Chapter 7: Ghosts in the Gallery

Denzel's POV

I stood in the doorway of my gallery long after Amelia had disappeared down the hallway. My hands were still trembling—not from anger, though God knows I'd been furious when I found her there—but from the sheer terror of having someone breach my sanctuary.

This room held my secrets. My scars. Everything I'd spent decades hiding from the world.

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, locking it this time. My fingers traced the edge of the nearest canvas—an abstract piece I'd painted three years ago during a particularly brutal business acquisition. All sharp angles and dark colors. Blood red. Midnight black. The color of guilt.

"You're getting sloppy, Denzel," I muttered to myself.

I should have locked the door. But somewhere in the chaos of the wedding, the reception, the weight of seeing Amelia in that dress looking so heartbreakingly beautiful yet so utterly trapped, I'd forgotten. A mistake I couldn't afford to make again.

I moved deeper into the room, past the sculptures I'd commissioned from artists whose pain spoke to my own, until I reached the back wall. There, covered by a black cloth, stood the piece I never showed anyone. Not Raphael. Not Naomi. No one.

With steady hands that belied my racing heart, I pulled the cloth away.

The sculpture stared back at me. A woman, frozen in bronze, her arms outstretched as if trying to protect something—or someone. Her face was contorted in anguish, mouth open in a scream that would never make a sound. At her feet, a small figure. A child. Me.

I commissioned it five years ago, on the twentieth anniversary of her death. My mother. The woman I killed.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I whispered, as I did every time I stood before this memorial. "I'm so sorry."

The memories crashed over me like they always did in this room. I was fifteen again, watching my father's fist fly toward her face. Watching her crumple to the kitchen floor, blood pooling beneath her head. Hearing her sobs, her pleas for him to stop.

And then I'd done it. I'd grabbed the knife from the counter—just trying to make him stop, just trying to protect her—and in the chaos of grabbing his arm, redirecting his violence...

The knife had plunged into her stomach instead.

She'd bled out on that kitchen floor while my father stood frozen in shock. While my younger siblings cried in their rooms. While I knelt in her blood and begged her to stay, please God, just stay.

But she didn't. And my father, in his twisted grief and rage, made sure everyone knew it was my fault. That I was the monster. That I'd killed the only person who'd ever loved me unconditionally.

He died three years later, liver disease from the drinking. Good riddance. But by then, the damage was done. My older brother had overdosed. My older sister had disappeared into the system. And I was left with only Naomi, barely ten years old, looking at me like I was her hero instead of her mother's killer.

I learned then that survival meant becoming untouchable. Building walls so high that no one could ever hurt me again. Making enough money that poverty and helplessness could never trap me like it had trapped my mother.

And it worked. I became Denzel Connor Adams, billionaire, CEO, the man who turned everything he touched to gold. But inside, I was still that fifteen-year-old boy kneeling in his mother's blood.

"Why did I bring her here?" I asked the bronze figure.

Because you're a selfish bastard, my conscience answered.

Amelia Rayna James. Twenty-six years old. Beautiful, intelligent, and completely unaware that I'd orchestrated her family's downfall.

I'd seen her two years ago at a charity gala. She'd been there with her family, looking uncomfortable in a borrowed dress, trying to fade into the background while her sister Ivy preened for attention. But it was Amelia who'd caught my eye. The way she'd smiled at a server, thanking them sincerely. The way she'd donated her own small amount to the cause despite clearly not having money to spare. The genuine kindness in her eyes.

I'd wanted her from that moment. Not just physically—though God knows she was stunning—but something deeper. Something about her light made me believe, foolishly, that maybe I could touch it without destroying it.

So I'd researched her family. Found their weaknesses. The gambling debts her father had accumulated. The medical bills for her mother. Her brother's expensive tuition. And then, methodically, I'd pulled the strings. Called in favors with banks, manipulated stock prices, ensured that every investment her father made crashed and burned.

It took eighteen months to bring the James family to their knees. Eighteen months of watching Amelia from a distance, learning everything about her. Her favorite books. Her college major. The way she always ordered vanilla lattes with an extra shot of espresso. Her best friend Serena. Her complicated relationship with her sister.

I told myself I was doing her a favor. That marrying me would save her family, give her security, protect her. But the truth was simpler and more selfish: I wanted her. And I was willing to destroy everything she loved to make her mine.

Now she was sleeping down the hall, probably crying into those expensive pillows, hating me. Exactly as she should.

"I'm becoming my father," I said to the sculpture.

The bronze woman offered no absolution. No comfort. She just screamed her silent scream, forever frozen in the moment of her death.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Raphael: How's married life? Did the princess survive her first night in the castle?

I ignored it. Raphael thought this marriage was purely strategic—a business move to improve my public image and secure certain political connections. He didn't know about my obsession with Amelia. He didn't know that every cold word I'd spoken to her tonight had taken every ounce of my self-control.

Because when I'd found her standing in the gallery doorway, backlit by the soft lights, looking so small and lost and beautiful, I'd wanted to pull her into my arms and tell her everything. Confess my sins. Beg her forgiveness. Promise to be better.

But men like me don't get redemption. We don't get second chances. We get exactly what we deserve—which is nothing.

So instead, I'd been cruel. I'd built the walls higher. I'd made sure she understood that this marriage was business only, that there would be no affection, no intimacy, no love.

It was better this way. Safer for her.

I covered the sculpture again and left the gallery, locking the door behind me. As I walked past her wing of the house, I paused. Through the crack beneath her door, I could see her light was still on.

My hand reached for the doorknob. Then stopped.

No. Strangers, I'd told her. And strangers we would stay.

For her sake, not mine.

I continued to my own bedroom, poured myself three fingers of scotch, and stood by the window overlooking the gardens. Somewhere in this massive house, Amelia was probably wondering how she'd survive two years with a monster.

What she didn't know—what she could never know—was that I was wondering the same thing. How would I survive two years of having her so close, yet forcing myself to stay so far away?

How would I keep my secrets buried when everything about her made me want to confess?

And how could I possibly let her go when the two years were up, knowing I'd have to watch her walk away and finally be free of me?

I drained the scotch in one burning gulp.

730 days. I could do this. I had to.

Even if it destroyed me in the process.