Chapter Four
1232 Words
Ariana's POV
My fingers tightened around the door handle before I slowly turned back to him.
Ethan leaned against the table carelessly, his expression unreadable.
Then he spoke.
"Don't overdo it."
I frowned slightly, confused.
"Your family has already got the investment," he said coldly. "You can relax now."
I froze where I stood.
So that was really all this was to him.
A transaction.
Nothing more.
Not like I expected much from him anyway... but the words still hurt more than I wanted to admit.
I quickly looked away before Ethan noticed the tears beginning to form in my eyes.
The next day, Julius Daniels arrived without notice.
The house shifted the moment he walked in.
Servants moved faster. Ethan's jaw tightened the second he saw his father, but he said nothing. The welcome was polite. Distant.
By evening, the three of us sat at the dining table.
Work. Business. The merger. That was all Ethan and his father talked about.
But I noticed how Julius kept steering everything back toward us. Toward our marriage. Watching. Measuring.
"How are you settling in?" he asked pleasantly.
"Fine," I answered.
"And Ethan?" His eyes shifted to his son. "Treating you well, I hope."
Ethan barely looked up from his drink.
"She's alive, isn't she?" he said dryly.
Julius ignored it smoothly. But I understand now. He hadn't come for dinner. He had come to observe us. To check how his investment was performing.
Ethan suddenly pushed his chair back before the dinner was even halfway done.
"I have work to attend to," he said shortly.
Without waiting for a response, he stood up and walked out of the dining room.
The silence he left behind felt uncomfortable almost immediately.
I lowered my gaze to my plate, suddenly losing my appetite.
Across from me, Julius Daniels remained calm, sipping his drink like nothing had happened, but I could feel his eyes on me.
Like he was waiting for answers I couldn't give him.
The silence stretched longer than I could handle.
Slowly, I pushed my chair back and stood up.
"Excuse me," I said politely.
"Ariana."
His voice stopped me before I could take another step.
I turned back slowly.
Julius rested his cutlery down neatly before looking at me carefully.
"You accepted this marriage without complaints," he said calmly. "Without question."
I said nothing.
"That tells me you're mature enough to handle everything that comes with this arrangement."
His eyes held mine steadily.
"Remember what we discussed during the wedding," he continued. "I believe you're smart enough to understand what's expected of you."
The room suddenly felt smaller.
"You're his wife now, after all," Julius added smoothly. "So I don't see why it should be such a difficult task."
I said nothing and quietly left the dining room.
A month into this marriage had not been easy.
If anything, it felt like living inside a silent kind of hell.
Ethan and I barely spoke unless it was necessary. Most days he left early for work and returned late at night. Sometimes we shared the same bed without exchanging more than a few words. Other times he slept in his office downstairs.
At some point, I stopped expecting anything from him.
It was already late when Ethan came home that night.
The moment he walked into the room, I immediately noticed something was wrong.
He was drunk, completely drunk.
For a second, I just stared at him in surprise. Ever since the wedding night, I had never seen him like this again. Ethan was usually too controlled, too careful to lose himself this badly.
So what happened?
He noticed me sitting on the bed and suddenly laughed.
A hard, bitter laugh.
"You're still holding on?" he asked mockingly.
"What a strong woman you are."
I stayed quiet.
Honestly, I had learned silence was safer whenever he got like this.
But Ethan kept staring at me with that strange look in his eyes.
"You amaze me," he muttered.
Then suddenly...
"How old are you again?"
I said nothing at first.
"What's your age?" he repeated louder this time.
My fingers tightened around the duvet slightly.
"Twenty-five," I answered quietly.
Ethan let out another laugh and shook his head slowly.
"Twenty-five," he repeated. "Such a young age."
His eyes stayed fixed on me.
"You should be out there living your life. Chasing dreams. Falling in love." His voice turned colder.
"Not trapped in a marriage where you're practically nothing."
The words caught me off guard.
Before I could even respond, he continued.
"Oh, but I forgot." A bitter smile crossed his face.
"There's still one thing you haven't done yet."
My stomach tightened instantly.
"Prove that I'm a man."
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Ethan started walking toward me slowly.
I instinctively sat up straighter, my grip tightening around the duvet.
He didn't stop.
He moved until he was directly in front of me. Close enough that I could smell the whiskey and underneath it that familiar cologne that had no business making my pulse react the way it did.
His eyes dropped to the thin strap of my lingerie beneath my robe.
"Ethan...."
His fingers caught the strap slowly. Not roughly. Just held it like he was standing at the edge of a decision.
"You've been here a month," he said quietly. "Sleeping in my bed. And I still don't know anything about you."
"You never wanted to," I whispered.
Something shifted in his expression.
He sat on the bed. Suddenly close. Close enough to feel the warmth of his skin. Close enough to see that his breathing wasn't steady.
"You never cry," he murmured. "Never beg. Never fall apart." A slow breath. "What are you made of Ariana?"
"You're drunk," I said. "You should sleep."
"I know." He didn't move back.
His hand came up and gently pushed a strand of hair from my face. So unexpected, I forgot to breathe. His fingers lingered at my jaw a beat too long.
Then he leaned in and kissed me.
Soft. Barely anything at first.
I told myself to pull back.
I didn't.
He kissed me again. Deeper. His hand slid to the back of my neck, and that was the moment I lost the argument with myself completely.
My hands that were pushing against his chest curled into his shirt instead.
And I kissed him back.
Fully. Like a door had opened, and I walked through it before I decided to.
I pulled back once. Just once.
"Ethan, we shouldn't...."
He kissed me again before I finished.
And whatever was left of my resistance went with it.
He wasn't exactly gentle. But he wasn't careless either. Some moments felt confusingly warm. Like underneath all that ice lived someone who had simply forgotten how to be human.
This wasn't how I imagined my first time.
But lying there afterward in the quiet dark, his breathing slowly evening beside me
I couldn't call it anything.
Even knowing he would be by morning.
When pale light came through the curtains, I turned slowly beside me.
Empty...of course.
I stared at the indent in his pillow. The warmth is already gone.
I wasn't even surprised anymore. Whatever happened in the dark stayed in the dark. By morning, he was always gone like none of it ever happened.
I reached for my robe.
Then the door opened.
Ethan walked in.
- Writer
