Beneath His Heart

chapter 6

April's pov

I woke to silence.

No birdsong. No gentle sunlight. Just the weight of stillness pressing against my lungs.

The bed was too large, too cold. The sheets beside me were untouched — he hadn’t returned. Not in the night. Not at all. The last time I saw Alexander was when he vanished through that doorway, taking his hatred with him like a storm contained only by force of will.

My body ached not from passion, but from restraint. I hadn’t slept so much as slipped into a kind of unconscious grief, the kind that paralyzed more than soothed.

I sat up slowly, my veil discarded on the floor like a ghost someone had stepped through. My wedding dress was creased and wrinkled, its seams stretched from a day that didn’t belong to me. I wasn’t a bride.

I was a prisoner in white.

Rising from the bed, I touched my wrist out of instinct, the bruises faint now, but still tender. A soft echo of his grip. His control. His punishment.

In the mirror above the vanity, I barely recognized the girl staring back. The smudged mascara. The swollen eyes. A perfect stranger trapped in my reflection. Gwen Black— the impostor wife.

The wife he loathed.

There was a knock at the door. I opened it to find a girl, probably around my age, standing in a perfectly tailored professional suit, holding a garment bag with care.

“Good morning, Mrs. Black. I’m Savanah, Mr. Black’s personal assistant,” she introduced herself, though her wide-eyed expression betrayed something—shock, perhaps, at the sight of me. Maybe I didn’t look like the woman she expected.

But within seconds, she masked it with corporate polish.

“Mr. Black has arranged for this dress to be delivered for tonight’s reception,” she said crisply. “May I come in?”

I stepped aside, nodding. “Yes.”

Reception?

I had no idea there was one. Of course, I didn’t. No one tells the puppet what the next show is.

Savanah entered with silent efficiency and laid the dress gently on the edge of the bed. She turned to me, her hands folded at her waist.

“I’ve been instructed to assist you throughout the day. Your makeup team will arrive at half past ten, and we need to have you ready by six,” she added, voice sharp with protocol.

“You don’t need to call me Mrs. Black or madam,” I told her. “You can call me Ap—Gwen.”

She hesitated. “But Mr. Black… he doesn’t prefer that.”

“You can call him whatever he prefers. But for me, it’s Gwen. If he has a problem with that, tell him I asked you to.”

There was a flicker of something in her face—nervousness, maybe even admiration—but she nodded slowly. “Okay, Ms. Gwen.”

That title still felt foreign, but at least it wasn’t a prison.

I glanced at the dress—dark ocean blue, sleeveless. Elegant and expensive. Yet all I saw were the bruises it would expose.

“In a few minutes,” Savanah continued, “you’ll receive additional clothing and personal items for the next few days. Your belongings will also be moved to the Blackmount Estate tomorrow.”

I blinked. “Blackmount Estate?”

She tilted her head, slightly confused. “Yes… Mr. Black requested everything be shifted there first thing in the morning.”

The way she looked at me then—like I should’ve known—tightened something inside me. I could see her mind quietly working, stitching together the pieces: the confusion in my eyes, the dress that didn’t feel mine, the way I barely fit into the life I was supposedly part of.

But she said nothing more.

“I’ll leave you to freshen up,” she said gently. “Breakfast is already served in the dining hall. The makeup team will arrive around half past ten.”

With that, she exited.

I shut the door behind her and moved to the mirror. The bruises on my neck stared back like whispers from last night—shadows that looked like passion but were anything but. Hickeys, they’d assume. The kind lovers leave in private as a mark of ownership.

But only I knew the truth.

I chose a high-collared floral sundress, one of the few pieces I owned that still felt like me. It covered the bruises and offered a sliver of comfort in a house where everything else belonged to him.

Downstairs, the dining table was lined with silver-domed dishes and expensive cutlery. Food enough for ten, even though I had no appetite.

Half past ten arrived, and with it, a storm of perfume and voices. The makeup team bustled into the suite with brushes, curling irons, and practiced smiles.

“You’re such a doll,” the lead artist cooed as she blended foundation over my skin.

I glanced at the dress again—the one Alexander had picked. That deep ocean blue shimmered like something royal. Sleeveless. Designed to draw the eye.

He wanted the world to see me as his prize. A painted trophy draped in silk and silence.

But I knew better.

He didn’t choose that dress out of admiration. He chose it to humiliate. To showcase the marks he left, to brand me without saying a word.

She’s mine, the dress would scream.

Mine to parade by day.

Mine to punish in the dark.

***********************

Alexander pov

The sound of heels clicked against marble—slow, calculated, almost theatrical.

And then she appeared.

Draped in the very dress I chose. Ocean blue silk that clung to her curves, sleeveless by design—because I wanted the world to see what she tried to hide.

The marks.

My marks.

She moved like she belonged in this house. Like she didn’t force her way into my life with lies, manipulation, and the mask of innocence.

I clenched my jaw.

She wasn’t supposed to look like that—composed, graceful, untouchable. She was supposed to be nervous. Ashamed. A shadow of the mistake she was.

But there she was—walking down the staircase like she owned the air around her.

She didn’t bow her head. Didn’t flinch. She held her chin high, that same polite expression on her face, the one that made me want to shake the truth out of her.

Pretending to be a Black. Wearing my name like a trophy, she stole.

She’s not April, I reminded myself. She’s Gwen. The wrong one. The liar.

And yet, something about her made it hard to look away.

Not because I admired her.

But because I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to destroy her… or make her beg to stay.

This marriage was supposed to be a punishment—for both of us.

But somehow, she’s the only one who doesn’t seem to feel it.