Chapter 14 – Fractures Beneath the Surface
760 Words
Lily
The moment I stepped into Xavier’s study, I felt it—the tension. Like a chord stretched to its breaking point. His back was to me, broad shoulders stiff under the black fabric of his shirt, and I could see the faint tremble in his fingers as they curled into fists at his sides.
He didn’t turn. Not right away.
“I heard you met Seraphina,” Xavier said, his voice like cracked glass—sharp, dangerous.
I froze.
So, that was her name.
Seraphina.
The woman with eyes like frost and lips that curved like secrets. The one who had walked into the estate like she belonged. The one who had looked at me like I was nothing but a stain on her polished world.
“She said she was your business associate,” I replied, voice carefully neutral.
Xavier finally turned. His expression was unreadable, but his jaw was tight, and his eyes—the ones that usually softened when they landed on me—were now stormy.
“She was,” he said. “Once.”
That single word—was—made something loosen in my chest. Relief. Confusion. A hundred unsaid things.
“But she still thinks she owns a part of you,” I whispered.
Xavier didn’t deny it. Instead, he walked toward me slowly, like I was something delicate and breakable. “I ended things with her months ago. She doesn’t handle rejection well.”
The way he said it told me there was more. More to their story. More to why she was still here.
“She kissed you,” I said, looking away.
Xavier’s hands cupped my face gently, tilting my head back. “She was testing me. Testing you. She wants to unravel everything I’ve rebuilt. I won’t let her.”
I believed him. I did. But the ache in my chest didn’t lessen. Not when I saw the way Seraphina looked at him. Like she knew him in ways I didn’t yet.
Not when I wondered if she once made him laugh. If he ever held her like he held me.
Not when I realized... she still might hold a piece of him.
Seraphina
I watched from the hallway, shadowed by the silence. I didn’t need to press my ear to the wall to know what they were saying. I knew Xavier better than anyone. I knew what buttons to press. What ghosts to resurrect.
That girl—Lily—was pretty, sweet, maybe even clever. But she didn’t belong in his world.
Not like I did.
She didn’t know the things we’d done. The things we’d buried.
I wasn’t here for closure. I was here because someone had paid me handsomely to unravel Xavier Moretti from the inside out. And the best way to do that?
Break his heart.
And that little artist girl?
She was his softest point.
Xavier
Later that night, I found Seraphina waiting in my office again. She sat on the edge of my desk like she had every right to be there, legs crossed, red lips curled into that smug smile I once thought I loved.
“I thought we were done,” I said coldly.
“Oh, darling,” she cooed, standing to face me. “We were never really done. You don’t just forget a woman like me.”
“I already have.”
Her smile faltered, just slightly. Then she stepped closer, trailing her fingers along the edge of my tie.
“I wonder what Lily would say if she knew what you did for me,” she whispered. “About what happened in Venice. About—”
I grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t push me, Seraphina.”
Her eyes flared with something dark. “You’ve gone soft.”
I pushed her hand away, stepping back.
“You don’t get to come here and threaten her. Whatever we had, it’s dead. If you so much as breathe in her direction again—”
“You’ll what?” she cut in, venom in her tone. “Kill me? Please. We both know how many bodies are already buried in your name.”
And then she was gone, leaving nothing but the lingering scent of her expensive perfume and a thousand unspoken threats.
Lily
I stood in the shadows outside Xavier’s study, hearing just enough.
Enough to know this wasn’t over.
Enough to know Seraphina wasn’t just a threat from the past—she was a fuse waiting to be lit.
And the explosion?
It would take all of us down.
- Writer
