Chapter 14
1519 Words
Chapter 14: The Distance Between Hearts
The fallout from the tabloid scandal hadn’t just brushed their lives—it had shaken them.
Over the next few days, Stuart spent hours with lawyers and media consultants, trying to control the narrative and secure legal action against the publication. But the damage was already done. The internet was a wild firestorm, and no statement—however honest or carefully crafted—could completely douse it.
Ela retreated further into herself, cocooning around the life growing inside her. She smiled when she needed to. She answered the door for groceries. She even sent a few emails about the charitable foundation she was building. But inside, she was withdrawing.
Victoria noticed first.
“You’ve gone quiet,” she said, curling up on Ela’s sofa with takeout and a warm blanket. “You used to talk non-stop about baby names. You haven’t said a word about them in three days.”
Ela managed a faint smile. “Maybe I ran out of names.”
“Nope,” Victoria said, popping a dumpling in her mouth. “You’re scared. That’s what this is.”
Ela finally looked at her. “What if I’m wrong about him?”
“You weren’t wrong about loving him.”
“Love doesn’t always mean right.”
Victoria reached for her hand. “You’re growing two lives inside you. That’s not weakness. That’s not retreat. That’s power, Ela. And whether he’s ready to fight with you or not—don’t let your power dim because of one ghost in a suit named Clara.”
---
Meanwhile, Stuart stood in his office with his father’s old journal. He had picked it up randomly from a dusty box he’d retrieved from the family estate, needing something—anything—that would help him find his way.
His father had been a quiet man. Cold. Absent. But in those pages, Stuart saw a different version of him—a man torn between empire and emotion. A man who had loved once and lost, and never quite recovered.
“I left because I didn’t know how to stay,” one entry read. “But my silence built walls between me and the only people who ever mattered.”
Stuart swallowed hard.
He wouldn’t be that man.
He wouldn’t run from hard conversations. From cracks in love.
He would fight.
He drove home early that evening, surprising Ela with dinner. She looked surprised, and maybe a little weary, but she joined him on the porch.
They ate in silence for a while. Then he pulled something from his coat—a box.
“I wanted to give you this,” he said.
Inside was a necklace with two tiny pendants—twin feathers made of rose gold. Delicate. Thoughtful.
“For the babies,” he said. “And for you. For carrying so much more than just them.”
Ela ran her fingers over the feathers. “I don’t want you to drown in guilt, Stuart. I want you to understand.”
“I do. I see what this has cost you. Your peace. Your name. And it kills me that I handed the world a weapon and let them aim it at you.”
She looked at him, eyes softening. “Then show me that I’m safe with you. Show me that we’re bigger than scandal and ghosts.”
He took her hand. “Tomorrow. I want to take you somewhere.”
“Where?”
“To the beginning.”
---
The next morning, Stuart drove her two hours out of the city. The destination was a quiet lake house tucked into the hills—old, wooden, with ivy creeping up the sides.
“This is where I brought you the night after we signed the contract,” he said as he unlocked the door. “You were so quiet, so stubborn. You didn’t even want to unpack your bags.”
Ela smiled faintly, stepping inside. “You ordered food because you didn’t know how to cook.”
He chuckled. “You burned the toast the next morning.”
“But we talked.”
“And laughed,” he added. “That was the first time I looked at you and thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t just a business deal.’”
She turned to him. “You’ve never brought anyone else here?”
“Never.”
He pulled a key from his pocket. “I’ve kept this locked since you left. I wanted to forget it. But now I want to remember everything.”
Ela walked around slowly, touching the old wooden mantle, the dusty bookshelf, the photo frame still tucked in the corner.
It held a picture of the two of them. From a year ago. Before things fell apart.
She picked it up. “I thought you deleted all these.”
“I kept the ones that meant something.”
They spent the day at the lake house, cleaning, talking, laughing again. They made dinner together, and this time the toast didn’t burn.
As they sat by the fireplace, Stuart turned serious.
“There’s more,” he said quietly. “Clara showed up again. At my office.”
Ela stiffened.
“I didn’t let her in. Security escorted her out. She screamed something about me owing her more. About how I wouldn’t have my company without her.”
“And would you?”
“No,” he said. “But I also wouldn’t have ruined every chance of real happiness if I hadn’t left her. I was addicted to the power she gave me. The admiration. The constant competition. But it wasn’t love. It was survival.”
Ela nodded slowly. “And me?”
“You were the first thing I didn’t have to win to feel worthy of. You loved me quietly. Fiercely. Even when I didn’t know how to love you back.”
He stood and pulled out another envelope from his bag.
“I want you to see this.”
Inside were documents. Legal ones. He was transferring thirty percent of his shares in the company to her name.
Ela stared. “What is this?”
“Security. Power. Ownership. Not as a wife. But as someone I trust more than anyone else in this world.”
She blinked. “This is... huge.”
He knelt before her. “So are you. You don’t need me to stand tall. But I want to stand beside you. Always.”
A long silence passed between them.
Then she whispered, “I’m scared, Stuart.”
“So am I.”
“But maybe that’s what love really is.”
He nodded. “Fear wrapped in faith.”
She placed a hand on his cheek. “Then let’s be afraid together.”
---
They stayed at the lake house for three days.
It was like pressing reset. No phones. No paparazzi. Just long walks, books, shared cooking, and laughter that healed.
One night, they painted the nursery together—choosing teal and white, soft and soothing. Stuart left handprints on the wall, which led to paint fights and kisses that lasted for hours.
It was the happiest they’d been in months.
But as always, peace has a short shelf life.
On the last morning before returning to the city, Stuart received a message.
Clara was hospitalized.
Overdose.
Suicide attempt.
Ela read the message silently over his shoulder.
“You should go,” she said.
“No,” he replied. “She chose her path.”
“And you chose yours. But closure matters, Stuart.”
“I don’t want her closure to destroy our beginning.”
“It won’t. Not if you come back to me.”
He hesitated. “You trust me that much?”
“No,” she said softly. “I trust the man I married a second time. I trust the man who looked me in the eyes and said I was his future.”
He looked at her, then nodded. “I’ll be back before dinner.”
And he was.
When he entered the hospital room, Clara was awake but pale. She looked at him with hollow eyes.
“I thought you’d be glad I tried to disappear,” she whispered.
“I’m not glad,” he said. “I’m sad. That we both spent years thinking love had to hurt to mean something.”
“I wanted to ruin you,” she admitted. “But it didn’t work. She changed you.”
“No,” Stuart said. “She revealed me.”
He left soon after, leaving behind a check for her treatment and legal costs. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t guilt.
It was the closing of a chapter.
When he returned home, Ela was waiting with dinner. He took her hands and kissed them gently.
“Done?” she asked.
“Done,” he said. “For good.”
As they sat under the stars, a soft wind stirred the feathers on her necklace.
And for the first time in weeks, the distance between their hearts felt like it had finally disappeared.
(End of Chapter 14)
- Writer
