Episode Twelve
1679 Words
Chapter 12
The Scarf
“Charles, where is your scarf?”
The question landed softly.
For a moment, Charles only frowned.
“What scarf?”
Then he stopped.
His expression changed so quickly that if I had not spent years studying his face, I might have missed it.
A pause.
A flicker.
A memory he did not want.
I looked at him quietly.
The scarf had been dark grey.
Not black, because Charles already owned too many black things. Not navy, because he disliked navy near his face. Dark grey, because it softened the coldness of his features without making him look gentle.
I had knitted it myself.
It had taken nearly two months.
Charles was particular about everything. The fabric of his shirts. The weight of his coats. The temperature of his coffee. The exact angle of a report placed on his desk.
So I had unravelled the scarf three times.
The first version was too loose.
The second too stiff.
The third had one uneven section near the middle that probably no one else would have noticed, but Charles noticed everything.
By the time I finally finished, my fingers had small red marks from the needles.
I gave it to him one winter night when there was no one else around. No office lights. No staff. No one who would wonder why an assistant was giving the president a handmade gift.
Charles had opened the box and looked at it for a long time.
“You made this?”
“Yes.”
His thumb brushed over the stitches.
For once, he did not immediately speak.
I had felt foolishly nervous then, standing in his apartment with my hands folded behind my back.
“If you don’t like it…”
“I like it,” he said.
His voice had been quieter than usual.
For a few weeks after that, he wore trench coats more often.
Even when the weather was not cold enough.
Even when I knew he had warmer coats in his wardrobe.
He wore the scarf with them.
Dark grey against camel wool. Dark grey against black cashmere. Dark grey tucked neatly beneath his collar when he stepped into the car in the morning.
No one knew it was mine.
That had been fine.
At the time, I had thought private affection was still affection.
Then Dakota arrived.
The scarf disappeared one afternoon after a client lunch.
Charles had taken Dakota with him, and I had stayed behind to finish the West City risk map. When they returned, Dakota was flustered and apologising repeatedly.
“I’m really sorry, Mr Yale. I didn’t see the sauce on the edge of the table.”
Charles’s coat was over his arm. The scarf was folded badly in his hand, stained near one end with a reddish-brown mark.
Dakota looked close to tears.
“I can pay for it. I’ll have it cleaned. Or replaced. I’m so sorry.”
I had stood near the filing cabinet, holding a folder against my chest.
Charles barely glanced at the scarf.
“It’s fine.”
“But it looks expensive.”
“It isn’t.”
Then he dropped it into the rubbish bin beside his desk.
“Just something cheap.”
The sound it made was very soft.
Cloth against paper.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing worthy of anyone’s attention.
Dakota had looked relieved.
Charles had turned to me and asked for the Henderson call notes.
I had handed them over.
Professionally.
Calmly.
As if I had not just watched two months of care fall into a bin.
Now, standing across from him with my resignation letter on his desk, I looked at the man who had thrown it away and asked again, “Where is your scarf?”
Charles’s gaze shifted away from mine.
“I put it away,” he said stiffly.
The lie came too late.
“The weather has been warm lately.”
I smiled faintly.
“I thought maybe you didn’t like it anymore.”
His jaw tightened.
“Mia.”
“Or maybe you threw it away.”
His expression changed.
There it was.
Not grief.
Not regret.
Embarrassment.
A man like Charles hated being caught in ugliness more than he hated the ugliness itself.
“It was dirty,” he said.
“Yes.”
“It was only a scarf.”
Only.
The word was small, but by then I knew how heavy small words could be.
Only a scarf.
Just a project.
Fine coffee.
Good work.
Received.
A life could be reduced by such words, piece by piece, until even pain began to feel excessive.
I lowered my eyes.
“Of course.”
Charles stared at me.
“Is that why?”
I looked up.
His brows were drawn tightly together now, his patience thinning.
“Is that why you’re leaving? Because of a scarf?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
His voice hardened.
“Give me a real reason, Mia.”
A real reason.
I almost laughed.
As if he had not been stepping over them for weeks.
The coffee.
West City.
Dakota.
The business meals.
The rain.
The way he could notice another woman’s limp from across the room but not the exhaustion sitting beneath my eyes.
But Charles did not want a real reason.
He wanted something he could take apart.
So I gave him one.
“I’m at that age,” I said calmly. “Maybe it’s time for me to think about marriage.”
The room went still.
Charles looked at me.
For one brief second, his expression was completely blank.
Then his lips curved.
It was not a smile.
“Marriage?”
“Yes.”
“With who?”
“No one yet.”
“Then why resign?”
“I need time to focus on my personal life.”
His hand tightened around the envelope.
The paper bent beneath his fingers.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“You asked for a reason.”
“I asked for the truth.”
“That is the truth.”
Charles stood slowly.
The movement was controlled, but something dark had already broken through his composure.
“What kind of man do you like?”
“That’s none of your business.”
A short laugh left him.
Cold.
Ugly.
“None of my business?”
“Yes.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Does he know?”
I said nothing.
Charles stepped around the desk.
“Does this man you plan to marry know that you were in my bed the night before last?”
My fingers curled slightly at my sides.
He saw it.
Of course he saw it.
Charles noticed everything when he wanted to.
His mouth curved with something crueler.
“Does he know we’ve been sleeping together for years?”
The words hung between us.
Low.
Clear.
Deliberate.
“Doesn’t he mind?”
I looked at him.
For years, I had seen Charles angry. I had seen him cold, impatient, ruthless in meetings, capable of cutting a person open with one sentence and never staining his cuffs.
But this was different.
This was not business.
This was personal.
He was not trying to win.
He was trying to hurt me.
And the strange thing was, I could almost understand it.
A proud man could accept many things, but not being left.
Not by someone he had always believed would stay.
“You’re crossing the line,” I said softly.
Charles froze.
Perhaps he realised it then.
From the very beginning, he had been the one who drew that line.
Whatever we were, it had to remain hidden.
No one could know.
It would cause unnecessary gossip and trouble.
So I had followed his rules. I had taught myself to be silent, invisible, and useful.
Now he seemed angry that silence had learned to leave.
His expression stiffened.
For a moment, he looked away.
“Sorry.”
The apology was low.
Brief.
Almost unwilling.
Then, as if the word itself had humiliated him, he grabbed the expensive pen beside his hand and threw it onto the desk.
It struck the polished surface with a sharp sound.
I did not flinch.
Charles ran a hand through his hair.
“You’re angry,” he said. “Mia, you’re angry with me.”
I said nothing.
“But why?”
The confusion in his voice sounded real.
That almost hurt more than his cruelty.
“I already explained it,” he said. “That night, Dakota was drunk. I talked to her afterwards. Why would you care about something like that?”
Something like that.
As if boundaries only mattered when they were his.
As if what wounded me should be measured by his intention, never by my pain.
“Weren’t we fine the night before last?” he asked.
His voice softened slightly, puzzled and almost offended.
I remembered that night.
In the haze of desire, I had reached for him and lifted my face, wanting a kiss.
As usual, Charles turned away.
His hand covered my eyes.
He did not let me see his expression.
His breathing had grown heavier against my skin, but his voice remained cold.
“Sorry. I don’t like kissing.”
For years, I had accepted that.
Charles did not like kissing.
Charles did not like public affection.
Charles did not like unnecessary intimacy.
I had repeated those things to myself so many times they became facts.
Then, at the club, I saw Dakota, flushed and unsteady after drinking too much, tiptoe towards him.
She kissed the corner of his lips.
Charles did not stop her.
He could have stepped back.
He could have turned his face away as easily as he had always turned away from mine.
But he did not.
That was when I understood.
It was not that Charles did not like kissing.
He simply did not want to kiss me.
I doubted he even knew the difference.
So in his mind, the night before last had been no different from all the others.
He thought we were still fine.
- Writer
