Watched Me Suffer and Called It Growth? Goodbye Forever to All Four of You! Chapter 07

My body suddenly felt weightless. My spirit slipped free of it.

I floated in the air, watching him quietly.

Colin carried me back to his bedroom and laid me on the bed.

He picked up the cloth beside him and gently wiped the blood from my skin.

“Paige, we’re home.

Look at you. Dirty as a little cat. Let me clean you up, okay?”

His touch was gentle. Softer than anything I had felt in years.

After a moment of silence, he began to ramble.

“Paige, remember how you always said we’d stick together every day after we got married?

You said we’d fix the house up and get a kitten.”

His throat worked. His voice was tight.

“I’ll redo the whole place. I’ll stay with you from now on. Just wake up and look at me, okay?”

But only the empty echo answered him.

He squeezed my hand and suddenly smiled.

“I heard you.

I heard you say yes.”

I hovered near the ceiling, listening. All I felt was disgust.

All those years he never thought of me.

He’d married Tessa behind my back and gotten her pregnant.

Now that I was gone, he wanted to play devoted. What was the point?

After that day he stopped going to the office.

He held my body day and night, ate beside it, slept beside it.

He told the same jokes over and over, never tiring of them.

When Spencer found out, he came looking for Colin several times. Once he even stole me away in the middle

of the night.

Colin lost his mind and attacked him.

Then he took me back in plain sight.

“Paige is mine. Only mine.”

Garrett stayed outside the door for days, chain-smoking, refusing to leave. In the end, Colin used every trick.

he had to drive him away.

He touched my rotting body carefully, his voice gentle.

“Don’t worry. They’re gone. It’s just us now. Sleep. I’ll stay with you. I’ll always stay with you.”

Half a month later, Tessa couldn’t take it anymore.

She smashed everything in the house and stormed into the room.

She stared at Colin, eyes burning.

“Have you lost your mind? Paige is dead. She’s a corpse.

It doesn’t matter how good you are to her. She can’t feel any of it.

Colin, I’m your wife now.”

“Shut up!” Colin turned his head, eyes cutting into her. “You’re disturbing her.”

Tessa was so furious she could barely think. She grabbed him.

“I’m carrying your child and I can’t stand this smell.

Right now. This instant. Get rid of her. Bury her. Throw her away.”

“You’re insane!”

Colin spun and locked his hands around her throat.

“Tessa, shut your mouth.

If it weren’t for you, Paige never would have suffered like that.

She was the one I was supposed to marry. Her.”

Tessa choked. Her face went purple. A second later, he threw her to the floor.

She clutched her stomach. “Colin, the baby–

You can’t be this cruel.”

He wasn’t listening anymore.

He called the house manager and had her removed, quick and without hesitation.

The house went quiet again. Veins stood out on Colin’s neck.

He closed his eyes and forced a breath.

He remembered the day he went to get her.

The wounds. The hospital. The doctor said malnutrition.

But he had ordered food for her. He knew he had.

He only wanted her a little more independent. He never wanted her dead.

His throat worked wildly. He didn’t dare let himself think any further.

He called his assistant, his voice terrifyingly hoarse.

“Find out exactly how she survived on that island. I need to know everything.”