Chapter 6
828 Words
Chapter 6: The Ghost Named Olivia
Ela Parkar lay in bed, staring at the ceiling fan slicing the silence overhead. The attic journal hadn’t left her mind since she found it. Olivia. One name. One woman. One ghost who seemed to own Stuart’s heart—even in absence.
She didn’t sleep that night.
The next morning, she asked the housekeeper about Olivia.
The woman flinched. “It’s not my place, madam.”
“That’s not a no.”
“I’ve worked here ten years. I’ve only seen Mr. Stuart happy once. That was with Miss Olivia.”
Ela let it go. But not really.
The name Olivia lived on her tongue like a question too sharp to swallow. She researched online but found no trace. No images, no articles. Whoever she was, Stuart had erased her from the public record. But not from his life.
Later that afternoon, Ela wandered back into the attic. She opened the journal again, flipping carefully. Olivia’s name appeared several times—always in context of pain.
“He doesn’t smile anymore.”
“I warned her she would regret choosing ambition over Stuart.”
“After the miscarriage, they both broke. But she left. He stayed.”
Ela closed the journal, heart thudding. Miscarriage. Heartbreak. Abandonment. No wonder Stuart had walls around him. Thick, cold ones.
That evening, she waited for him in the library. She wasn’t wearing silk or makeup. Just a cotton kurti and bare feet. When he walked in, tired and unspeaking, she handed him a cup of tea.
He blinked. “You made this?”
“Yes. I can do more than wear sarees and smile for photos.”
He took the cup but didn’t drink it. “Something on your mind?”
“I found a journal. Your mother’s. From years ago.”
Stuart’s face didn’t change. But the stillness in the room grew dense.
“She wrote about Olivia,” Ela said quietly.
“Stop,” he said at once. Sharp. Like a slap.
“I wasn’t looking to hurt you—”
“You had no right to go through her things.”
“I was cleaning. I wasn’t spying.”
He placed the teacup down, untouched. “Olivia is none of your concern.”
“She is. Because I live with her shadow. Because I share a bed you don’t touch, a house you don’t live in, and a life you won’t let me be part of.”
For a second, Stuart looked like he might explode. But he didn’t. He turned away.
“She was going to be my wife,” he said, voice low. “We were engaged. She got pregnant. She lost the baby and… something in her died. She said she needed to breathe. She said I was suffocating her with expectations. She left.”
Ela remained silent.
“She left and never came back. She didn’t even take her things.”
Ela walked toward him slowly. “And now you make contracts instead of relationships. You punish every woman after her.”
Stuart looked at her then, really looked. “You don’t know me.”
“Then let me.”
“What would be the point?”
She didn’t have an answer. Not one he’d accept.
So she said nothing more.
That night, Ela cried in the shower.
Not because of Olivia. But because of Stuart. Because she had finally seen a crack—and behind it, a man hurting so deeply that love had become a weapon he feared.
---
A week passed. The chill in the air between them began to shift, ever so slightly.
Stuart started asking her things.
“Did you eat?”
“Did your brother’s reports come in?”
“Do you like jazz?”
They weren’t love notes, but they were something. A bridge forming.
One evening, Ela was practicing piano in the old music room. She was clumsy, but she enjoyed the peace. Stuart walked in, silent as ever.
“You play?” he asked.
“Not well.”
He sat beside her on the bench. Their shoulders brushed. He reached out and began playing a piece she didn’t recognize—haunting, slow.
“Olivia taught me,” he said quietly.
Ela didn’t reply.
When the last note hung in the air, he looked at her. “But she never stayed long enough to hear the ending.”
Ela whispered, “I will.”
Stuart stood abruptly and left.
But that night, he didn’t sleep in the guest room.
He came into Ela’s room and lay beside her—fully clothed, back to her—but there.
For the first time.
Not as a CEO.
Not as a contract holder.
But as a man slowly trying to forgive his past.
And maybe, just maybe, accept a second chance.
(End of Chapter 6)
Chapter 6: "The Ghost Named Olivia" is now complete. Shall we begin Chapter 7: “Unspoken Truths” next?
- Writer
