Chapter Five

" I never drink to get drunk, but I drink too much, and it's all because of you. I have to drink in order for you to be content with me sleeping in the same bed as you. I drink so that I can forget that we share the same bed, that someone else is sleeping next to me, to avoid touching you or making love to you because I don't feel any attraction whatsoever for you."

"That's not true," Emma tried to protest, her voice breaking into a whisper. She bit her tongue to hold back the curse on the tip of it – she knew how much it disgusted Trevor when she cursed. So many overwhelming emotions bubbled up within her, and she didn't know which ones to cling to.

Trevor swallowed hard, " You asked me if being with you is settling, right?" Trevor's devilishly nodded his head, his piercing gaze never leaving Emma, " Yes, being with you is settling. Settling for less, settling for someone who is no way a match for me"

Ignoring the look of hurt and disbelief on Emma's face, Trevor continued to shred her heart into tiny pieces, " Tell me Emma, in what way do you think you fit into the Maddox family picture? Talk to me, of what caliber is your father? The last time I forgot, he died a poor man. You are of no value to me, my family, and the empire as a whole. Don't you get in by now? You don't fit in and certainly a result of my poor choice"

'How dare you?' Emma tried shouting at his face, but it only came out as a whisper, ' Who... who the hell are you?" Emma asked, her heart already shattered, dropped to the ground in the most painful way possible.

Trevor raked his finger through his hair as he turned his back against Emma, he let out a dark chuckle, sounding from a place of mockery and realization, " When I visited my father, right from the onset he was skeptical about you. And seeing him again, he opened my eyes Emma, to things I was too blind to see, things I had not given thoughts to, and realization I stupidly refused to comprehend.."

Amidst the tumult within her heart, Emma's eyes landed on the open suitcase strewn across the floor, the box widely opened, exposing Trevor's already arranged clothes. "Did you pack already?" she asked, feeling her heart crumble at the sight of the boxes.

Trevor nodded, and Emma's heart shattered into pieces, knowing that he had carefully planned this all along. He had coldly calculated when and how he would leave her, and tonight was the night.

Every moment of love and affection throughout the day, every kiss, caress, and flirtatious remark, was now exposed as a facade, a deceitful play leading up to this moment of heartbreak.

Emma's throat tightened, and she swallowed hard. "How long...?" she started, her voice cracking with sobs and shame, "... how long have you known you were going to leave me?"

Trevor's hands shook as he tried to hold back his own tears. Their eyes locked, and Emma could feel the weight of his words before he even spoke them. "I've thought about breaking up with you the third months of our relationship."

"Bullshit!" Emma exclaimed, her heart shattering even further at his audacity to downplay their love. She would never in this life, or the life to come believe a word of what Trevor has just said. Three months into their relationship? They took a trip to Ireland to spend time together, he took her sightseeing, to fancy restaurants for dinner, bought her flowers, and so much more. There was no way he had it in mind to leave her already while doing that.

"You are bad at lying, Trevor, there is no way you wanted to end our relationship just three months in," she fired back, already hating the sight of him, a feeling of disgust crawling up her throat.

Trevor rolled his eyes, apathetic to her pain and helplessness. "You can think whatever you want, Emma."

"This isn't just my thoughts!" Emma retorted, her anger rising. "You're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. You are the one who is a bad liar who needs to work on his act of lying."

She stormed to their closet and grabbed the photo album that Trevor had made for her on their one-year anniversary. She had kept it neatly, kept it as a memory she would cherish forever, and had physical memories she would show her kids, their kids. How their father had loved their mother, how their love life had progressed throughout the years.

"You can't say you didn't love me then and wanted to break up when every detail of our relationship, from the day we met, our first date, first vacation as a couple, and our first anniversary was photographed by you and compiled together as a gift to me," she flipped through the book, revealing pictures of their happy moments and his heartfelt love letters.

"Trevor Maddox, you can't say you don't love me when you wrote all of this because I will never believe you." She thrust the album toward him, the edge of the book poking his chest as she looked at him with determination, never ready to believe the crap he just spat out.

If at all he really had wanted to break up with her then and had shown the signs, then she is the dumbest woman on earth, not to have figured that out.

"I'm not sure I ever really loved you from the start," Trevor whispered looking at Emma with a look of disgust and pity, his final words put a stamp of doom to her face, and Emma's heart stopped.

The book fell from her hands as she tried to gasp for air, but there was no oxygen left in the room. She could feel the room spinning underneath her as her mouth hung open, tears rushing freely down her face.

The painful realization of the true intention of the man she had spent five years of her life with hit Emma hard, she suddenly saw the devil himself in his true form, standing right in front of her, here in her bedroom, he's no other person but Trevor Maddox.