Unseen

Chapter Eight

Olivia felt the house tilt around her. The air thickened until she could taste the tension in it, metallic and unwelcome. She sat there, spine straight, hands trembling just enough to betray what she fought to hide. Her name hung in the air like something misplaced, something spoken by accident. She did not understand why Simon Jimenez had chosen it. She did not understand why the world seemed to bend toward a decision she did not ask for.

Helena’s glare burned into the side of her face. It was the kind of look meant to strip flesh from bone. Olivia did not meet it. She kept her eyes low, breath shallow, as if the wrong inhale might ignite another explosion.

Clarisse whispered sharply beside her. “Did you do something? Tell me you did something.”

Olivia shook her head once. “No.”

Clarisse scoffed, loud enough for the room to hear. “Pathetic.”

Simon did not look away from Helena. His stillness filled the room the way storm clouds filled a valley. Heavy. Watchful. Unmoved. Olivia felt his presence like cold water on her skin. Not unkind. Not warm. Simply there, impossible to ignore.

She could not understand any of this. Men like him did not see girls like her. Men like him did not speak their names. Whatever this was, fate or strategy or something darker, it did not feel like a blessing. It felt like the edge of a blade.

Renato shifted in his seat, fingers tapping against his knee with the faint impatience of a man cornered by his own choices. A father in title, never in tenderness. His eyes grazed Olivia the way a man glances at a shadow he wished would stay hidden. When he finally spoke, his voice wavered. “Olivia. Stand.”

Her body obeyed before her mind caught up. She rose, light-headed, caught between duty and something colder curling through the room.

Renato’s gaze softened for a fleeting second, so thin it barely existed. “Are you willing to listen to what Mr. Jimenez is proposing?”

She searched his face for clarity but found nothing. He looked exhausted. Guilty. Resigned. That frightened her more than Helena’s growing rage.

Helena rose so fast her chair scraped sharply against the floor. “She is a child! She has no place in decisions of this weight. She cannot represent this family!”

Simon turned his head toward her with the patience of a man tolerating noise. The movement was slow, deliberate, a gesture that held more power than any raised voice. “She will speak for herself.”

His tone was cold enough to still the air.

Olivia felt something pull tight inside her chest. No one had ever asked what she wanted. No one had ever granted her the right to answer anything. The sudden permission felt like stepping into light after years of closing herself small.

Her breath thinned. Her throat tightened.

Clarisse scoffed, louder this time, desperate. “She is uneducated. She works in a grocery. She cannot speak with a man like you.”

Simon’s gaze cut to Clarisse. It lasted only a second. A single, glacial second. Clarisse fell silent as though the air had been pulled from her lungs.

He turned back to Olivia, voice steady, almost quiet. “You may sit if you wish. You may stand. You may speak. You may refuse. Your choices are your own.”

Every word pressed into her like something unfamiliar and sharp. Freedom felt nothing like mercy. It felt like a sudden gust rattling a window that had been sealed shut her entire life.

Helena stepped forward, anger tightening her posture. “You cannot choose her. She brings nothing to your name. Nothing.”

Olivia lowered her gaze, shame rising under her skin like heat. She had heard those words her entire life, spoken in whispers, in scorn, in reminders she was unwanted. But tonight, under the weight of so many watching eyes, the sting felt deeper. Different.

And Simon, cold and unyielding, stood there as the only person who refused to pretend, she did not exist.

Simon regarded Helena with cool patience. “What she brings or does not bring is not your concern.”

Olivia looked up at him then. Only for a moment. His expression was unreadable, carved in that quiet confidence powerful men wore like a habit. But beneath the stillness, she sensed something calculated. Something purposeful. Her place in this was not accidental.

Renato exhaled softly. “Olivia,” he said again, “do you understand what is being asked.”

She nodded. “A little.” Her voice barely rose above a whisper.

“You are being asked,” Simon said, “if you are willing to consider a proposal. Not a demand. Not an order. A choice.”

Choice. The word trembled inside her like a startled bird. She had never truly held one. She had been told where to stand, where to sleep, what to study, what not to dream.

Now the world watched her as though she held the match that could set a dynasty burning.

She swallowed, her voice faint but steady. “Why me?”

Simon did not hesitate. “Because I chose you.”

The room froze.

Helena shook her head, disbelief twisting her features. “This is madness!”

Olivia felt every pair of eyes sharpen upon her. She wanted to disappear into the fabric of the sofa, to fold herself small enough to slip between the cracks in the floor. But something in her chest refused to shrink. A small, stubborn ember that had survived long years of silence.

She looked at her father. He watched her with that tired, guilty expression again, as if he had already decided her fate long before she walked through the door.

She looked at Helena. Fury clung to her like perfume.

She looked at Clarisse. Envy flickered beneath the mask.

Then she looked at Simon.

His gaze was steady. Not gentle. Not cruel. Simply certain.

Olivia inhaled, the smallest of breaths. She did not speak yet. She did not answer. She simply held the moment in her hands, feeling its weight settle into her palms like something that could either save her or shatter her.

And for the first time in her life, the choice would be hers.