The glass shattered—a mere hair's breadth from my face—splintering against the wall with a sharp, violent crack that sliced through the silence. I did not flinch. Not at the pounding in my chest, nor the cold shiver rippling down my spine. I simply met his gaze, unwavering.
"You think I don't know the truth? That I'm blind to it?" He yelled, spittle flying.
The first thing one ought to understand about Robert Sinclair was his unshakable certainty in himself—a certainty he made no effort to conceal. Born into wealth, raised in privilege, he had come to realize not only his own power, but his ability to multiply it. And as with all men of his kind, such knowledge had made him utterly insufferable.
I had seen this play out too many times before. The cycle was predictable—he would hurl accusations with righteous fury, lash out, break things, his temper spilling over like wine from a fractured glass. If I were fortunate, I would escape unscathed. If not, I would endure the consequences of his unchecked rage.
"You walk about like some virtuous creature," he spat, his voice laced with venom. "As though scandal is beneath you, as though you wouldn't dare cross a line. But you are cheap. No better than a harlot."
His words reached me, distant and hollow, their sting dulled by years of repetition. I had long since trained myself to withdraw—to steel my breath, still my expression. After four years of this, I had perfected the art of silence.
"You never let anyone forget you're in the room," he spat, voice rising. "Parading about, flashing that filthy smile at every man who glances your way. What more do you want?"
He flung his arms out wide, a sweeping gesture of fury—and I flinched. A small, involuntary movement I despised myself for. Almost as much as I despised him.
"What?" He caught it. Of course he did. His eyes lit with cruel satisfaction, his smile curling with menace. He'd found a crack—one to dig into, to widen until it bled.
My gaze locked with his. Steady. Cold. Unimpressed.
"Oh, are you going to play the victim now?" His voice turned mocking, laced with venom. "Am I being too much for you? Perhaps you should've thought of that before throwing yourself at every man in the room!"
Flirting. That's what he called it. A glance, a smile, a polite nod of acknowledgment—and suddenly I was branded a traitor. If I so much as breathed too close to a man, he'd twist it into betrayal. There was no winning. Not with him.
So I said nothing.
I stood still, composed. My arms wrapped loosely around one another—not quite a hug, but a quiet brace. I couldn't help it. I feared him. Not just his anger, but the sharp, unpredictable edges of it. The consequences if I failed to give him what he wanted—a reaction, a plea, a weakness.
If I remained silent, answering only when spoken to, I could usually escape with little more than a wounded pride and a bruised conscience. But if I dared push back, if I let my indignation show—then I'd be at the mercy of something far darker.
"Why is it so hard for you to be faithful?" he said, and the irony nearly made me laugh.
Said the man bedding his secretary.
He thought I didn't know. That I was still that naïve little girl from a sleepy English village—lost and wide-eyed in New York. He thought me small.
He thought wrong.
"I give you money. Plenty of it. I buy you everything a woman could ever want. Why do you still treat me like this?"
I said nothing.
Because there was nothing to say. I wasn't doing anything. All his talk of betrayal, of infidelity—it was nothing more than the invention of a restless, wounded ego. The creation of a man too consumed by jealousy to see straight. Too proud to consider that perhaps his greatest enemy was himself.
"Answer me!"
His hand shot out, seizing my arm. I jolted back instinctively—but stopped short of pulling away. I knew better than to resist. That only added fuel to the fire.
"Robert," I said gently, "you're drunk."
That was all. A simple truth.
He stared at me, as though seeing me for the first time. His fury fractured, crumbling beneath something softer. Grief.
"I love you," he whispered, the venom gone from his voice. "So much, I can't breathe."
And just like that, the shouting man was gone, replaced by a broken child in a man's frame. He slid to the floor, still clutching both my arms, his weight dragging against me.
"Why can't you be loyal to me?" he asked, the words trembling, not with rage, but despair.
I waited a moment, then raised a hand—slowly, cautiously—and placed it on his head, fingers threading into the tousled blond hair.
"You're tired, my love," I murmured. "You need to rest."
If I spoke gently, if I wrapped my words in tenderness and need, he would calm. His anger would curl into itself, and for tonight, at least, I might go to bed without bruises.
"Alina," he murmured, childlike again. "Please… I don't like it when I see you with other men. It drives me mad. I become a dog. A mad dog."
You've always been a mad dog, I thought. And it wasn't jealousy that made you so.
But I said nothing. I simply continued stroking his hair, letting his voice dissolve into the haze of drink and delusion. He would speak until exhaustion took him. Until he slept, and the alcohol carried him far away—into that place where I could not follow.
One day, I hoped, it would take him there forever.
He didn't fall asleep quickly tonight.
His grip on me tightened as I tried to guide him gently towards rest. Then he reached for me—clumsy and insistent—his mouth seeking mine. I turned my face just in time, angling my head so that he breathed in the scent of my hair instead.
"You always smell so good, Alina," he murmured, voice thick with drink. "So beautiful… I love you."
"I know," I replied softly, coaxing him forward with a faint smile. "Come to bed."
Even as the words left my mouth, a quiet dread unfurled in my chest. I hoped—prayed—this wouldn't be one of those nights. The kind where 'wifely duties' meant submitting to him, enduring what felt like the slow death of my soul under the weight of his touch.
There are few things more dehumanising than lying with a man you do not love. Fewer still than doing so with one you despise.
No—not quite. There was another man I reserved that depth of hatred for. And it wasn't Robert.
I led him up the stairs, each step slow and measured as his hands wandered, mouth pressing open kisses along the line of my neck. My dress—a deep red, off the shoulder—left the skin there bare and vulnerable, my hair pinned in a coiffed arrangement that gave him access without effort.
At the top and into the bedroom, I turned and gently pushed him onto the bed.
"Wait here," I said, voice lilting with calm. "Let me get you some water—you must be thirsty."
"No," he protested, pawing at my hand. "No, I need you…"
"You'll have me in a moment." I smiled, tender as glass. "Just stay."
It took a small struggle to release my hand from his. He clung, desperate and sticky, like a child in the throes of a tantrum. When I finally freed myself, I stumbled slightly—my heels slipping against the polished floors—and caught my balance just in time.
Then I turned and descended the stairs, not looking back.
I wasn't going to fetch water.
I knew the rhythm of Robert's indulgence—the lull that came after the outbursts, the inevitable slump of his body into drunken sleep. If I lingered downstairs for ten minutes, perhaps twelve, he would be unconscious. The alcohol would do what I could not.
As I descended the spiraling staircase, I lifted my arms into a stretch, rolling my neck to ease the tightness coiled beneath my skin. My earrings came off with a practiced flick, tucked into my palm. The house was quiet now, save for the hum of the refrigerator—soft and steady, like a distant lullaby.
In the kitchen, I took a glass from the cabinet and filled it halfway from the water dispenser. I didn't need it, but I sipped anyway, letting the coldness settle on my tongue as I moved to the window by the sink.
Outside, the neighbouring house glowed faintly through the darkness—Victor Kent's, with its pristine garden and white stone façade. I could just make out his silhouette through the parted curtains, gesturing furiously while his wife, Emily, stood her ground.
They were at it again.
I had long suspected Victor wasn't innocent of whatever betrayal she hurled at him. I'd seen the way he looked at me—eyes lingering a beat too long, lips parting as though imagining the taste of my name. He wasn't the first. Certainly not the last.
Most men looked at me like that.
Every man, in truth. I have never known a gaze untainted by desire. Not one. It was as if decency unraveled in the presence of my face, leaving behind only hunger and assumption.
Men are all the same—hopeless creatures. Wolves in tailored suits, dogs with polished shoes. Here only to conquer, to consume, to destroy.
And somehow, I had always been a favorite quarry.
If such a thing as being too beautiful exists, then I was born cursed with it. This isn't vanity—I don't peer into mirrors to marvel at myself. Quite the opposite, in fact.
This face—this cursed loveliness—has never been a blessing.
It has been a burden, a banner, a beacon for ruin. My beauty did not bring me joy, or kindness, or warmth. It brought danger. Envy. Possession disguised as affection. From the time I was too young to understand it until now, beauty has stalked me like a shadow I could never peel away.
People call it privilege.
I call it suffering.
Because everything I have lost—every wound I have suffered—was wrapped first in a compliment.
I poured the rest of the water into the sink, watching the last drop circle the drain before vanishing completely. Then I turned and made my way back upstairs.
As expected, Robert was already asleep—sprawled across the edge of the bed like some fallen king. His mouth slightly open, a faint line of drool glistening on the pillow. For a moment, I stared at him with a strange urge… to kick him right off the mattress and onto the floor.
Instead, I knelt.
First his shoes—polished leather, custom-made—slipped off with ease. Then his Rolex, cold against my fingers, the kind of thing he always wore too tightly as though wealth had to leave an imprint. I loosened his tie, unbuttoned the expensive suit, pulled him upright with a strength born of repetition, not affection.
He groaned and made a sloppy attempt to hug me, but I shifted just out of reach. His arms flopped against the bed.
Once he was arranged neatly beneath the comforter, I turned off the lights. Darkness was always more honest than dimness. Then I slipped into the other room. My room.
I had started sleeping here after an argument much like tonight's—except back then, I hadn't yet learned the rules. I had shouted. I had pushed back. I had said things I wasn't supposed to say. That night earned me a hospital bed, a fractured rib, and a scar on my scalp where the corner of the nightstand had kissed bone.
Afterward, Robert wept like a sinner at confession. He bought me jewelry. Flowers. He wrote apology letters I never read. He begged.
Separate bedrooms were his idea of compromise.
And I agreed, because at least this way I didn't have to fall asleep with his breath on my neck or wake up to the sound of his chewing. It was almost worth the scars.
Almost.
—
Morning found me at the university, immersed in a life Robert insisted I had no need for.
Robert had objected violently when I took the job.
"The students will gawk at you," he'd said, his face twisted with a jealousy so petty it was almost laughable. "I don't want anyone gawking at my wife."
I had reassured him, gently, that I had no interest in boys who were still discovering their opinions. I had perfected the art of reassurance, speaking like a lullaby, always calm, always flattering. It worked most days.
But I hadn't counted on him.
A knock pulled my gaze toward the door, and I found Ash standing there, a quiet presence framed by the threshold. I smiled—warmly enough to be polite, though not necessarily inviting.
He was not a striking young man, not someone who would turn heads in a crowded room. But his eyes—deep and searching—held a quiet intensity, something almost soulful that made him linger in one's thoughts. Yet even in their depth, there was something familiar, something inevitable.
That look.
The look of a man who wanted.
"How are you, Ailina?" His voice carried my name with a curious ease, as though savoring its weight, letting it roll from his tongue like something sweet.
I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I wasn't sure why I let him come to my office so often, why I tolerated the soft familiarity, the way he seemed to belong here even though he didn't.
"I'm fine, Ash. How are you?" I set my pen down on the desk, watching him, waiting—knowing that, inevitably, the dance would begin again.
Nothing unsettled me more than a man who looked at me like that, who tried—subtly, persistently—to pull me into whatever restless hunger stirred beneath his gaze. It disgusted me.
But Ash had a way of masking it, of moving gently, as though his intentions were pure. As though his presence was nothing more than earnest goodwill.
I knew better.
I was older—wiser. Eight years separated us, and I was no fool.
"I'm doing great. I've finished the essay you asked for."
"Already?" My brows lifted, and I extended my hand, reaching for the paper.
He gave a sheepish smile as he pulled the papers from his bag, smoothing them against the desk as if embarrassed by their pristine state. "I had a lot of free time."
Had he really? Or was this just another excuse to linger in my office, to stand across from me with that quiet, unspoken fascination? I should send him away, draw the line before whatever this was turned into something else—but then again, what harm could he possibly do?
He was just a boy. Barely twenty-three, barely knowing himself.
At the very least, I could let myself be amused.
He placed the stack in my hand, and I gave him a knowing look, fully expecting rushed work. But as I flipped open the first page, my breath stalled.
"Ash—are you some kind of genius?" My eyes lifted to his, catching the flush creeping up his neck.
"Not really," he muttered, gaze flickering away. "Though—I don't know if I should mention this is my second degree."
"Second?" My voice held disbelief.
He nodded, looking anywhere but at me. I hadn't imagined him to be the shy type, yet the way he blushed so effortlessly around me told a different story.
"I had to skip a lot of grades in high school," he admitted, shifting his stance. "My teachers used to say I was—quote—'the genius of the twenty-first century.'"
I laughed—genuinely, unexpectedly. He had a way of catching me off guard.
"They might be right," I teased. "Should I start calling you that too?"
"No, no," he said quickly, shaking his head. "I'm just a normal student."
"A normal student working on his second degree at twenty-three?" I gave a slow, amused shake of my head. "I love your work, Ash."
His expression shifted. There—just for a moment—something glazed over in his eyes. Thoughtful, searching. Then, the unmistakable pause.
He was staring at my lips.
Not reading them. Not listening.
Just looking.
I tried not to smile. Instead, I snapped my fingers lightly. "Ash?"
He blinked. A quick inhale. A quiet rearranging of himself, as if waking from a trance.
"Yeah?"
"This is professional work," I said, tapping the paper. "Do you want to publish it?"
His brow furrowed, consideration flickering across his face. "Are you sure it doesn't need corrections?"
I glanced down, scanning the pages as I read, feeling him step closer, the quiet presence of him just at my side. He hovered slightly, watching as I traced over key passages, the weight of his attention settling somewhere between curiosity and something else—something unreadable.
"This—this right here is brilliant," I said, pressing my fingers against the paper. "That could really be something we discuss in the next class."
A silence stretched between us, his gaze drifting, not quite meeting mine.
"What's the matter?" I asked, catching the way his focus lingered—not on my face, but lower, somewhere near my shoulder, my collarbone.
I was wearing a simple V-neck shirt. Nothing revealing. Nothing designed to draw attention. It was deliberately unobtrusive—modest enough to avoid Robert's disapproval, forgettable enough to deter the eyes of wandering men.
"Is there something on me?"
His face shifted, flushing faintly. He swallowed hard. "No—no, it's just…" His voice faltered, hesitant. "You… you have a hickey."
The words hung in the air, and for a moment, I felt my own skin warm—not out of embarrassment, but because it disrupted the carefully built illusion of my quiet, reserved persona.
I played a role to the world—one measured, composed, untouched by the things that whispered beneath the surface.
"Oh, that's just embarrassing," I laughed, tilting my voice toward nervous amusement. "Um…" My gaze flickered around the room, searching for something—anything—to cover the proof of it.
A scarf, draped over the edge of the couch, caught my eye. An afterthought from another day.
"Could you pass me that?" I gestured toward it, expecting compliance, expecting him to simply retrieve it without thought.
But his expression had changed.
There was something withdrawn in his eyes, something momentarily unguarded. A hesitation before he turned, before he reached for the scarf. When he handed it to me, his fingers barely brushing the fabric, his voice came quieter. Deeper.
"Do you love your husband, Ailina?"
The way he said my name was different this time—weighted. Unfiltered.
I knew I hadn't discouraged him when he first started using it. Had never told him to stop. But now, I wished I had.
"It's Mrs. Sinclair," I corrected, voice smooth, unwavering. "And why do you ask?"
"No, nothing. Stupid question." Ash shook his head, shifting toward the door. "Of course you love your husband. Just that… I don't know. Maybe don't leave that where anyone can see."
A faint flicker of annoyance rose in me, but I let it settle. If he hadn't been standing so close, he wouldn't have seen anything at all. Still, pointing that out seemed pointless.
"Thanks for that, Ash," I said smoothly. "I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable."
He shook his head again, lips parting slightly—perhaps reinforcing the denial, though his eyes seemed distant, drawn into something beyond the moment.
"I'm sorry if my question offended you," he added, quieter this time.
I waved a hand dismissively. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."
Then, deliberately, I turned my attention back to the paper, letting my focus shift, ignoring the lingering weight of his stare.
Ash was invested in me—far more than he should be. The thought came like a quiet warning. Perhaps I ought to cut this off before it grew into something complicated, something that couldn't be undone.
And yet…
He was interesting. Sharp. Careful around me, always measured, never reckless.
I had spent so much of my life surrounded by men who took without thinking, whose desires crashed like waves, unyielding, merciless. Ash was different. His presence was tentative, like he was still testing the ground beneath his feet.
If something were to happen—
Well.
It wouldn't be too late then.