All Novel Sweet
Jealousy
Dora’s fingers tightened around the spoon, its handle cold against her warm skin. She watched Xavier through narrowed eyes, her gaze sharp as a blade. The suspicion in her chest twisted like a snake, coiling tighter with each tender glance he cast toward Cathleen. Dora forced a smile, as brittle as glass. “Try this,” she urged, her voice honeyed poison, sliding some eggplant onto Cathleen’s plate with calculated grace.
Cathleen rose from her seat, an elegant dismissal. “I’m sorry, I am not hungry.” Her words sliced the tension, and she turned away, hips swaying as she moved to the kitchen counter to prepare fresh orange juice. The whir of the juicer created a defiant buzz in the silence that followed.
“Are you insinuating that I poisoned this food?” Dora’s voice cracked like a whip, her chair scraping against the floor as she shifted, the sound grating on nerves already frayed.Exclusive © material by Nô(/v)elDrama.Org.
“Would you blame me?” Cathleen’s retort came sharp, her back straight as she faced her stepmother, the juicer’s drone dying down. “We have never been each other’s favorites. Suddenly, you play nice? Since when did you ever want to be a mother to me?”
The air thickened with animosity, every word a barbed hook. Dora surged to her feet, a lioness scorned, nostrils flaring. “Are you going to sit there and let her talk to me that way?” she demanded, turning her ire on Xavier.
Xavier leaned back, his smile forming a slow curl of lips that didn’t reach his frosty eyes. His hands rested casually on the dining chair, betraying none of the tension that crackled between the women. “What do you want me to say?” His tone was ice over steel-the detached observation of a man accustomed to control. “This is her house. She can choose to eat your food or not.” The smirk that played on his lips was a silent challenge-an unspoken dare that hung heavy in the room.
Cathleen’s gaze never wavered, her resolve steel-forged as she met her husband’s smile with one of her own, a razor-edged thing that promised retribution for anyone who crossed her.
Dora’s grip on the spoon tightened, her knuckles whitening. The betrayal stung like a slap. “What is this? Your wife disrespects her mother, and you’re okay with it?” She spat out, her voice laced with venom.
Xavier’s gaze was steely as he watched Cathleen’s retreating form. He folded his arms across his chest. “What type of son-in-law am I?” He paused, a sardonic twist to his mouth. “The kind that listens to his wife. What my wife says goes.” His words were final, a door slamming shut on any hope of alliance.
Fury boiled within Dora, her earlier suspicions now drowned in a sea of indignation. With a guttural sigh, she gathered the uneaten feast, her movements jerky with rage. Dish by dish, she dumped the contents into the trash bin, the clatter echoing in the silent kitchen. She swiped the table clean, the white cloth whisking through the air like a flag of surrender.
She ascended the stairs, each step fueled by the fury with which Cathleen refused her offer. In the solitude of her room, the darkness matched her mood, a suffocating blanket of anger and thwarted plans.
Later, thirst clawed at her throat, driving her from the bed. She descended the staircase, a shadow moving through the still house. Her heart hitched as she caught sight of Xavier, wearing an apron, muscles flexing beneath the fabric as he cooked with a focus that bordered on devotion.
Dora’s breath was shallow, the sight igniting a wildfire of jealousy. She stepped back, hiding in the shadows, unseen, yet seething. She watched him plate the food with a tenderness that gnawed at her insides.
When he finally headed upstairs, the tray balanced in his hands, and Dora remained frozen. Xavier’s footsteps thudded softly on the plush carpet, a steady rhythm that beat like a pulse in Dora’s ears. She watched from the shadows, her eyes narrowing slits, as he ascended the staircase, his hands sure and strong around the laden tray. The tenderness in his grip and the care with which he balanced each step made her skin crawl.
‘This life was supposed to be for my daughter,’ she fumed inwardly, her thoughts a venomous hiss. ‘How come this boy has fallen so damn deep in love with that worthless girl?’
The jealousy that seared through her veins was corrosive, etching away any pretense of maternal concern. Each step Xavier took was a personal affront, a blatant display of where his loyalties lay.
He reached the top, and the soft click of the door handle twisting open was a taunt, a silent mockery of her exclusion. The door to their sanctuary closed with a whisper, sealing him inside with Cathleen and shutting Dora out. The soft click of the bedroom door was a clarion call to the reality that she was the outsider in Xavier and Cathleen’s house.
Her throat was parched, but she couldn’t bring herself to seek relief. Not when every swallow would taste like defeat. She walked downstairs to drink the water she had been wanting to drink, but when she reached the kitchen, she got so mad-very mad-that looking around felt like the stove, the plate, and everything was mocking her. Without another glance at the kitchen, which suddenly seemed more like a battlefield, Dora turned on her heel, her movements rigid with indignation.
She retreated to her room, the darkness there serving as an apt companion to her smoldering rage. As she lay in bed, the blankets felt like shackles, binding her in a web of envy and resentment. The heavy beat of her heart was a drumming echo of the words she couldn’t say and the accusations she couldn’t hurl.
‘Xavier is deeply in love with Cathleen,’ the thought twisted in her chest, sharp and cold. The woman she despised held the affection of the man, who should have been nothing more than a pawn in her game.
Sleep eluded her, chased away by the bitter tang of hatred that filled her mouth, thick and cloying. In the dark, Dora Jackson tossed and turned, a prisoner of her own seething emotions, plotting her next move in a war where the battle lines were drawn not in sand but in the unyielding stone of a love she could not control.