“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what, Richard? What would you have done?”
“I don’t know. Apologized sooner? Bought you a burger to make up for it?”
Her eyes lit up with fire, “You think what you did to me… you think a burger can make up for it?” her eyes twinkled like she was fighting tears. Did I hurt her that badly? I was just a foolish teenager.
“Nita, I am sorry. I was young, I was stupid. I wish I could take it all back and tell you how I feel instead of being a constant jerk to gain your attention.”
“How did you feel that would justify what you did to me?”
I paused for a minute, finding the words. “I had a huge crush on you at the time. And I didn’t know how to express myself. I was full of myself, I was the school’s ladies' man and the one girl I had eyes for didn’t even care if I existed,”
 “And that justified what you did to me? Richard, you broke me. I can forgive you for ‘accidentally’ spilling your ice cream on me, or throwing my due assignment in the toilet, or the gum in my hair, or the glue in my chair but tell me how can I forgive you for what you did that night? Tell me!”
“What night? Nita, what are you talking about?”
“Remember when you asked me if I knew who sexually assaulted me?”
I nodded, but what does that have to do with anything?  The more we spoke, the more confused I became.
“You did and I cannot believe that you would stand there and pretend like it didn’t happen!”


Nita has spent years trying to forget the torment she endured at the hands of Richard. When her family’s financial ruin forces her into an arranged marriage, she is horrified to find out the groom himself was her bully.
Richard, a charming and successful businessman meets the first woman to be repulsed by him. Intrigued, he proposes a deal of a one year marriage of convenience.
Navigating life as a couple, old wounds reopen, buried memories surface. As Richard learns more about his wife, he finds that he has enemies that followed him from his past to continuously cloud his wife’s judgement.
Will Nita believe the truth and bury old wounds or will the pain of the past prove too strong to heal?

"Chayara's side! She is the broken one. She is the one we all have to walk on eggshells around. Even you—my mother—will always run to her at every little whine. Every crisis, every tear, every time she flinches, the world falls over itself to comfort her."


Nita stared at her daughter, silent now, lips pressed in a line.


Queen took a shaky breath, her hands now trembling, betraying the fire in her eyes. "Everyone does," she muttered, softer this time. "You. Drake. Dad. Even Grandpa, when he was alive."


"What has Chayara got to do with what is going on between you and Drake?" Nita asked, more gently this time. Nita saw this coming, she warned her husband, but of course, he didn't listen to her.


"Nothing…" Queen whispered, her voice losing steam. The anger was starting to collapse in on itself. "It's nothing."


She took a deep breath, straightened her back, and added, "I will do as you say."


Chapter 129 - Take Whose Side?