provocation and bad intentions.
[Do you have any idea how lost in me Rodney becomes? Have you never been able to satisfy him?]
[Oh, I forgot to tell you–Rodney and I already have a child. He’s three years old, just two years younger than your son. That little bastard of yours should feel honored to die for my boy.]”
[I advise you to be smart and leave quickly. Otherwise, I’ll have Rodney kill your daughter too. After all, he doesn’t love you or your child, does he?]
[By the way, Rodney promised me and my son that the Laurents’s heir will only ever be my boy. Even if you give birth to a few more, none of them will live. Because that’s how pathetic you are–you’ll never win your husband’s love!]}
There were more–viler words still–that I couldn’t even bring myself to read.
I had never imagined Harper capable of this side.
To me, she had always seemed so gentle, so kind. Even the way we had first come together had been, supposedly, the result of me being drugged.
But now… now I wasn’t so sure. That night might not have been an accident at all.”
All this time, had Freya been quietly enduring such venom? Until now?”
How much must it have torn her apart?”
The thought left me reeling. My mind blurred, my chest tight.”
But the reporters down below were anything but dazed.”
Those messages, those photos, the video–they ripped open every secret I had fought to bury.”
It was clear now: I had never divorced Freya. My relationship with Harper was an adulterous affair.”
Worse still, the two of us had conceived a child while my marriage was still intact.”
And judging from the messages, I had even taken the life of my own legitimate son with Freya for the sake of this illegitimate child.
Every revelation was explosive, every image and word locking the cameras on us like magnets.”
Harper, at last, seemed to understand what was happening.”
She glanced toward the sea of photographers below, then up at the giant LED screen looping the damning evidence again and again. Her vision swam, and she nearly fainted on the spot.
But she couldn’t collapse now–not while this was still unfolding.!
Panicked, she grabbed at my sleeve.
“Rodney! Tell the staff to shut the screen off–quickly! If you don’t, we’re finished!” she hissed urgently. “Hurry! Don’t you see they’re all taking pictures?“”
But no matter how she tugged at me, I remained utterly unresponsive.
Finally, unable to bear the sound of her own breathy moans echoing from the speakers behind her, she snatched the microphone from my hand and, with a sharp cry, hurled it straight at the LED screen.N
for the Affour & Never Had
