Chapter 3

A few Years later...

Marceline learned the rules of the Cross estate quickly. And she learnt to accept her family's biggest lie, the contract was nevef for a year. It was the biggest trap shed faced.

Speak only when spoken to and to keep her eyes down in the hallways.

She remembered her grandma's teachings as she was growing up, rich people liked being above..Hence never cross them.

She learnt the house rules like the back of her hand....like to never enter Adrian’s study without permission.

The servants moved like ghosts, answering questions with single words and vanishing the moment their tasks were finished.

No one asked about the thin scar on her upper arm or the way she still favored it when the weather turned cold.

Adrian never mentioned the bullet either. He simply left for business trips that lasted weeks, sometimes months, and returned with the same cold expression he had worn at the altar.

The Cross family made their disappointment clear.

At every formal dinner his aunts and cousins would glance at her flat stomach and murmur just loud enough for her to hear.

“Four years and still nothing.” “Perhaps the countryside girl is barren.”

“The Don will need an heir soon.”

Marceline listened in elegant silence as they spoke, some used foreign language to mock her...thinking she couldn't understand.

But fortunate for her, she was fluent in eight languages and no one had an idea.

When they said she was only good for appearances and not child bearing...

Adrian never corrected them.

He never admitted that he had not touched her once since the forced kiss at the wedding.

He simply cut his meat, drank his wine, and ignored the conversation the way he ignored her.

Marceline stopped waiting for kindness.

At night, when the estate finally grew quiet, she locked her bedroom door and pushed the heavy furniture against the wall.

Barefoot on the polished floor, she practiced the same combinations she had once rehearsed in her grandmother’s barn and some videos she had seen online.

She would turn until her bad arm trembled with floor work that left her breathless.

She kept the movements small and silent so no one walking past would hear.

The servants never knew. In the Cross household, no one was to be trusted, and friendships were dangerous. She had learned that lesson the hard way.

Whenever Adrian returned from a trip she noticed the same thing.

He would press two fingers to his temple the moment he stepped through the front door, jaw tight, eyes narrowed against the light.

The headaches came more often as the years dragged on.

Marceline was not cruel like him. She ground herbs the way her grandmother had taught her, steeped them into bitter tea, and left the cup outside his study door without a note. Sometimes the empty cup appeared on the tray the next morning. Sometimes it did not. She never asked.

She fulfilled every duty expected of a Cross wife. She hosted the rare dinners when he required a hostess.

She signed papers when his lawyer placed them in front of her.

She listened when he spoke about shipping routes or rival families, even though he rarely looked at her while he talked. Quietly, without ever announcing it, she began to help.

She noticed errors in the reports left on the dining table. She corrected figures in the margins. She rewrote contracts in cleaner language and returned them to the same stack.

Adrian’s deals closed faster. His holdings expanded.

He never thanked her, and she never claimed the credit. Survival in that house meant staying useful and invisible at the same time.

By the fourth year the scar on her arm had faded to a pale line, but the muscle still pulled tight when she lifted anything very heavy.

~~~~

One rainy evening Adrian returned from a short trip and found her struggling to close a high window in the hallway.

He stared at her beautiful red dress that flowed when she pushed herself up, the way her hair bounced on her back. He gulped a little. Admitting to himself how cute she looked.

Without a word he reached past her, shut it, and then, surprisingly, turned her arm over in his hands. His fingers traced the old wound with a gentleness that did not match his face.

“It still bothers you,” he said.

It was not a question. She shook her head, not wanting any further conversation.

He released her "Good, one little gunshot can't cripple you." and then walked away.

but for the rest of that week he ordered the staff to keep the high windows closed so she would not have to stretch. Small things....Soft moments that appeared without warning and vanished just as quickly. They were never enough to erase the years of silence, yet they lodged under her skin and refused to leave.

Then the night arrived that changed everything.

Adrian came home long after midnight, coat still on, rain dripping from his hair. His face was gray. He did not go to his study. He simply stood in the middle of the living room as if the floor might give way beneath him.

“My father is dying,” he said. The words sounded scraped raw. “The doctors give him hours. The weight of the entire family falls on me now. I....I...cant lose him...”

Marceline had never seen him look so young and so exhausted at the same time. Something in her chest cracked open.

She stepped forward before she could stop herself and put her arms around him.

For the first time in four years he did not push her away. His forehead dropped to her shoulder. His hands stayed at his sides, but he let her hold him while the rain hammered the windows.

She didn't have words for the cold hearted man in her arms, but she couldn't let him bear the weight alone.

Seconds later the call came. Announcing that the old Don was gone.

By dawn Adrian would be crowned the new head of Cross Holdings in a private ceremony at the main compound.

He left the estate without changing clothes, without eating, without speaking another word.

Marceline watched the black car disappear down the drive and only then noticed the watch he always wore sitting on the side table. The one with the scratched face and the worn leather strap. His favorite.

She picked it up, slipped on a coat, and asked the driver to take her to the new office building that would serve as the Don’s headquarters.

The halls were quiet when she arrived. Most of the family was still at the compound.

She found the correct door and stepped inside without knocking.

Adrian stood alone by the wide window, jacket discarded, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows.

He turned at the sound of her footsteps. For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then he crossed the room in three long strides, took her face in both hands, and pressed his lips to hers.

“My wife...." He murmured.