CHAPTER 003
1371 Words
꧁ Callista
༺༺༒༻༻
Stellan had slapped me.
I stood in my own doorway and turned that fact over in my mind slowly, the way you turn something over when your brain refuses to fully accept its weight.
Stellan had slapped me.
Because of Isolde.
Because I had dared to speak in my own home, to draw a line in my own house, and he had looked at me with those cold furious eyes and raised his hand and—
I watched them walk past me like I was part of the furniture.
Isolde glanced back as she passed, just once, and the smile she gave me was slow and satisfied and made my stomach turn.
I released a shaky breath and pressed my hand flat against my stomach.
This can’t be happening.
This cannot be happening.
Everything had been fine.
Everything had been completely fine — Stellan loved me, I had been so sure of it, so certain. The way he looked at me, the things he said, the life we had been building together in this house. I had been so sure.
But he didn’t love me. He never had.
He had loved Isolde. Only ever Isolde.
And when she disappeared he had turned and found me standing nearby and decided I would do — that I was close enough, familiar enough, that I could fill the space she had left.
I had walked into that role with my eyes wide open and my heart wide open and told myself it was real.
How could I have been so stupid?
How could I have been such a fool?
To believe that Stellan Harte had genuinely fallen in love with me barely three months after Isolde vanished.
To believe that all those whispered words and soft looks and nights spent tangled together in the dark had been about me — that in his mind, in his heart, it had been me he was reaching for.
But I had loved him for so long.
That was the truth I had to sit with.
I had loved him since the day he moved in next door, had watched him from a careful distance for years while every ounce of his attention belonged to my sister.
I had loved him quietly and hopelessly and told myself it didn’t matter.
And then he had turned and looked at me and I had jumped — without hesitation, without caution, without stopping to ask myself a single hard question.
I had been so desperate to finally be chosen that I hadn’t stopped to check whether I actually was.
I swallowed hard and made myself move, putting one foot in front of the other, climbing the stairs toward the room I shared with Stellan.
My legs felt strange, slightly disconnected from the rest of me. I reached the door and wrapped my hand around the handle.
Locked.
I frowned and raised my hand to knock — and then froze when I heard a small moan from inside followed by Isolde’s breathless voice.
“Oh yes, baby — yes, harder, just like that. Oh God, I missed you f*cking me so much—”
My hand dropped from the door.
Then Stellan’s voice followed. “You feel so fcking good, baby. I missed you so much — ugh, yes — I love how wet you are for me, I’m gonna cm so hard—”
I took a step back.
Then another.
The sounds followed me — skin against skin, intertwined moans, the rhythmic creak of a bed I had slept in every night for three years.
My matrimonial bed.
In my home.
With me standing on the other side of the door.
Isolde had walked through my front door less than two hours ago.
And Stellan had already taken her to our bed like I didn’t exist.
Like I was so irrelevant that he couldn’t even be bothered to wait until I had left the house.
My stomach lurched violently and I pressed my hand to my mouth and turned and walked.
Down the stairs, through the hallway, into the kitchen, because I had to keep moving or I would crumble right there on the landing and I refused to do that. I refused.
I made it to the kitchen counter and gripped the edge of it with both hands and stood there breathing — just breathing, in and out, forcing my lungs to keep working, forcing my legs to keep holding me up.
Tears were running down my face. I hadn’t even noticed them starting.
I picked up my phone.
It rang twice before she answered.
“Professor Hale,” I said, and my voice came out steadier than I had any right to expect. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.” I paused for just a second. “I’ll take it. The scholarship — I’ll take it. Please send me whatever I need to know.”
There was a beat of silence before she responded,,“I’ll have everything to you within twenty four hours. Callista — you are making the right decision.”
I set the phone down and looked at the counter for a long moment.
Then I picked up my bag, walked to the guest room, closed the door behind me and lay down on the bed fully clothed.
I had given everything up for this.
That was the thought that kept circling. I had turned down that scholarship the first time without even blinking — had told Professor Hale that building a family was what mattered, that this house and this man were everything I needed.
I had folded away the one part of myself that had always been entirely mine and handed it to a dream that had never been real.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
I didn’t know how long I cried before I fell asleep. Long enough that when I finally surfaced it was dark outside and my eyes were swollen half shut, my face stiff and tight from dried tears.
I lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling, letting the events of the day settle back over me slowly.
Then I got up.
I needed my nightclothes from the main room. That was all. A simple thing. I moved quietly down the hallway, hoping the house would be empty, hoping they had gone out or gone to sleep or done anything that meant I wouldn’t have to look at either of them tonight.
I was almost at the door when I heard Isolde’s laugh from inside.
I stopped. Turned to leave.
Then I heard her voice, bright and unbothered, clearly on the phone.
“Oh Mummy, it was as easy as taking candy from a baby.” A light laugh. “You know how Callista is — she is as gullible and stupid as her mother. Always has been. And Stellan is completely obsessed with me so honestly it was never going to be difficult.”
I went very still.
“Mm-hm. Yes, that’s the plan exactly — get him to divorce her and get that dead weight out of our lives. I really hope it doesn’t take as long as it took to get rid of her mother.” A pause. Then a laugh so casual it turned my blood cold. “Well I wouldn’t want to have to kill her the way you killed that woman just to be done with her.”
The floor dropped out from under me.
I covered my mouth with both hands.
“I know, I know. And can you imagine how lucky we were? To think that every single empire — every company, every asset, every rand of wealth that Daddy has been managing all these years — it was all hers. Her mother’s. All of it. Can you imagine being so naive that you handed every single thing you owned to a man just for love?” Another laugh. “Ugh. Anyway, we need to finalize the transfer of everything before Callista starts asking questions. Because she can never find out, Mummy. She can never find out that everything her mother had — everything we have right now — actually belongs to her by inheritance.”
- Writer
