Chapter one :The Quiet Before the Storm
528 Words
The door clicked open with a soft creak.
Audrey Grayson stepped inside, heels clicking against the marble floor of the mansion she used to call warm. Now, it felt like a museum , polished, perfect, and painfully quiet.
She exhaled, shoulders heavy from the long day at the office. The board meeting had dragged, the project had nearly collapsed, and Marcus… had been watching her again. Like he always did.
She dropped her keys into the ceramic bowl by the entrance, then froze.
There he was.
Damien Cross.
Stretched out on the sleek leather couch like he hadn’t moved in hours. The TV played one of his favorite political shows, low volume, the flickering screen casting cold shadows across his chiseled face.
His eyes didn’t shift. Not even a glance.
Audrey swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Hi,” she said, voice soft but hopeful.
He didn’t answer , not with words. Just a slow, half-hearted blink. Then he returned his gaze to the screen.
Audrey stood there, still in her heels, still in her fitted white blouse and tailored skirt, silently begging for acknowledgment. For anything.
“I brought dinner,” she tried again, holding up the takeout bag from his favorite Thai place.
Nothing.
She moved into the living room, lowering the bag onto the glass coffee table like a peace offering.
Damien finally spoke, not looking at her.
“You were late.”
Her stomach twisted,a knot forming beneath her ribs.
“There was traffic. And work ran over. Marcus”
“I don’t care,” he cut in sharply, voice cool as steel. “You could’ve called.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, resisting the urge to snap back. Not because he was right, but because she was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of defending herself, tired of always being the one trying.
“I did.” She said “ left a voice note.”
His jaw flexed. Still no eye contact.
Audrey sat at the edge of the couch, leaving space between them like always. Close enough to touch… but worlds apart.
He didn’t move. Didn’t ask about her day. Didn’t notice how exhausted she looked or how the heels she’d worn for that client meeting had blistered her feet until they bled. She’d wrapped tissue around her toes in the bathroom at work, just to survive the walk to the car.
She could’ve been a stranger walking into his house. But worse than that she was a wife being treated like one.
Audrey looked around the room, eyes scanning the furniture, the pictures on the wall, images from a different time. Happier times. A framed photo from Santorini. A birthday dinner in Cape Town. Their wedding. The smiles looked foreign now, like they belonged to other people.
Silence filled the room again, thicker than the air-conditioned chill.
She glanced at him, heart aching, voice barely above a whisper.
“Damien… do you even see me anymore?”
Stillness.
And then, just barely, he looked at her.
But not with love.
Just suspicion.
Just distance.
Just the kind of stare that says: I see you. But I don’t trust you.
- Writer
