Chapter 8

When Ethan glanced sideways at Meral, he found her simmering in her place with instability; the extent of the tension the young woman was experiencing was completely clear. He said nothing to her so as not to increase her anxiety and cause her to embarrass herself further. All he wanted was to get through this night without problems and resume their lives from where they left off.

As for Meral, she was growing insanely tense; she hadn't gone out properly except to go to the store for a long time, and stomach cramps kept assaulting her, pouring cold sweat over her.

As soon as they arrived at the venue, Meral hurried to throw herself outside; she felt a sense of relief whenever the cool breeze hit her, so she constantly began reciting calming phrases to herself—after all, it was just a dinner in the end, and there was nothing to warrant fear or tension.

'Come on, let's go inside.' Prompted by Ethan's warning, they all entered an elegant establishment.

Ever since Meral entered the place, she hadn't raised her head upward; she didn't want to see mocking gazes at the moment, but rather wanted this dinner to end as quickly as possible so she could catch her breath comfortably at home.

'Meral, you're hurting me.'

Until that moment, Meral hadn't realized she was squeezing Deniz's hand out of intense tension; she had lost control of her actions and didn't mean to hurt him, and her conscience felt a pang of guilt for her involuntary movement.

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean it.' She said this as she relaxed her grip. Her tension was not a good omen, and she was sure some disaster was about to happen; apparently, every time she grew tense, she lost control of her limbs and started committing blunders.

Whispers began rising from the entrance door; Meral wanted to close her ears so she wouldn't hear them, but she couldn't. She turned to Deniz because of the heavy pressure on his hand; he looked at her with sincerity and affection, and she smiled with a heart overflowing with warmth at the child's gesture, as her tears nearly spilled in support of him.

As for Ethan, he had been intensely annoyed by the looks directed at Meral ever since they entered; the people whispering to each other and laughing were laughing at Meral as if something were extremely funny. When they sat at the table reserved for the manager, he gave a brief greeting.

'Hello, Ethan.'

Ethan replied to Merv with a cold greeting and turned his face away from her; he was not ready to tolerate her now.

Merv was astonished when she saw the woman beside Ethan, expecting his real wife to attend.

Meanwhile, from the beginning of the dinner, Meral remained detached from any conversation and focused entirely on Deniz, carefully removing fish bones and feeding them to him since he couldn't eat them on his own, and Deniz ate with relish because he liked it a lot. The woman smiled at this scene; Deniz had recently become the source of her happiness, and despite hearing some biting remarks from him occasionally, she also felt his love for her.

'Pardon me, exactly what relation are you to Mr. Ethan?'

At Merv's question, Meral stopped feeding Deniz and gave the woman a quick look despite her embarrassment. She looked at her with dignity, wearing a navy blue dress. She admired the woman's beauty and compared it to herself; her mother had always told her she was beautiful, but she used to think she was lying, and today she wished she had been telling the truth for once.

Her hair was chestnut brown and her eyes were light brown, and she was a woman of medium height with fair skin that she didn't always like; her face, which turned red the moment she felt shy, never helped her hide her feelings, exactly as it was right now.

Merv was deeply saddened that Ethan's wife hadn't attended this dinner, having shopped out of curiosity to find out what kind of woman Ethan had married a long time ago. She had hoped to see her today, but Ethan had come to the dinner accompanied by his child's nanny! She only asked about the woman's identity to open a conversation.

Meral stared blankly at the dark-haired woman in front of her with a strange dullness, even though the question appeared simple on the surface.

'I'm h-his wife.'

And why on earth did her voice tremble like that? Meral cursed herself.

As soon as the woman in front of her heard that Meral was Ethan's wife, she unintentionally spat out the water in her mouth, spraying it onto Meral. Meral's face took on an expression of disgust from the water that hit her, and she stood up from her seat, feeling repulsed.

If only she hadn't stood up! A waiter carrying a tray of dessert spilled a cake mold directly onto Meral, not expecting the woman's sudden rise.

While everyone glared at Meral with mocking laughter, Meral no longer knew what she was doing out of sheer embarrassment. Her clumsiness had come back to haunt her, and what she had officially feared had happened.

As for Ethan, he wanted to sink into the floor out of intense embarrassment at Meral's clumsiness; everyone was laughing at her while she groveled in apology despite not being at fault, which drove him even more crazy. She had merely dropped the dessert and was acting submissively as if she had committed murder.

'I'm really sorry, I think I need to go to the restroom.' With that, she said her piece and ran away from the spot; had she stayed there any longer, fainting from the shame of the scandal would have finished her off.

Merv hurried after Meral, feigning a desire to help.

'Dad, what happened?' Deniz asked with eyes filled with confusion.

Ethan did not answer Deniz's question; he was breathing heavily with fury. True, he had laughed at first when Meral dropped the dessert out of amusement, but he stopped laughing the moment he saw the tears on her face. When his gaze shifted to his father, he found him with a red face, clenching his fists in intense fury and breathing deeply.

'My boy, I understand very well now why you didn't want to bring your wife.'

Ethan turned angrily toward Serkan in response to his sarcastic remark; Serkan was a colleague of his working in the company's accounting department and he couldn't stand him at all.