Chapter 131/Fires of Jealousy

Chapter 131: 131/Fires of Jealousy

Chapter 131

Stephanie’s POV

Kira watched the scene unfold with a detached, analytical calm. When she spoke, her words carried a bitter dose of reality that utterly crushed my resolve. "Keep it together, Steph... at the end of the day, she is his fiancée."

The two of them finally closed the distance between us, stopping right in front of our seats with an aura of absolute coldness. Cedric locked his piercing, razor-sharp grey eyes hawk-like and intense directly onto Kira. His deep, resonant voice cut through the silence. "This is your closest friend, isn’t it?"

Kira offered a perfectly formal smile, rising gracefully from her seat to respond with flawless politeness. "Yes, I’m Kira. It’s a profound honor to meet you again, Cedric."

Isabella smiled back, an overly sweet, arrogant display of affection. She extended a hand heavy with sparkling jewelry, her voice dripping with supreme vanity. "Hello, Kira. I’m Isabella Cedric’s fiancée and future bride."

Kira initiated a perfectly calm, smooth handshake. "The honor is entirely mine, Isabella."

Moving forward with absolute indifference to his fiancée’s literal presence, Cedric sank his massive frame onto the sofa right next to me, crowding my space in absolute, crushing proximity. I instantly felt the radiating, fiery heat of his body press firmly against my trembling frame. He turned his head directly toward me, his voice dropping to a significantly lower, intimate register. "How are you feeling today, Stephanie?"

I fought with every single shred of my remaining pride to keep my voice steady and cold. Despite the frantic, violent hammering of my pulse, I forced a brief, visibly detached reply. "I’m perfectly fine."

Across from us, Isabella settled onto the opposing sofa. Her sharp eyes immediately drifted downward, meticulously scanning the shape of my stomach with precise, calculating scrutiny. "How are you managing the pregnancy symptoms and the twins?" she purred, her voice a manufactured, soft caress. "Is it causing you severe exhaustion?"

I stared back at her, my posture turning absolutely rigid as I responded in a completely dry, flat manner. "It’s only a little tiring. It’s entirely natural."

Cedric’s head snapped toward me with lightning speed. His gaze narrowed, a flicker of well-hidden fear and genuine anxiety crossing his features as he demanded with rapid urgency, "Should I take you to the private doctor right now? Just to thoroughly ensure your well-being?"

"I am completely fine," I shot back instantly, my tone sharp and cutting. "Thank you for your concern."

At that exact moment, Isabella intertwined her hands in a highly staged display of admiration. "Oh, Cedric, my love..." she purred provocatively, "how profoundly gentle and protective you are with your family! I genuinely can’t wait to watch you show that exact same fierce passion and care for our future children down the road."

In that lethal millisecond, a blistering fire of scorching jealousy and raw nerves erupted inside my chest. I drove my fingernails with brutal violence into the palms of my hands until the skin felt on the verge of ripping apart.

A sweeping, manic desire overtook me I wanted to bolt upright from my seat, grab her by her hair, and use every ounce of my physical strength to shove her into the swimming pool right before our eyes, watching her sink beneath the water.

Ever perceptive, Kira immediately assessed the critical, suffocating atmosphere brewing between us. She rose from her seat with extreme haste, adjusting her handbag as she offered a quick apology, desperate to escape the vicinity. "Excuse me, everyone... I really must head out. I have a prior commitment."

Terrified of being left isolated in their presence, I desperately gripped her hand, my fingers tightening in a frightened plea. "I beg of you, Kira... please stay with me just a little while longer."

Kira gave me an explicitly apologetic look, whispering softly as she leaned in, "My mother actually called me yesterday, and she needs me at her place right away. You know how disruptive those family gatherings can be."

I nodded, a deep constriction tightening in my throat as absolute disappointment and bitterness washed over me. "Yes... I understand."

I rose from my seat and escorted her to the main gates of the estate alone. After bidding her farewell with a swift, warm embrace, I turned back toward the house, my heart completely incinerating under the lethal weight of raw jealousy. Driven by a stubborn, defiant urge, I returned to the garden to sit with the pair; I desperately, obsessively wanted to spy on them and overhear exactly what they were discussing.

The absolute second my feet touched the grass, however, my entire body paralyzed in a wave of blistering shock and profound bitterness. My tongue rendered completely tied. The wretched Isabella had migrated from her opposing seat and was now sitting directly beside Cedric in a disgusting, physically glued proximity, her hands tightly wrapped entirely around his massive, broad arm.

I felt the jealousy aggressively eating away at my insides, systematically slaughtering my basic dignity at a slow, agonizing pace. Seating myself on the opposite sofa, my expression as sharp as shattered glass, I locked my eyes directly into Cedric’s. Driven by a savage envy I was completely powerless to suppress, I let out a sentence laden with cutting reproach. "The maid told me you didn’t sleep in your quarters at the estate last night at all."

He looked back at me with supreme tranquility, his response carrying a dry, cold detachment. "Yes. I had an exceptionally urgent and vital business matter to attend to."

A suffocating knot of pure agony gripped my throat. *Did the two of you arrive here together?!* I thought in dark despair.

Isabella smirked, tightening her intimate grip around his arm with an air of extreme boasting. "Cedric stopped by my place in the exceptionally early hours of the morning. He took me in his car to savor a luxurious breakfast together at our favorite restaurant explicitly to make amends with me."

My limbs went entirely stiff as the brutal realization dawned on me: he had personally gone to make amends with her right after their recent fight. I bolted upright from my seat in a rapid movement, the muscles of my abdomen contracting with a sharp pain and deep repulsion. "That’s truly wonderful," I stated with slow, icy detachment. "Excuse me, I’m going up to my room to rest."

Turning my back on them, I carried my deeply wounded pride straight toward the upstairs bedroom.

The moment I stepped inside, I slammed the heavy wooden door behind me with extreme violence, sending a colossal, echoing boom throughout the entire corridor. Sinking onto the mattress, my chest heaved with absolute, raging fury. "Very well, Cedric," I whispered, a lethal promise forming on my lips. "I swear I will show you the consequences of doing this to me of flaunting another woman directly before my eyes."

Only a few fleeting minutes passed before the bedroom door was abruptly and forcefully thrown wide open. Cedric stepped inside. I jolted in my spot, pure panic turning into a sweeping, frantic rage. Standing up to confront his towering frame, I screamed in absolute, hysterical fury, "What the hell do you think you’re doing in my bedroom?! Get out this instant!"

He closed the door behind him with supreme calmness, closing the distance between us with slow, supremely confident paces. His dark grey eyes literally devoured my explosive features with an unbridled, raw lust. "Are you genuinely in this state of absolute hysteria because you’re burning with jealousy over Isabella?"

I advanced toward him with reckless, furious steps, aggressively striking his broad, solid chest with my trembling, depleted palms. "You absolute, opportunistic bastard! Did you orchestrate this entire farce and intentionally bring her to this estate just to burn my heart and humiliate me?!"

He easily seized my wrists within his scorching, steel-like grip, applying a subtle pressure that entirely restricted my movements. His eyes thoroughly darkened as he delivered a sharp reproach. "You are the one who cruelly commanded me to never approach you or lay a single finger on your body again. Have you completely forgotten your own words?"

I lifted my head despite the deep oppression weighing on me, locking my gaze firmly into his. My voice was thoroughly suffocating from the sheer weight of my jealousy. "And you, with absolute simplicity, immediately went and threw yourself straight into the arms of Isabella?!"

His eyelids narrowed, a flash of well-hidden agony and deep rage cutting through his expression. He violently jerked me toward his massive body, gluing my chest directly against his solid frame. When he spoke, his voice dropped to a low, terrifyingly deep growl. "And you... have you completely forgotten and intentionally overlooked the reality that you were the lover of my own biological brother, Alexander?!"

I instantly experienced a profound wave of absolute weakness.

My body went into a total breakdown before his scorching proximity, my senses overwhelmed by his raw, masculine breath. My breathing fluctuated wildly under the weight of overflowing emotion, a heavy lump forming in my throat. "Even after I confessed that I love you to the point of literal madness... you still inflict this living hell and psychological torture on me using another woman?!"

The harshness and icy detachment instantly evaporated from his features. In an instant, his face was entirely replaced by a gaze of profound adoration, unbridled lust, and a ravenous hunger directed entirely at me. He securely cupped my pale face within his warm, deeply disorienting palms, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Stephanie... you know with absolute certainty in the deepest recesses of your soul that I harbor no love for Isabella. I will never love her a single day in my life. I am utterly consumed by you. I love you, and you alone."