EIGHT
593 Words
Chapter 8 – Shattered Truths
The next morning, Althea woke with a weight pressing heavily on her chest. The echoes of last night lingered in her mind—Clarisse’s piercing words, Lea’s shadowy presence, and Xavier’s silence that cut deeper than any blade. She could no longer keep her questions locked inside.
She needed answers.
Gathering her courage, she found him in the library. Xavier sat at a massive desk, clad in a simple white dress shirt, his sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows. His sharp eyes were fixed on a stack of documents, his hand moving steadily across the page.
“Xavier,” she began softly, her voice trembling. “I need to know… who is Clarisse in your life?”
The room stilled. He didn’t look up right away, and for a moment she thought he would simply ignore her. But beneath the silence, she felt the tension ripple, thick and suffocating. Finally, he lowered the paper and met her gaze—cold, unyielding.
“You don’t need to know everything, Althea.”
Her heart squeezed at the dismissal, but she held her ground. “I am your wife, Xavier. Even if this marriage is only bound by a contract, I have the right to understand why pain flickers in your eyes every time she’s near.”
That stopped him.
For the first time, she saw his hand falter—just the faintest tremor, but enough to reveal the storm he kept buried. His jaw tightened, his lips pressing into a thin line.
“Clarisse…” he said at last, his voice low, edged with an ache he tried to mask. “She was supposed to be my future. But the past between us is something that should never return—and something you must never dig into.”
Althea’s breath hitched. The words sliced through her, not with jealousy but with a sorrow she couldn’t name. It wasn’t just the ghost of another woman that haunted Xavier—it was the weight of a love destroyed, and a wound that still bled in silence.
Her eyes stung, but before she could respond, the door opened.
“Sir,” Lea’s voice broke the fragile moment. She entered the library with her usual composure, a folder in her hand. “The report on the expansion project has arrived.”
Althea turned, her gaze locking with Lea’s for a brief second. Something unspoken passed between them—a challenge, a warning, or perhaps a confession neither dared to voice. Lea’s eyes, cool and unreadable, seemed to say more than her words ever did.
Xavier stood, taking the folder without hesitation. “Good. Let’s review it in the study.”
And just like that, he walked out with Lea, leaving Althea alone in the quiet vastness of the library. The shelves towered around her, filled with knowledge, secrets, and stories of the past. Yet none of them could tell her the truth she desperately sought.
Her hands clenched at her sides as her heart cracked under the weight of it all. Every step she took in this house, every smile she forced in front of strangers, seemed to draw her closer not to clarity—but to the painful fragments of truths Xavier refused to share.
She was his wife on paper. But in his heart, she was still a stranger.
And in the silence of the library, Althea whispered to herself, her voice breaking like fragile glass—
How many more pieces of you must I shatter before you finally let me in?
- Writer
