Unseen

Chapter Seven

Olivia sat at the far end of the living room, her back straight, her hands folded neatly in her lap as though trying to make herself smaller. The chair felt too large beneath her, too formal, too exposed. Every breath she took seemed to echo. Helena’s eyes kept drifting toward her, sharp with disapproval, as if Olivia’s presence itself was a disruption to the natural order of the household.

Simon seemed to notice.

His gaze flicked toward her, unreadable, then toward the empty seat beside Clarisse. With a small tilt of his head, barely a gesture at all, he indicated she should move.

“Sit there,” he said, voice low but absolute.

Clarisse stiffened, affronted. Helena’s mouth tightened. But Olivia, with her heartbeat stumbling and her palms damp, obeyed. She rose and crossed the room with hesitant steps, lowering herself onto the sofa beside her sister. Clarisse inched away, as if even sharing a cushion with her was an insult.

Olivia kept her gaze on the floor.

Simon waited until she settled. Only then did he speak.

“I assume your parents have already told you why I am here,” he began, his voice slicing through the room’s heavy silence.

Helena leaned forward, eager. Renato kept his eyes down, his hands folded, the picture of a man used to being overridden. Clarisse straightened, smoothing her hair with a practiced gesture that screamed anticipation. Marco watched with interest that bordered on amusement.

Simon continued, unbothered by the shifting energy.

“I came to discuss a proposed marriage,” he said plainly. “Between myself and the Salvador family.”

Helena exhaled sharply through her nose, as if the matter were already decided, already hers to control. “Of course,” she said, with the air of someone accepting a crown. “Our families joining together will bring stability for Santa Agueda and strengthen your influence in the region. I have no objection to such an arrangement.”

Simon watched her for a moment, eyes cold, patient, almost amused. Helena mistook that patience for deference.

She continued speaking, filling the room with her certainty. “My children were raised with proper values. Clarisse especially. She has been groomed for diplomatic alliances. A marriage between your clan and ours—”

“Mrs. Salvador,” Simon interrupted, his voice cutting clean through hers, “I am not here to negotiate with only you.”

Helena blinked, momentarily stunned by the sharpness of his tone. She quickly recovered, spine straightening, chin lifting. “I speak for my family,” she insisted. “My husband and I—”

“Your husband,” Simon said, turning his gaze to Renato, “has not said a single word.”

Renato swallowed. “I… I trust Helena to manage—”

“That is obvious,” Simon replied.

Renato fell silent again.

Helena’s lip curved, brittle with pride. “Then we are in agreement. Clarisse is prepared—”

“No,” Simon said.

The word was quiet, yet it struck the room like a blow.

Clarisse froze. Marco looked up fully now. Helena’s expression shattered and reformed in an instant, shifting from confused to insulted to furious.

“What do you mean no?” Helena’s voice cracked like a whip, trembling with fury she could barely leash. Her composure wavered, eyes hardening with disbelief that someone dared oppose her in her own home.

Simon did not flinch. He leaned back slightly, one ankle resting over his knee, hands steepled with an ease that was almost insulting. His stillness carried weight. His restraint felt heavier than any raised voice. “I am not proposing marriage to your elder daughter.”

The room snapped tight. A thread pulled too far. Something fragile gave way.

Helena rose a fraction from her seat. “Clarisse is the daughter we prepared. She is the one fit to join a family like yours. She is the Salvador heiress. Not Olivia.”

Olivia felt the moment her name hovered in the air like something unwanted, something scraped from the bottom rung of the household.

Simon ended the silence for her.

“I do not require your preparation of anyone.” His voice was calm, clinical, carrying the quiet authority of a man who moved markets when he exhaled. “I will choose the woman who will carry the Jimenez name. That woman is not your elder daughter.”

He turned his head toward Olivia as if the decision was already sealed in stone. His voice did not rise. That made it more dangerous. “I am proposing marriage to your younger daughter. Olivia.”

Air vanished. Every eye in the room widened as if he had cracked open the earth beneath them.

Helena shot to her feet. Fury shook through her elegant frame like a storm trapped in silk. “Absolutely not. She is not the one we intend to offer. She is not even part of what this family presents to the world.”

Simon’s gaze cooled, settling over her like frost on iron.

“It is not up to you,” he said quietly. “It is up to me. And I choose her.”

Helena’s face twisted. She stepped forward, her voice thinning into a hiss sharpened by pride and panic. “If you insist on this absurdity, we end this discussion. We withdraw every form of support. Forget Santa Agueda. Forget Madanunan. You will not receive a single signature or endorsement. You will never break ground.”

It was a threat. A foolish one.

Simon’s expression did not change. But something shifted in his presence, something colder, something that made Olivia’s skin prickle.

“Mrs. Salvador,” he said softly, “I can get Madanunan whether your family agrees or not.”

Helena’s breath caught.

Simon continued, voice low, steady, and terrifying. “I chose this path because it is cleaner. Quieter. Tamer.” His eyes hardened. “But if you prefer the other way, I can revert to the strategy we abandoned.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

Even Helena, proud as she was, felt it. Her anger faltered. Her confidence wavered. For the first time since he arrived, she looked afraid.

And Olivia, caught between them all, sat silent and still, unsure whether she had just been offered freedom or placed into a cage she could not yet see.