CHAPTER 003
1044 Words
CHAPTER 003
AMELIA’S POV
I should have listened to my gut. The golden envelope with the Blackwood crest was no invitation—it was a lure. A test. A game. A trap. Yet pride shoved me into the dress, the heels, and the car. I kept my chin up, determined to prove I wasn’t scared.
Now I sat at their table, hemmed in by velvet walls and sparkling chandeliers, the echo of crystal glasses slicing my ears like blades. The banquet hall glowed as if it were a dream—golden light, silk gowns, and all. Yet I wasn’t dreaming. I sat caged in a bower of diamonds.
Adrian sat at my side. Cold. Silent. His features were hewn from marble.
I shifted forward, plastering on a smile. Could you at least act as though you were enjoying yourself?
His jaw tightened, yet he still averted his gaze. “Eat.”
Eat. Not reassurance. Not comfort. Just an order.
Sitting across the table, his kin fixed me with a pack of hungry eyes, wolves draped in fine suits and glittering jewels. The first blow wore a cloak of sweetness.
“My, what charm, Amelia,” a cousin cooed, her pearl necklace falling in a heavy drape across her chest. I cannot imagine how you keep up with our Adrian. He’s never before been acquainted with women of a different kind.”
Of a different sort. Richer. Purer. Cleaner. Heat crept up my neck; I hid it with a sip of wine.
A cousin sat a little farther forward, smirking. Amelia, what, precisely, do you do? Isn’t it just a modest position in publishing?
I replied, “I’m in marketing.”
Ah, really. He chuckled. “Marketing stuff that nobody needs.” “How adorable.”
I raked my nails into the napkin beneath the table. Adrian watched his plate, feigning indifference. I knew he heard.
Another voice intruded. I must confess that I was taken aback when Adrian led you into the room. You are so… ordinary.”
Ordinary.
Tender waves of laughter circled the table. Quiet, yet cutting.
For the second time, I turned toward Adrian, begging him to speak, to look at me, to give me anything at all. Yet his expression was stone-cold, his fingers clenching the stem of his glass so hard I worried it would crack.
Say something.
Nothing.
“Ordinary isn’t the word,” a different cousin retorted with a smirk. She’s really just a pretty distraction.
The words hit like glass against my ribs. I forced a laugh, but it cracked within me.
A distraction. That’s all I apparently was to them.
I turned toward Adrian for the last time. My voice dropped to a thread, on the verge of pleading. Are you going to let them speak to me like this?
A hush descended for an instant. Every ear swivelled toward him.
Adrian finally raised his head. His eyes were cast into shadow, impenetrable. He parted his lips—
And he shut it.
The laughter re-erupted, this time even more loudly.
I watched the color bleed from my cheeks. The fork rang against the plate as I let it fall—my hands quivering.
I whispered, “Excuse me,” and shoved back from the table. The chair’s legs screeched against the polished floor. The room spun, the air stifling and heavy, impossible to breathe.
Adrian stayed unmoving.
Head high, I strode out. Every step scorched my skin, yet inside I was splintering.
Why did you let them tear me apart?
Why did you let them break me?
By the time I reached the corridor, tears smeared the chandeliers into halos of blurred light. My hands trembled against the cold marble.
Behind me, the footsteps grew closer. Heavy. Familiar.
“Amelia.”
I whirled on my heel, tears brimming in my eyes and my voice quivering. “Don’t. Not a chance you’ll say my name right now.
He halted just a few steps away, his expression set, his jaw a stone. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me!” My voice split, reverberating through the empty corridor. All I saw in there was you standing and watching me being torn apart. You said nothing.
His fists hardened at his sides. “I couldn’t—”
“You wouldn’t!”
The air between us throbbed with burden, every word gouging deeper.
Do you honestly think I relish this? His voice, at last, cracked, raw and rough. Do you believe I don’t ache to incinerate every one of them for the way they treated you?
If that’s the case, why didn’t you?
His silence spoke the answer.
My head drifted, throat tight. I entered that room thinking, for a moment, I might matter to you. But you made me feel like nothing.
“You’re nothing,” he snarled, advancing another step, his eyes a black, savage glare. You are the only thing that feels real. That’s why I had to remain silent. Do you not understand? If I let them glimpse how much you mean to me, they’ll rip you apart.
My breath caught. For one moment, the world shifted into a different plane.
Do you think keeping me out of sight will keep me safe? I whispered.
The timbre of his voice shifted, wavering on the brink of collapse. It’s the only way I can think to do it.
There we stood, the corridor cloaked in silence, our breaths interlaced. His fist twitched as though it longed to draw me near, to drag me closer.
Yet I couldn’t.
Not tonight.
I backed away.
You might be right,” I murmured. Perhaps I can’t withstand your world. Yet it won’t pull me down in silence.
Then I spun about, my heels hammering the floor beneath me as I moved away.
“Amelia!” His voice echoed, rough and tormented.
I kept walking.
Not this time.
Behind me, his voice interrupted the quiet once more, the tone no longer edged with fury but with a raw, almost-painful longing.
“Please don’t make me choose!”
Yet wasn’t that, in fact, the very thing I was urging him to do?
And what if he couldn’t?
What becomes of love once it is wielded as a weapon?
- Writer
