The Truth In His Office

Chapter 5: The Truth In His Office

I didn't mean to break rule number two again.

But after the gala kiss, Ethan had been avoiding me for two days. No breakfast together. No annoying comments about my music. The connecting door stayed locked from his side.

He kissed me like he wanted to devour me in front of 200 people, and now he was acting like I had a contagious disease.

Fine. If he could be cold, I could be colder. And I could finally do what I married him for.

Revenge.

I waited until his car left for his office at 8 AM. His office at home was still unlocked from the night I found the photo. Code 0812. His birthday. The boy was annoyingly predictable.

This time I wasn't looking for a photo. I was looking for the truth.

My family didn't just lose money. We lost everything. In 2018, my father owned three branches of Alvarez Homestyle Restaurant in Bulacan. Good, honest business. Then Blackwood Holdings bought all our suppliers and tripled the price. My father had to close two branches. He had a mild heart attack that year from stress.

I remembered my father coming home that year, shouting: "Ramon Blackwood offered me peanuts for our land! He said if I don't sell, he'll make sure I can't buy even salt!"

I wanted proof.

I searched his filing cabinet. "Alvarez Land Acquisition - 2018" was right there, like he knew I would look for it.

Inside were emails.

From: Ethan Blackwood (17 years old then, intern email)

To: Ramon Blackwood (his father)

Dad, Tito Norman's land is not worthless. It's beside the new highway project. We can help them. Their restaurant is struggling. Lolo said we should help friends.

From: Ramon Blackwood

To: Ethan

Stay out of business you don't understand. Friends don't pay bills. If Norman Alvarez can't run his business, that's his failure, not ours. I told you, buy the suppliers. It's cheaper.

From: Ethan

To: Ramon

But you're going to bankrupt them. Sienna's mom works there. Sienna...

From: Ramon

To: Ethan

Enough. You are a Blackwood. Act like one. Or I will send you to boarding school in London and you will never see your Cabanatuan friends again.

I sat on the cold floor, papers shaking in my hands.

Ethan didn't destroy my family. He tried to save us. He was seventeen. He begged his father. And his father threatened him.

There was more. A USB drive labeled "Sienna - 18th Birthday - DO NOT WATCH".

My hands shook as I plugged it into Ethan's computer.

It was a video. Grainy. High school. A party. Ethan surrounded by his rich friends. One of them dared him.

"Dude, if Sienna Alvarez likes you, you have to reject her in the worst way possible. So she stops following you around like a puppy. Do it at the party, man, everyone is there."

Ethan's face in the video was angry. "No. Leave her alone."

"Come on, Blackwood. Are you scared of a girl?"

The video cut, then shaky again. The moment I remembered. Me, eighteen, in my best dress, confessing to Ethan in front of everyone.

"Ethan, I like you... since we were kids..."

And Ethan, looking like he wanted to die, saying the words: "You? Date you? Sienna, I'd rather go bankrupt..."

I had run away crying.

The video continued after I left. Ethan punched the boy who dared him. Hard. Sent him to the floor.

"Don't ever make me do that again!" teenage Ethan shouted, his voice breaking. "Don't ever use her again!"

He kicked a chair and walked away, punching the wall.

I was crying again. But not from pain. From realizing I built my entire hate on a lie for five years.

The office door opened.

Ethan stood there, home early, in his work shirt, tie loosened. He saw me on the floor, surrounded by his father's emails, his laptop playing the video of the worst night of my life.

His face went white.

"You went through my things," he said, voice flat.

"You lied to me," I whispered.

"I protected you."

"You let me hate you for five years!"

"Better you hate me than know my father would destroy your family if I didn't stay away!" he shouted, finally breaking. "You think I wanted to say that to you at eighteen? You think I wanted to be the villain? I was seventeen when I begged my father to help Tito Ramon! He said if I kept talking to you, he'd make sure your family lost even the last store! So I stayed away! I stayed away in college! I stayed away for five years! And what do you do? You marry me for revenge!"

He was breathing hard, eyes red.

I stood up, legs shaking. "You should have told me."

"And you would have believed me? You, who decided at five years old that I was your enemy?"

We were both shouting now, years of misunderstanding exploding in his cold office.

"I kept your photo because it was the only thing I had!" He pointed at the drawer where the spelling bee photo was. "I kept the video because I wanted to remember how badly I hurt you so I never do it again! I married you because Lolo was right, you're the only person who ever told me no! And I am so in love with you it makes me hate myself!"

Silence.

He had said it. Out loud. The thing we both were dancing around since day one.

He was in love with me.

And looking at the papers on the floor, at the boy who tried to save my family at seventeen, I realized...

I was in love with my childhood enemy too.

And I had been for a very, very long time.