Chapter 233: A Ring to the Trash
It was raffia grass.
Morgan looked away from Wyatt and turned to the doorway. “Hey, the little psycho’s here—let her explain it herself!”
Yunice had already spotted the grass ring the moment she walked in. She’d wanted to leave, but walking away now would have looked like she had something to hide. She stepped inside, polite and proper, greeting Madam Mary first. Then she reached out and took the grass ring from Morgan’s hand. After glancing at it, she said, “Used to make these for fun when I was a kid. No clue where I tossed it—thanks for picking it up for me.”
Morgan scoffed. “Still pretending? Four years ago, at that yacht party, you jumped into the sea just to get this grass ring back. Tons of people saw it.” As he spoke, he shot a glance at Wyatt.
There wasn’t much expression on Wyatt’s face; that alone made it clear he cared. “Raffia grass also symbolizes love. It was so fragile, and yet it didn’t break—that says something about how much you treasured it.”
Morgan kept pushing. “So what is it—you can’t let go of the ring, or can’t let go of…”
He hadn’t even finished his words when Yunice flicked her wrist and tossed the ring straight into the trash. Everyone looked down. For a moment, no one said a word.
Morgan clenched his jaw, irritated and unwilling to back down. “Then I bet you remember that week-long yacht party, don’t you? You and Paul locked yourselves in a room for a whole week—”
“That’s enough.” It was Mary who cut him off. After she spoke, Morgan finally reined it in a bit. Mary turned her wheelchair around and rolled out of the dining room. “Wyatt, come with me.”
As Wyatt stood up, Morgan raised his eyebrows triumphantly. Then he threw a challenging look at Yunice.
Yunice waited until they were gone, then calmly picked up the bowl of soup from the table.
Morgan was left speechless. Greasy broth dripped down his face; his expression turned a deep livid red. He jumped up, shaking with rage. Elianna just sat there, frozen.
Yunice casually dropped the bowl back on the table and said, “Idiot. You so much as lay a finger on me, and what—Wyatt’s not gonna find out? You think whatever you know, Wyatt doesn’t? The stuff he doesn’t even care about, you’re here jumping around like some clown for what?”
Morgan’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth practically cracked; his eyes burned red with fury.
Elianna actually found Yunice’s words reasonable. She reached out to stop Morgan, trying to calm him down. If he lost it and Wyatt got involved, she’d end up dragged into it too. Morgan shoved her off. He grabbed a couple of napkins and wiped his face roughly, then stormed off toward the open-air balcony.
Not long after, loud crashing and clanging came from outside—Morgan venting his rage on whatever furniture he could smash.
Yunice looked over at Elianna. The moment their eyes met, Elianna immediately lowered her gaze, not daring to look Yunice in the eye. She didn’t like Yunice, but she also knew better than to stir anything up in front of Wyatt. Yunice didn’t bother with her. She turned and left Mary’s room.
She knew exactly what Mary had pulled Wyatt aside to say. Her reputation was already bad enough, and the fact that the man in question was Paul—well, that just made things worse. That exact dynamic was something Jackson had engineered from the start. And it just so happened to be the one thing Wyatt’s camp hated most. She could have had flings with anyone—anyone except Paul. Not one of us, not one of heart. Even children knew what that meant. So from the very beginning, this marriage had been a battleground.
When Wyatt came back, Yunice was sitting at the small desk, doing practice problems. She was completely focused, as if the chaos at the dinner table hadn’t even happened. She worked through the equations smoothly—until a human shadow fell across her workbook. Yunice looked up and met Wyatt’s gaze. He turned, sat on the edge of her desk, and looked down at her. “You want to go back to school?”
Yunice nodded. She’d already made up her mind—she wanted to earn her degree again, to…
Wyatt said, “School’s too slow.” Finishing undergrad, then a master’s, maybe a PhD—best case, that’d take eight or nine years. In eight or nine years, entire companies could rise and go public.
Yunice replied, “I don’t care.”
Wyatt stayed quiet for a long time. Yunice didn’t speak either. She waited for him to bring up Paul. But Wyatt didn’t. And Yunice couldn’t just avoid it either. She said, “Actually, that week on the yacht…”
Wyatt’s phone rang, cutting her off mid-sentence. Yunice’s eyes dimmed slightly; she gestured for him to take the call. Whatever was said on the other end, Wyatt didn’t share. After hanging up, he asked her, “Bored?”
“Want to go out and clear your head?”
Yunice thought for a second, then nodded. “Sure.” She knew she’d be dealing with Wyatt a lot in the future; getting to know his world now could only help.