Chapter 5: Ghosts on the Coastal Road

The air in the master suite, which had been thick with a different kind of tension just moments ago, turned into a frozen wasteland. Ethan’s hand, which had been hovering near the zipper of Gabrielle’s dress, dropped to his side. His fingers curled into a fist so tight his knuckles turned white.

"Stay here," he commanded. His voice no longer a low growl; it was a dead, hollow sound that sent shivers down Gabrielle's spine. He looked at her for a split second, then turned around and strode out of the room without another word.

Gabrielle, however, was not the type to sit quietly in a gilded cage with just a two-word command. She waited ten seconds, then followed him, hovering in the shadows of the grand balcony overlooking the hallway.

Standing in the center of the marble hallway was a woman who looked like she had stepped out of a classical painting. She wore a high-end white lace dress, her hair falling in soft, innocent waves. She looked fragile, pale, yet beautiful.

This was Betsy Lain, the daughter of the Lain family and the woman the media had once dubbed "The Future Matriarch of the Shore Family."

"Ethan!" Betsy cried out as he descended the stairs. She moved to throw herself into his arms, but he stepped aside with a cold, practiced agility. She stumbled, looking at him with tear-filled eyes. "How could you? How could you marry her? A girl from a failing family? After all I did..."

"You did nothing but betray me Betsy Lain," Ethan said, standing several feet away from her.

Betsy trembled, her grip twisting viciously into her dress. Her throat bobbed once, twice—words trapped behind a wall of shock. Then her gaze lifted, eyes blazing with tears she refused to let fall.

“I didn’t choose to disappear,” she whispered, voice cracking like thin ice. “I was forced to leave. But I’m here now, Ethan.” She took a trembling step closer. “I’m the one who pulled you from the wreckage on the coastal road that night.”

Up on the balcony, Gabrielle’s heart hammered. An accident? The coastal road?

"You saved me?" Ethan’s laugh was dark and jagged. "You ran, Betsy. You took the money my enemies offered and you left me in a burning car. Someone else pulled me out of that wreck while you were boarding a flight to Paris."

"No! That's not true! I—"

"Enough." Ethan’s aura exploded with such ferocity that the servants in the hall bowed their heads. "Get out. If I ever see you in Celios again, I will destroy you alongside the Lain Family."

Betsy’s face contorted with a bitter sneer. "You think that little pawn you married will last? You want to abandon me, Ethan? Pawns are meant to be sacrificed. She'd never last!"

"Says who?" a new voice rang out.

Gabrielle walked down the stairs, her movements slow and deliberate, looking every bit the mistress of the house. She walked straight to Ethan’s side and, for the first time, she was the one to initiate contact. She slid her arm through his, feeling the iron-hard tension in his bicep.

"Miss Lain, I assume?" Gabrielle said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. "I’ve heard so much about you."

Betsy glared at her. "You... you’re just a girl whose father is a debt-ridden drunk."

"And yet," Gabrielle smiled, leaning her head against Ethan’s shoulder, "I’m the one with the Shore family ring on my finger. If Ethan wanted a 'saint' in white lace, he had four years to find one. Clearly, he preferred something a bit more... substantial."

Ethan looked down at Gabrielle. He saw the way she was playing the role, but there was a spark of genuine fire in her eyes that fascinated him. He reached out, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her flush against him.

"You heard my wife," Ethan said to Betsy. "Now leave."

Betsy hissed in frustration, "This isn't over! Ethan, I promise, you'd regret this!"

She turned and fled into the rainy night, the tires of her car screeching on the gravel.

———

The silence that followed was heavy. Ethan immediately released Gabrielle, the warmth of his touch vanishing. He turned and headed back up the stairs without a word.

Gabrielle followed him into the master suite. The door shut, and the "act" was officially over.

"I told you to stay here." Ethan said, his back to her as he shed his suit jacket.

"I couldn't sit still." Gabrielle said softly. "She mentioned an accident on the coastal road four years ago."

Ethan turned around with a mask of indifference. "That.., is none of your business." He said as he walked towards the bathroom.

“I witnessed an accident on the coastal road four years ago.” Gabrielle whispered.

Ethan paused. His presence suffocating as his gaze sharpened. “What now? Trying to act like…”

“I lost a small silver pendant that night.” She continued in a rush. “It was my mother's.”

On that night, she had been wandering the coastal road after her mother's funeral, and had witnessed an accident where she pulled a man from a car before it exploded. She never saw his face as he had been covered in blood and it was dark.

Ethan stood there astonished. He’d never told anyone about the pendant except his assistant. “If I find out you're making this up, I'd make sure you rot in hell.” He said after a while as he sent a message to Welma to investigate Gabrielle’s relationship to the pendant.

Afterwards, silence echoed in the room. Ethan looked at the empty bed in the room."The servants are watching, there are heat sensors in this room to report back to my grandfather. He’s obsessed with the idea of an heir."

Gabrielle looked at the bed. It was a battlefield of its own. “Understood."

The night passed peacefully as they both lay in the dark, putting on an act closely joined together but worlds away.