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chapter fourteen
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2025-12-11 11:01:00Chapter Fourteen
Sienna stood by the window the next morning, staring out at the vast estate that stretched beyond the mansion’s boundaries. The air was heavy with the weight of everything unsaid. Damien’s words from the night before echoed in her mind, and despite the certainty in his voice, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to the story than he was letting on. The way he looked at her last night—it was as though a storm was brewing just beneath the surface, and she had no choice but to wait until it broke. She didn’t know what she was doing here, or if this marriage would ever feel like more than just a business arrangement. All she knew was that, no matter how cold and distant Damien acted, she couldn’t quite bring herself to stop caring. The sound of soft footsteps behind her made her turn around. One of the housemaids, a young woman named Clara, entered the room with a hesitant smile on her face.<
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CRUEL OBSESSION 49
CHAPTER 49 — WHEN THE HOUSE LISTENS Morning arrived without mercy. Light spilled through the tall windows of the Westwood estate, pale and intrusive, cutting through the quiet like a blade. The house woke slowly—maids moving softly, doors opening and closing with practiced care—but the tension lingered, thick and unmoving, like fog that refused to lift. Sienna had been awake long before the sun. She lay on her side, facing the window, her body still and her thoughts loud. Sleep had come in fragments—brief, shallow moments before she woke again, heart racing for reasons she refused to name. Damien had not come to bed. She knew that without checking. There was a particular weight to absence when you had grown used to someone’s presence—even when that presence had once felt heavy, uncertain, unfinished. She had spent months learning his rhythms. The quiet way he entered rooms. The way he stood at windows when thinking. The way silence clung to him like a second skin. And now she
CRUEL OBSESSION 48
CHAPTER 48 — THE SPACE BETWEEN BREATHS The house had learned their silence. It moved differently around them now—quieter, cautious, as though the walls themselves understood that something delicate had cracked and no one was sure how to touch it without making it worse. Damien noticed it first in the evenings. The way the halls felt longer. The way the rooms felt emptier even when they weren’t. Sienna no longer lingered in shared spaces. She didn’t sit in the drawing room with a book she wasn’t reading. She didn’t wait in the library, pretending she hadn’t heard his footsteps. She didn’t hover near doors, half-hoping he’d choose her by accident. She moved with intention now. When she entered a room, she knew why. When she left, she didn’t look back. And Damien—who had spent most of his life mastering distance—had never felt so disarmed by it. Tonight, the dining room was too large. The table stretched between them, polished and immaculate, every place setting perfectly alig
CRUEL OBSESSION 47
CHAPTER 47 — THE WAR WITHOUT GUNS Damien told himself it didn’t matter. That was the lie he repeated as the days passed. Three of them. Three days of polite distance. Three days of carefully measured interactions that felt worse than shouting ever could. Sienna spoke when spoken to. She responded when necessary. She existed within the same walls as him without ever truly meeting him. She had perfected absence. At breakfast, she sat across the table with her posture straight and her attention on her plate. She did not glance at him when he entered. When Eleanor spoke, Sienna listened respectfully. When Vanessa made her thinly veiled remarks, Sienna smiled faintly and said nothing. Damien watched it all from behind his coffee cup. She was calm. Too calm. It unsettled him more than her earlier defiance ever had. He noticed the small things first. She stopped waiting for him in the evenings. Stopped lingering in shared spaces. Stopped trying. No quiet conversations. No ten
CRUEL OBSESSION 46
CHAPTER 46 — THE QUIET BETWEEN THEM Sienna did not cry when she reached her room. That surprised her. She closed the door softly behind herself, the familiar click sounding final, then leaned her back against the wood for a moment longer than necessary. The room was quiet—too quiet—and for a second she simply stood there, breathing, letting the silence settle into her bones. Her chest ached, but her eyes remained dry. She crossed the room slowly, as if moving too fast might make something inside her fracture. The curtains were still drawn from the morning. Pale light filtered through, dust motes drifting lazily in the air. Everything looked untouched. Controlled. Orderly. Just like the dining room had been. Just like Damien. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her hands. They were steady. That was new. Weeks ago—months ago—she would have replayed the moment over and over, wondering what she’d done wrong, wondering how she could have spoken differently, softer, bett
CRUEL OBSESSION 45
CHAPTER 45 — WHAT SILENCE SOUNDS LIKE Damien did not follow her. That was the first thing he noticed after she left. The door closed softly behind Sienna, the sound barely audible, yet it echoed through the dining room with an uncomfortable finality. Chairs shifted. Silverware clinked. Someone cleared their throat. Life resumed. And that, more than anything, unsettled him. Damien remained seated at the head of the table, hands resting flat against the polished wood, posture rigid. His expression did not change. It never did—not when Vanessa smiled that thin, knowing smile, not when his mother reached for her tea as though nothing remarkable had happened, not when his father resumed speaking about logistics and appearances. But inside him, something had gone very still. He hadn’t defended her. The thought came uninvited, sharp and unwelcome. He told himself it wasn’t that simple. That reacting would have escalated things. That silence was control. That keeping the peace—his p
CRUEL OBSESSION 44
CHAPTER 44 — THE TABLE WITH TOO MANY EYES Morning came without mercy. Sienna knew it the moment she opened her eyes—not because of sunlight, but because of the weight. That familiar heaviness pressing against her chest, reminding her exactly where she was and whose house she was in. The Westwood mansion did not wake gently. It woke with quiet authority. She lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, listening to the distant sounds of movement—doors opening, footsteps in the hall, the low murmur of voices somewhere downstairs. The night before clung to her like a ghost, not loud or dramatic, but present. Heavy. Intimate. Unresolved. Damien had already left. She’d known he would. There was no note. No message. No quiet goodbye. Just the unmistakable emptiness beside her and the faint impression of warmth long gone. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or hurt by that. Probably both. After dressing carefully—choosing something modest, controlled, safe—Sienna made her way
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