Chapter 5: The Accusation
725 Words
The fire had burned low, casting long, spindly shadows across the wooden walls as Aria sat frozen beside him. Her gaze hadn’t moved since it landed on the ink, her name, boldly etched into the skin just beneath his heart.
Aria Monroe.
The letters mocked her in their permanence.
Her name didn’t belong there. Not on his chest. Not in the same skin that once stood by James’s coffin and told her they’d exhausted every lead. Not when her heart hadn’t finished breaking.
“Water…” came a hoarse, gravelly whisper.
She startled at the sound. Rowan's eyes fluttered open, glassy and fever-bright. He blinked up at her with confusion at first, then awareness as his tongue dragged over dry lips.
“I need… water,” he rasped again.
Aria grabbed the nearby cup, her fingers trembling so hard she nearly dropped it. She brought it to his lips, her other hand steadying the back of his head as he drank in weak gulps.
He swallowed hard, then let out a low groan. “You’re shaking.”
She didn’t respond.
“Aria,” he reached out, his fingers brushing her arm, but she flinched like he’d struck her. Her wide eyes were locked on his chest.
Rowan followed her stare.
His heart stalled.
The tattoo.
Shit.
He opened his mouth to explain, but no words came.
“What is that?” Her voice was soft but sharp.
‘Why is my name on your body?’
Silence.
“Rowan,” she pressed, stepping back now, needing space to breathe.
‘Why the hell is my name tattooed on your chest?’
He looked at her like he wanted to say something. Like the words were there, just beyond reach. But nothing came.
Just guilt.
And a quiet that felt louder than a scream.
Her lips parted, then closed. She gave him one last look, a mixture of betrayal and something more fragile underneath, before she turned and marched toward the bedroom. The door slammed behind her a second later, the sound echoing like a final decision.
Rowan starred at the door, as if magically willing it to open, but he knew it was futile hoping.
The fever had started to fade, but he remained restless, his mind more tortured than his body now.
He lay back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. It creaked occasionally under the weight of the wind, but all he could hear was her voice.
‘Why is my name on your body?’
His fingers absently grazed the ink. Aria Monroe. A name he’d never forgotten since the very first moment he saw her.
He hadn’t meant to fall for her.
Hell, he hadn’t even known her name when he first saw her.
It was years ago, three, maybe four. A friend dragged him to a charity event in the city. A room full of too much wine and fake laughter. He’d been halfway to the door when she walked in.
Aria.
She’d floated into the room in a cream dress that clung like silk to her hips, her dark curls spilling over one shoulder, and that laugh, Gosh, that laugh, he’d heard it before he even saw her. Like sunlight in sound. Warm and inviting.
He was still staring when James slid up beside her.
His brother leaned in close, whispered something, and she laughed again, this time for him.
Rowan’s stomach twisted.
James always got everything. Every deal. Every ounce of attention. Every accolade their father threw like coins at the feet of his golden son.
Rowan had learned to let go of wanting. Of needing.
But that night…
He wanted.
And for the first time in his life, it wasn’t about rebellion or proving a point.
It was about her.
Aria Monroe.
He watched them from the sidelines, the air thick with something he couldn’t name. James looked smug. Aria looked enchanted.
And Rowan stood in the dark.
Watching.
Hurting.
Yearning.
He told himself to let it go. To bury the feeling somewhere deep.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he immortalized her name in the one place James could never reach, his skin.
Right above his heart.
And now, years later, that name had come back to haunt him.
In the form of the woman locked behind a bedroom door, wanting answers he still didn’t know how to give.
- Writer
