A faint scoff escaped his lips. “So, this is what you’ve reduced yourself to? Burning the candle at both ends, treating yourself like some machine. Do you really think slogging away like this is what success looks like?”
Her jaw tightened. “It’s none of your business.”
“Oh, it’s my business, all right,” Kristopher retorted, his voice laced with irritation. “That shady club incident, the chaos outside the bar the other night… Since you left, every mess you’ve landed in has needed my intervention. Grow up, Carrie. Life isn’t a game of empty bravado.”
His words sliced through her like shards of ice, and for a moment, she froze. Then, like a dam bursting, her anger spilled out. Her eyes burned as she turned on him.
“Don’t you dare bring up last night!” she snapped, her voice trembling with fury. “Do you have any idea how terrified I was? They drugged me, and dragged me into that car like I was nothing! I fought to hit them with a beer bottle, fought to defend myself, and still, I couldn’t escape!”
Her voice broke, tears threatening to spill over. “And where were you?” she demanded. “The irony is, the person who saved me wasn’t you-it was Nate. Do you know how humiliating that is? I married you to escape him, and now it’s like the universe is mocking me. Maybe I should have just gone through with it and married him instead!”
Her raw vulnerability hung in the air between them. Kristopher observed her-truly saw her-perhaps for the first time. Something within his carefully constructed emotional fortress began to shift.
He who had always remained detached, who struggled to empathize with emotional displays, felt something unfamiliar stirring.
Slowly, he loosened his grip.
His hand awkwardly patted her shoulder, reminiscent of how one might comfort a child. “Continue with your acting, your scripts. I won’t interfere.”
Carrie seized her moment of freedom, stepping back decisively. “I don’t want to be Mrs. Norris. I just want to be myself.”
Kristopher’s expression darkened, a storm brewing in his eyes as he watched her.
For a man who thrived on control, Carrie was the one thing he couldn’t seem to
manage.
Negotiations with ruthless business titans felt like child’s play compared to this.
He had contemplated divorce before. As Kristopher Norris, the world offered him countless potential partners.
Marriage, for Kristopher, transcended mere emotional impulses. It represented a profound responsibility-a commitment he had sworn to honor, unlike his father’s reckless approach to familial bonds. The pain his sister had endured due to their father’s irresponsibility had etched a permanent resolve within him.
