Betrayed by My Trash Husband, Surrender Myself to the Devil

Claudia POV

"You—hup!"

The moment I opened my mouth, he immediately shoved the spoon inside, forcing me to eat the corn chowder.

Then, using the same spoon, he took another spoonful and ate it himself.

"Hm, your cooking is up to my standard," he muttered before scooping another spoonful and attempting to feed me again. "Open your mouth. Aaaa—"

"Ray... what the hell are you doing? We—ahk—"

Once again, he shoved the spoon into my mouth, forcing me to chew and swallow before taking another spoonful for himself with the shared spoon.

We did this over and over until the bowl was empty. For the first time in a long while, I was actually eating a proper breakfast—though with a shared spoon with Mr. Gatlin.

I continued watching his expression, and he didn’t show any hint of disgust, which confused me. Because I remembered how he looked at me with disgust when I tried to feed him ice cream with the same spoon that I used back when we were still dating.

"You... aren’t you disgusted by what we just did?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"Disgusted?" his brows creased. "Why?"

"Because you looked disgusted when I tried to feed you ice cream with a wooden spoon when we dated," I pointed out.

Though I doubted that he still remembered that moment, since his mind must have been fully occupied with work and many important things for his company and his job as a psychiatrist.

"That one—" he paused for a second before adding, "I refused to eat that ice cream because of the wooden spoon. That spoon had been sitting in the open air for so long that it collected dust. Who knew what kind of termites were in there? I tried to warn you, but you used that wooden spoon immediately and even tried to feed me with it."

"Ah... I-I thought you didn’t want it because I used that spoon first..." I said. "You know, germs and all."

"Don’t get me wrong. I do not like sharing spoons with anyone, especially with you," Ray said coldly, his expression was unreadable because he looked toward the window with his arms crossed instead of staring back at me. "But I don’t mind doing that as long as I don’t have to eat alone."

"Eat alone?" now it was my turn to furrow my brows. "You’re spoon-feeding me because you don’t want to eat alone?"

"Yes," he replied.

He finally turned his head and faced me again. This time I could see that he was contemplating his next sentence, as if he was filtering many unnecessary words in his head.

"Eating alone for too long might cause loneliness and depression. Surely, I don’t want any of those," Ray added. "And based on my firsthand experience just now, it seems true that eating with someone will improve your mood."

Though that justification didn’t really make sense to me. Because Ray sounded like he was reading a prompt inside his head while hiding his real answer.

But since he didn’t want to tell me the truth, and I had no intention of prying into the mind of a madman, I decided to drop the question.

"Well, if it makes you feel better, then so be it," I shrugged it off.

But then he doubled down.

"Aside from fixing my tie every day, you’re also obliged to eat breakfast with me from now on. I never saw you eating breakfast before," Ray said. "All you did during breakfast was eat a spoonful or not eat at all."

"That’s just a habit of mine," I replied, not telling him the real reason about Miles being overly controlling about what I ate. "I don’t eat much."

"You’re already as thin as a stick. If you eat even less than this, you might become anorexic," Ray pointed out. "I don’t want you to wither and die in my penthouse. It’d be a headache to handle your corpse."

I laughed at the grim joke—or perhaps not really a joke—coming from him.

"Don’t worry, I won’t bother you if I die from hunger. I’d just leave the penthouse and throw myself into a swamp so I can drown and become gator food or something," I replied with a thin yet assuring smile.

I thought Ray would laugh with me over that joke, but he actually got up and went to the kitchen to fill the same bowl until it was full.

Then he stood right next to me and tried to feed me again.

"I think you haven’t eaten enough. You’re now obliged to eat all of this corn chowder under my watch."

"Huh? But I’m already full..." I said. "I ate half of your bowl, remember?"

"Then eat at least half of this bowl as well," Ray insisted.

I didn’t want to follow his ridiculous demand. So I tried to shift his attention.

"Don’t you have work to do? It’s already nine—you’ll be late."

"I was already late when I woke up at eight. I’ve told my secretary to move all my schedules for today, so I’m free," Ray said. "I have all the time in my life to make sure that you eat this, Claudia."

"What’s with this nonsense?" I sighed while trying to reject him.

But he insisted, and though it felt strange for someone as busy as him to watch over me and even spoon-feed me like this, I decided to play along and ask for something as well.

"I’ll eat this, but you have to fulfill my request first."

He scowled immediately and put the food on the table.

"Tsk, a woman like you surely knows how to play the game, huh? Fine, tell me what you want, and then finish the damn bowl!"

I knew that asking for something too big—such as asking him to somehow create evidence to throw the hot potato toward Miles and Clarissa—would make him wary.

So I decided to ask him for something insignificant first, hoping he would ease up eventually and give me some breathing room.

"Can you take me out somewhere? I don’t mind getting coffee or a snack while walking in the park. Getting stuck in this penthouse bores me to death..."