Sofia closed the door as Debbie left for the night. Going back to the kitchen she put away the cleaned utensils that she'd used for cooking earlier.

The doorbell rang making her pause.

Must be Max.

A smile instantly made its way on her lips as she opened the door to reveal the grinning face of Max. Her world seemed to fall back in peace the moment he engulfed her into a loving hug, his lips had met hers then wordlessly. She could hear the distant noise of the door closing behind them while their tongues collided and teeth clashed. By the point they came up for air, she was left dazed.

"Freshen up quickly while the dinner is still hot," her words came out shaky.

"I'll, I'm damn hungry," was his cheeky reply.

Ah. The innuendos.

Sofia just chuckled and slapped the back of her hand at his chest before shooing him away. Her chuckle died down soon, however, as she stared at his retreating back rushing up the stairs.

Katherine's evil words returned to haunt her.

It wasn't like she didn't trust Max. The thing that unnerved her here was the confidence which Katherine had spoken her venom with.

At the table, Max gobbled down everything that she had cooked in record speed and then took a second serving. He didn't even stop to talk, just gave contented moans and groans in between morsels of food. It always pleased Sofia to no end witnessing how much he enjoyed eating the food she cooked.

With full bellies then they settled in their bedroom with two bowls of ice-cream. Max had bought a huge tub day before yesterday. They were too busy solving Skyler and Neil's love-troubles to enjoy it.

"You're awfully quiet," Max commented suddenly before putting another scoop of ice-cream in his mouth as they sat on the fluffy sofa across the room.

They'd chosen this fluffy sofa the other day online, but not before many arguments. Sofia was trying to put some more homely feeling into the house that the interior décor failed to provide. It was all way too perfect, way too expensive. A little mismatch is needed to make a home. Next, she had planned to replace that ridiculously long and royal dining table downstairs with a smaller something that would look relatively less intimidating. That meant they'd another argument on due, not that she didn't enjoy their arguments. On the contrary, she adored them. It was the life of their relationship.

Sofia looked up smiling. "I'm talking, Max."

"You are. But—" he sighed. "At the same time, it feels like you're not. What has my aunt really talked to you about?"

Sofia inhaled a small breath, leaning back in the sofa she looked down at her bowl, lightly whirling the spoon into the melting ice-cream.

Their knees were brushing softly as they sat partially facing each other.

"Her distaste towards us Haydens in a very non-impressive way mainly. I'd expected her to disapprove Neil and Skyler's relationship. But I was quite taken aback by the way she chose to display that disapproval and the quantity of it," she cut short the filthy details. She was not quite in the mood to spoil the atmosphere by uttering Katherine's crap in full form.

Max looked disgruntled. "I need to have a talk with her."

"She also mentioned a Carol and a bunch of bull she made up," Sofia scoffed, swallowing another scoop of ice cream. "It's fascinating how desperate she seemed to create a tiff between us—" she trailed off mid-sentence upon looking up.

Her stomach twisted in fear taking in Max's pale gone face. With his entire form frozen, jaw set tight and eyes unblinking, he looked like a statue cut out of stone and brilliantly sculpted to perfection.

It was like a nightmare.

He was her most beautiful nightmare.

'All you need to do is ask. Ask him.'

"Did you—" She stopped breathing for the seconds to come. Her voice wavered with dread. "Did you go to her at the night of our wedding?"

Max's answer was the shaky breath that came out of his parted mouth; it was in the way his pained eyes looked up at her.

The answer to her question was written all over his face, in bold letters it was screaming.

Bile rose up to her throat. The deceit felt no less than a dagger being struck into her flesh.

Her heart dropped. It felt like a physical blow to her chest and she would have fallen into a heap on the floor if she was not already seated. Only when a lone tear rolled down her left eye was when she realized her eyes had filled up.

He shoved his hands up into his hair, face contorting into absolute agony he looked at that drop of tear. "Sofi—" her name came out as a weak, pained cry from his mouth.

The truth was bitter. And it sucked off every bit of peace and happiness she'd found in the past weeks with him.

Max had always been successful it seemed—in mending her one moment and destroying her the next.

She watched in silence as he slid down to the floor on his knees before her and grabbed her hands desperately. While her face was bare of emotions except that one lone tear that seemed to have fallen a decade ago, his was wrenched with unbounded remorse.

"Why?" her own voice seemed alien to her. It was the ultimate sound of heartbreak.

He shut his eyes as if hiding himself from this reality. "Because I hated you," his voice was an anguished whisper. "Because, I was blinded by vengeance—by rage—by my ego. I wanted to break you—"

"Stop!"

A whimper bubbled up her throat. Simultaneously, the grip of his hands on hers stiffened.

She was aware of his hatred towards her during those days but it was only now she could clearly see—to what extent. The pain was overwhelming, and she feared no other emotion would ever be able to match it after this moment.

Slowly, she pulled out her hands from his hold, with the needles of betrayal digging into her skin all over, relentlessly.

He looked as though he was being tortured in a dungeon as she rejected his touch. It was something in between a tremulous sigh and a hurting gasp that left his mouth at her sight. A broken mess of heart she was and a bleeding sea of tears.

In an involuntary defeated gesture as she bowed her head, he brought his trembling hands up and cupped her face. "I had planned to keep a mistress, to flaunt her at your face. It was my evil scheme to sleep with her at the very night of our wedding and the nights that would follow—"

She tried to break away from his hold, tried wildly now, for there was no more left in her to break and he wouldn't just stop. But he was implacable to her attempts. Her scratching nails on his wrists had no effect as he shed his own share of tears and refused to release her face from his surprisingly gentle yet firm hold.

"But I couldn't."

Sofia froze, with her nails still dug into his skin.

"I couldn't," he repeated softly. "Even in my hatred, even in my fury, I just could not bring myself to take that step. I couldn't cheat on you, Sof. I found myself returning to you, I always return to you."

It was then, she crumbled into violent sobs. It was as if a dam-full of unbreathable air had broken free, she let it all out, bending over until her forehead bumped against his shoulder.

The last ten minutes of her life had been quite eye opening, devastatingly eye opening.

As her tears came to an end, the epiphany soaked in—that Max Wilder was a rare, bitter-sweet mixture of poison and ambrosia.

While she had found nirvana through the shower of his affections, she had now also discovered the infernal quality of his scourge. His loyalty towards her might be relieving but as she had had a glimpse of the virulence he possessed alongside—an uncertain, all consuming fear settled within her.

"That night—" she tried steadying her croaked tone, bringing her face up to look at him stonily. "How far did you go with her?"

The look that crossed his face was of acute suffering. "I swear, the line was not crossed. Please, trust me."

It was not about faith anymore. It was about the fear in her that would not leave.

"How far?" she repeated, firmly now.

"Please—" he almost choked. "Don't do this!"

She herself didn't know why she was doing it, wanting to inflict this torture upon herself by listening how far he had gone with that woman until he'd decided to return to the unwanted wife back home. "How—"

"We made out," He cut in with a tormented voice, hurrying with words as if wanting to just be done with it as soon as possible. "We just—ah—made out for a bit. But that's all about it and—I stopped and backtracked home. Please—" he croaked. "Please, don't ask me more about it. No more—"

Her gut wrenched. He was hurting as much as she was. But still, why did the knowledge not sooth her?

"Did you love her?" she couldn't help but ask gently, her fingers tracing strands of his hair as he stared down at her other hand clasped into his tightly.

He flinched at her question. "It's you who I've always loved, Sofi, since a very—very long time. No other woman has ever had my heart."

Now, the mention of other women didn't help at all. It just opened a whole new and a not so impressive picture of his possible sexual escapades in London, and perhaps when he came back to Asthel.

Jealousy filled her heart concerning women she did not know.

She sniffled then as another fresh round of sobs bubbled up her chest. His face twisted as if he ached at the sight, he was engulfing her into his body in a way then as if she was all that he had. "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry," his voice broke at the end. "Nothing like that would ever happen again, honey, please—"

"But what if it does?" she whisper yelled.

As Max stiffened, she moved back her face from his chest. But she did not look at him. She was staring at the carpet beneath her feet. "What if we have another misunderstanding between us in the future?" she frowned, partly unaware of what she was speaking. "What if you turn into that bitter Max again? What if then you finally go to the point from where you will never be able to return to me again?"

There was a stunned silence.

Sofia was panting, feeling all over the edge in panic and insecurity. Max sat as stiff as a stone with his face turning awfully forlorn.

"Please don't," he mumbled. "Please don't reduce us to the what ifs. Please."

Tears filled her eyes seeing him drop his head into his hands. He looked like a defeated man and she did not know what to do about it. On one hand, she wanted to hug him to her until the sparkle returned to his eyes. And on the other hand, she wanted to hug herself and stumble away into a shadowy corner. She wanted to protect him but she wanted to protect herself too. Stuck between the opposite waves, in this storm that meant to destroy them, she chose to instead close her eyes. Heavy droplets of tears rolling down the sides of her face, sighing, she leaned back into the sofa and closed her eyes to this distressing labyrinth.

What seemed like hours later, half succumbed to sleep, she felt strong hands picking her up against a warm body. Soon her legs dangled into the air and she felt like she was floating until her back hit an incredible softness making her groan in comfort. Like a moth, subconsciously, she snuggled into the warm surface that beat with the most calming rhythm.

Hours later, when dawn broke through, Sofia opened her heavy eyelids to see the room brighter with the first rays of sun. She stared at Max's sleeping face. Even in sleep, he looked to be in pain.

There were slight creases on his forehead, his jaw was stubbly and eyes consisted reddish hue underneath them. His face depicted misery. She knew, even without looking at her reflection in a mirror, that she looked the same.

Slowly she sat up, suddenly having discerned what she needed to do.

Not making a noise, she went into the closet they now shared and there she put some of her clothes and some other necessary stuff she used daily into a duffel bag. As she walked past the bed not long after, she paused to look at him one last time before she left.

Hesitation brought up its head for a moment. But she knew she could not stay with him until she made peace with her own heart, until she dealt with the fears and insecurities that had been created within her last night.

She needed to quieten down her head; get a grip on her haywire, miserable thoughts. She needed some time alone, and away from him. 

She needed to put up this distance so that they both did not hurt anymore, for it was unfair to crucify herself and him too for his time with other women during a time when he was not her. Just like how it was unfair to her that he had left her and went to another woman at their very wedding night. But at least nothing happened. At least he'd returned.

But would he always be returning to her in the future if fate decided to put them to test again?

See...

There was just too much in her brain throbbing with a gusto and she needed to deal with them.

Walking closer to him, she bent down to place a kiss on his lips ever so lightly. It was not a goodbye, but a sure promise to soon return.

And then, she walked out, in silence.

Since, to the entire world she was the brave Sofia but to her own heart she was just a vulnerable woman terrified of hurt and of hurting whom she loved.

~

Ah... the bloody painful conversation!

Every relationship needs some space to revive sometimes. Sofia walked out because she understood the fact.

How do you feel about Max in his Vindictive Nemesis shade?

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Hugs to all of you who've been reading this story, voting and commenting, and inspiring me. I love you all incredible people!

-Lara.