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56: That Woman
Last Updated:
2025-03-09 19:22:24
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Sunshine and The Beast 57: Broke Down
AltheaThe words lingered between us, thick and suffocating. Matthias’s dearest.I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. My grip on the coffee cup was painfully tight, my knuckles white from the pressure.Gwen’s smile remained perfectly poised, as if she were savoring the reaction she’d just pulled from me. Her hazel eyes gleamed with something unreadable—amusement, curiosity, maybe even satisfaction. She wasn’t just saying it to inform me. She was testing me.I forced myself to swallow past the lump in my throat. “Oh,” I said, my voice thin. “I see.”That was the best I could come up with? I see?Gwen hummed lightly, tilting her head as she studied me. “I thought Matthias would have mentioned me. We go way back.”Go way back.Each word chipped away at the weak wall I had built around my heart. It was stupid, wasn’t it? To feel anything at all? I was nothing but Matthias’s fake wife. A legal obligation. A name on a contract. But that didn’t stop the unease slithering beneath my skin, wrappin
Last Updated : 2025-03-10Sunshine and The Beast 58: Hurt
AltheaWas it normal to feel like you were hurt by something, but also felt guilty because you feel hurt? I didn’t know what kind of paradox this was called, or if it was only something that I made up to feel less insane–and failed anyway. I went back to the office, eating nothing, drinking nothing, speaking nothing.I stared at my laptop screen for what felt like hours, but the words blurred together into incomprehensible lines of text. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, useless, frozen. No matter how much I tried to push past it, Gwen’s words replayed in my head, over and over, an unrelenting echo.Matthias’s dearest.The way she said it, the way she looked at me—like I was an outsider in my own marriage. And wasn’t I? Wasn’t that exactly what I was? A placeholder. A name on a contract. A woman with no right to feel anything.And yet, the sting in my chest refused to fade. It pressed deeper, sharper, until it felt like I was suffocating under the weight of something I shouldn’t e
Last Updated : 2025-03-11Sunshine and The Beast 59: I'm Mad, But ...
MatthiasIt was always better to say nothing than to say something unnecessary. That was what I believed.Before this shit started to happen.There were things that were better left unsaid. I lived my life long enough, learned my lesson well enough to know that speaking things might bring trouble. And I hated trouble–even when the reality was trouble liked me quite a lot to come on my way.Gwen was nothing. At least for a few years now. I didn’t like to talk about her, nor did I feel the need to do so. She was something I chose to leave in the dark, to keep in a box and throw it away as far as possible.Yet she walked in, once again, with reasons I couldn’t explain. I ignored all her messages, mails, even calls. I made sure she didn’t get any access to reach me. Some people were better to be treated that way.So how could Althea meet her? And what the fuck with that “Matthias’s dearest”? Hearing it almost made me throw up.And now, Althea wouldn’t even look at me.For three days, she
Last Updated : 2025-03-12Sunshine and The Beast 60: Talk Later
AltheaThere were times where I wished I was good at getting angry–or at least to keep angry.Weird wishes, I knew. But I felt like that might give me some dignity. Because I felt like a fickle, indecisive, and unstable woman. And it was all because of one person: Matthias Cox.I wanted to stay mad. To hold onto my anger like a shield, to let it simmer beneath my skin until he had to acknowledge it. I wasn’t asking for much—just for him to see it, to do something about it. Maybe that was childish. Maybe I was being ridiculous. But was it really too much to expect an apology? A real one. One that came with an explanation that actually meant something, that made all of this easier to bear.At least, that’s what I told myself.But here I was, standing next to his bed, pressing the back of my hand against his burning forehead instead of slamming the door in his face like I originally wanted to. My anger was supposed to last longer than this. It was supposed to be stronger than this. But
Last Updated : 2025-03-13Sunshine and The Beast 61: Trust
AltheaEveryone had secrets.Some were harmless—like dropping someone’s toothbrush in the toilet and pretending nothing happened, copying someone’s homework, or even paying someone else to do their work and passing it off as their own. Others … well, others were far darker. The kind that could ruin lives, destroy families. The kind that could get someone killed.There were all kinds of secrets people carried. Matthias was no exception.When I first met him, I had already assumed that much. Someone like him—powerful, calculating, born into a world where trust was a currency rarer than gold—was bound to have secrets buried so deep they’d never see the light of day. And back then, I had no interest in unearthing them.Or so I thought.That was before Althea Lewis became Althea Cox. Before I became entangled in things I never wanted to be a part of. Before I stood here, in his home office, with the weight of unspoken words pressing down on us.For two days, I had managed to push Gwen Erik
Last Updated : 2025-03-14Sunshine and The Beast 62: Another Mother, Another Son
MatthiasIgnoring things was always easier than facing them.That was something I had learned early on. Some doors were better left unopened. Some truths were better left buried. Because once you started digging, you never knew how deep the hole went—or if you'd ever claw your way back out.But sometimes, curiosity didn’t give you a choice. Sometimes, the past refused to stay where it belonged.It started as nothing.Another late night in my home office, sifting through financial records, cross-referencing documents, scanning for discrepancies. Routine. The kind of work that kept my family’s empire untouchable. I had done this a thousand times before—checking for irregularities, ensuring there were no cracks in the foundation of our business.Until I found one.It was small. Almost invisible. A name, tucked away in my father’s private archives, buried beneath layers of encrypted files. The security on it was old but still intact—meaning someone had locked it away deliberately.I bypas
Last Updated : 2025-03-15Sunshine and The Beast 63: Father's Letters
AltheaIt had been a long time since I last stepped into this room. Granny’s home.There was nothing special about it. It wasn’t grandiose by any means—it was only a small space that was enough to live in, with a small kitchen, an old wall cabinet, two bedrooms, and one small bathroom.Small space, but a lot of stories happened here. At least for me. Before I went to uni and lived in the dorm, I lived here. I spent all my days watching Granny do whatever she wanted—watching TV, knitting, grunting about some nosy neighbor that bothered her morning walk, and so on.But now, the house felt different. Quieter. The warmth it once held was still there, but there was something else underneath it—something heavier, like the air carried unspoken words I had never noticed before.I wasn’t sure what I was looking for when I started going through her things. Maybe it was just an excuse to be here, to sit in the familiar scent of old wood and Granny’s faded perfume. But then I found the box.It wa
Last Updated : 2025-03-16Sunshine and The Beast 64: Warm Together
AltheaWhen you were sad or felt overwhelmed, a distraction would be nice.I was sad. I was crying. My head was full with the revelation of my father, Granny, and any other secrets that still needed to be searched. It was too much to handle at the same time.And Matthias knew it.He stood in front of me, his gaze steady, unwavering. I had never seen him like this before—silent, patient, waiting for me to tell him what to do. There was no judgment in his eyes, no expectation. Just quiet understanding."What do you need?" His voice was low, careful.I swallowed, my throat tight. I didn’t know what I needed. Comfort? Reassurance? An escape from the weight pressing down on my chest? Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it."Anything," I whispered, my voice shaking.For a moment, he just looked at me. Then, without another word, he moved closer. His fingers lifted to my chin, tilting my face upward, and before I could think—before I could second-guess the mess of emotions swirling inside me—his
Last Updated : 2025-03-17
Latest chapter
Sunshine and The Beast 103: New Life
AltheaThe day I moved into some apartment I rented impulsively, it had rained.Not a cinematic kind of rain; the poetic kind that makes you feel reborn or something melodramatic like that. No. It was just grey and annoying, the kind that soaked through your sweater before you realized it and turned cardboard boxes soggy at the edges.A neighbor helped me carry a few things upstairs, some guy with AirPods in and no questions asked. I didn’t even catch his name. He handed me a dripping box labeled Bedroom and disappeared before I could say thank you. The elevator doors closed and I just stood there, clutching my new keys like they might anchor me to something.This was supposed to be a new beginning. But it didn’t feel like a beginning at all. It felt like a concession.The apartment was on the twelfth floor. I picked it because of the view. Something about seeing the whole city stretch below me made me think I’d feel less trapped. But instead, the height only made the silence louder.
Sunshine and The Beast 102: Separate Ways
AltheaWhen I thought everything was okay, all the walls were tumbling down. My life, my happiness, everything.I woke up in a haze, my head pounding as if I had been hit by a hundred storms. The sharp scent of antiseptic stung my nose, and I felt the unfamiliar weight of a hospital blanket over me. My limbs were heavy, uncooperative, as if they belonged to someone else, and my chest felt tight. It took a moment for my eyes to focus, the world around me blurry and indistinct.The pain was the first thing I recognized. A dull, aching throb in my lower abdomen, deep and unrelenting. I reached for it instinctively, as if I could touch the wound and make it go away. But when my hand brushed against the skin, it felt foreign—empty. As if the very thing I was searching for was no longer there.The memories rushed back like a flood.The blood. The pain. The terror that had washed over me in the moments before I lost consciousness. The frantic urgency of Matthias’s voice, calling my name, the
Sunshine and The Beast 102: The Truth
MatthiasThe elevator groaned as it descended, like the machine itself was reluctant to take me where I was going. Each floor ticked past with a hollow ding, echoing up the shaft like a countdown I hadn’t agreed to. Somewhere in the stillness between the fifth and the fourth floor, I caught my reflection in the polished steel of the doors; drawn face, bloodshot eyes, jaw clenched so tight it ached. I looked like a man walking into something he might not walk out of.The feeling of unease settled in the pit of my stomach, growing heavier with each passing second. The soft hum of the elevator's motor seemed to mock me, as if it knew the uncertainty that lay ahead. I tried to shake off the sense of foreboding, reminding myself that I had a job to do, a mission to complete. But as the elevator finally reached the ground floor and the doors slid open with a hiss, I couldn't help but wonder if I was walking into a trap.I didn’t bother adjusting my coat when the doors opened. The hallway ou
Sunshine and The Beast 101: Meet Me
MatthiasAlthea's condition was getting worse, to the point she had to get into an operation room.Time did not make everything calmer; instead, every second scraped across my nerves like the edge of a dull blade. Each tick of the wall clock sounded louder than the last, a metronome counting down to something I couldn’t name. The longer I sat there, the more I felt like I was unraveling by degrees, breath by breath.I sat stiffly in the dimly lit waiting area just past the ICU doors, one foot tapping without rhythm against the waxed linoleum floor. That smell—the sour tang of antiseptic—clung to everything: the walls, the plastic seats, and the inside of my throat. It mixed with the faint scent of coffee long gone cold and something metallic, like the memory of blood. The air was cool, but my jacket stuck to me anyway, and every breath I took felt borrowed.I tried to distract myself by flipping through a magazine left on the table, but the words blurred together and the pictures seem
Sunshine and The Beast Folded Page: Her Parents (II)
[Folded Page]Flashback, Part IIThe phone rang just past three in the morning.The burner, tucked beneath a drawer in the dresser, buzzed once—twice—its low hum slicing through the silence like a blade. Jess hadn’t been asleep. Not really. His body had settled, eyes closed for just minutes, but his mind had remained wired, straining through the dark for sounds that didn’t belong.His hand moved automatically, fingers closing around the phone, the sickening feeling of dread blooming in his stomach before his brain could even process why. Something was wrong. He knew it.The moment he answered, his voice was rough, hoarse from a mix of exhaustion and a deep, gnawing fear.“Reiley?” The word came out more as a prayer than a question, but it was too late. His heart was already sinking.The voice on the other end wasn’t hers. It was too calm. Too controlled.“Jessen,” the woman said. Her tone was efficient, practiced — not one ounce of emotion, not one crack of humanity breaking through.
Sunshine and The Beast Folded Page: Her Parents
[Folded Page]FlashbackThe rain battered the windows of the small house like fists of fury, the storm outside a violent mirror of the one raging within. Wind shrieked through the trees like lost souls, and every thunderclap seemed to rattle the very bones of the house.Reiley Alden paced the length of the living room, her bare feet soundless against the worn, splintered hardwood. She moved like a caged thing, restless, hunted. In the cradle tucked tightly into the corner — the safest corner she could find — baby Althea slept fitfully, her tiny face scrunched in some fretful dream only infants understood. The occasional twitch of her small hands made Reiley’s heart ache in a way that almost brought her to her knees.The storm outside was nothing compared to the one brewing inside her chest. She longed for it to pass, for the world to somehow become kind again — but some part of her, the part that had survived too much already, knew it never would.She paused by the fireplace, the flic
Sunshine and The Beast 100: Emergency
MatthiasA panic attack slammed into me like a freight train the moment they wheeled her through the emergency room doors.Althea lay so still on the gurney, her skin almost translucent under the harsh fluorescent lights, her breathing shallow and uneven, as if each breath cost her more than she could give. Her head lolled slightly to one side, and the sight of it—of her, usually so vibrant and stubbornly full of life, now fragile and terrifyingly still—carved something brutal and cold through my chest, a feeling I couldn't shake even as I stumbled forward.I tried to follow—I needed to follow—but a nurse stepped into my path, palm up, firm but not unkind. "Sir, you have to wait here. We'll update you as soon as we can," she said, her voice kind but leaving no room for argument."No—" I rasped, the sound of it cracking out of me, unfamiliar and raw. "I’m sorry," she said again, softer this time, her eyes flickering with sympathy. "Please. Let us help her."Helplessness crashed over
Sunshine and The Beast 99: Warm Hug, Closer Danger
AltheaThe world tilted when I tried to sit up, but I was okay. My stomach did a little dance, and I bit my lip, blinking against the wave of nausea that swept over me. The old couch moaned as I settled back into its cushions, pulling the cozy blanket even tighter around my shoulders, as if it could hold me together."Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" Then, Matthias's voice broke through the quiet, low and urgent.I shook my head firmly, even though the motion made the room spin again. "I'm doing well, Matt," I said, though I could see he was worried. "It's just a feeling of nausea. It's just the usual stuff that happens during pregnancy."Matthias remained seated near the window, but the tension in his body was almost tangible. His arms were crossed, his broad shoulders stiff beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. Golden shafts of fading afternoon light slanted across the room, casting long shadows that made everything feel both too still and too fragile."You've bee
Sunshine and The Beast 98: Destructive Plan
Folded PageThe room was pretty dark, with only a desk lamp lighting up a bit, making everything look a bit dull and sickly. The curtains were drawn tight, shutting out the world, as if even the night outside didn't deserve to witness what was about to go down.He was sitting still, and you could barely see him because he was so dark. The only sign of his anger was the soft, regular tapping of his finger against the armrest.On the desk, a small bottle of medicine sat upright — harmless at first glance, and pretty ordinary.But it wasn't a typical situation.Not to him.Not to her.And definitely not to Matthias Cox.He took a slow, thoughtful breath as he leaned forward, his hand hovering over the bottle before finally picking it up. The glass felt cold against his skin, but he welcomed the chill. It helped him think. It reminded him why he had waited so long for this.Althea; The ideal crack in Matthias's armor.He was turning the bottle slowly between his fingers, studying it like
