Chapter 14: Seed of Doubt

The glow of Gabriel’s laptop screen lit the dark study. The house was quiet—too quiet. I had gone upstairs an hour ago after their tense, half-finished conversation in the kitchen. He would kiss my forehead, tell me to sleep. He hadn’t followed. He couldn’t.

The email sat at the top of his inbox, the subject line screaming at him:

“You deserve to know the truth.”

No sender’s name. Just a jumble of numbers. Anonymous.

His cursor hovered. Logic told him to delete it. But something in the back of his mind—something sharp and restless—clicked it open.

The first thing he saw was a picture.

Eve.

Not the person he saw at home, tired and quiet, wrapped in cardigans. This Eve was dressed sleek, standing in a dimly lit restaurant. She wasn’t alone. Across the table sat a man—handsome, expensive suit, leaning too close. The picture froze them mid-smile, glasses of wine raised, his hand brushing hers.

The caption below it made Gabriel’s chest tighten:

“This is the woman you think is loyal. Ask her where she was the night you were in New York.”

His jaw clenched. He scrolled.

More photos of me outside the same restaurant. Me getting into the man’s car. My hand on his arm. Each shot was timed too perfectly, like a story being told.

And then—

A short video.

Grainy, shot from a distance. But unmistakable. Me standing by the man’s door, laughing. The man leaned in as if to kiss me. The clip cut out just before contact, leaving the suggestion dangling, poisonous.

Gabriel’s stomach dropped.

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

Eve? His Eve?

He shut the laptop. He opened it again. Played the video three more times. His pulse pounded in his ears.

The email ended with one line:

“She isn’t who you think she is.”

---

Gabriel shoved back from the desk, fingers tangling through his hair. His memory was a mess of holes and fractures, but he knew me. Or thought he did. I was his anchor, his lifeline after the crash. I was steady, devoted.

But hadn’t he already seen me whispering on the phone with Sebastian? Searching for things I couldn't explain? Looking at him with guilt in her eyes?

He pressed his palms into his eyes until stars burst behind them.

Doubt was a disease, and it was spreading fast.

---

Footsteps creaked upstairs. Light filtered under the study door. I was still awake.

Gabriel’s chest burnt. He wanted to storm up there, shove the laptop in my face, and demand the truth. But another part of him—the darker, colder part—wanted to wait. To watch. To see if I would confess on my own.

Because if I didn’t…

His hands curled into fists.

The study felt suffocating. He slammed the laptop shut, grabbed the email on his phone, and forwarded it to himself. A copy, in case it “disappeared.” In case I found it first.

When he finally stepped into the hallway, his reflection in the mirror stopped him.

His own eyes stared back, shadowed and sharp.

For the first time since the crash, he didn’t see the broken man struggling to remember.

He saw the CEO. The one who didn’t forgive easily.

---

He climbed the stairs slowly, the words from the email still seared into his brain.

“She isn’t who you think she is.”

When he reached the bedroom, the door was ajar. I was curled on my side of the bed, eyes closed, my phone loose in my hand. I looked fragile. Beautiful. Innocent.

Gabriel stood there, watching my breath, watching the rise and fall of my chest.

His fingers twitched at his side.

Was it all a lie?

His heart whispered no.

But his head—the part that once built an empire and crushed anyone who betrayed him—whispered yes.

And that whisper was louder.

---

The screen of my phone lit up faintly with a notification. A message. I stirred but didn’t wake.

Gabriel’s eyes lingered on it. On me.

His jaw tightened.

If there was one thing he hated more than betrayal, it was being played for a fool.

He stepped inside the room, careful and silent, the email still echoing in his head.

“She isn’t who you think she is.”

And for the first time since the crash, Gabriel wondered if he’d made the wrong choice in trusting me.

I stirred faintly as Gabriel’s fingers brushed the phone from my hand. He froze, pulse hammering. My lashes fluttered and my lips parted like I might wake. But then I shifted onto my other side, sighing into the pillow.

Still asleep.

He swallowed hard.

Slowly, carefully, he slid the phone from my palm.

The screen glowed against his face in the dark room. One new message notification blinked across the top.

Unknown Number: “We need to meet. He can’t know.”

His stomach knotted.

He tapped the screen, but the message was locked—my phone demanded my passcode. He didn’t know it.

For a moment, rage clouded his vision. His own wife had a password he couldn’t break. He could order an empire, bend hundreds of men to his will, but this—this little black rectangle in his hand—mocked him.

He looked at me again. Sleeping so peacefully, as if nothing in the world troubled me.

The phone buzzed again.

A second message popped up on the lock screen.

Unknown Number: “Tomorrow. Same place. No more excuses.”

Gabriel’s throat went dry. His thumb hovered over the message. Who was this? Was it the man from the photos? Sebastian? Someone else?

“Same place.”

Same place as what?

He wanted to shake me awake, demanding answers. But instead, he slipped out of the room, phone clenched in his fist, heart pounding against his ribs like it wanted out.

---

Downstairs, the house was dark, the hum of the fridge the only sound. Gabriel set the phone on the kitchen counter, staring at it like it was an enemy.

Every instinct told him this was wrong. Spying. Snooping. But hadn’t she broken something first? Hadn’t she given him reasons?

The image of the email flickered in his mind again—Me with that man, laughing, smiling. Too close.

His phone buzzed.

A new email.

His hand shot out, grabbing it.

Another anonymous message.

“Check her messages with Sebastian. Everything you need is there.”

His chest turned to ice.

Sebastian.

That name again.

That was the number on my phone earlier, wasn’t it?

He flipped the phone in his hand, staring at the passcode screen like it was a locked vault. He didn’t have the code, but maybe Sebastian did. Maybe this “anonymous” sender was right.

Gabriel’s reflection in the black screen stared back at him.

This was a line. A betrayal of trust. But then he remembered the man’s hand brushing mine in the photo, the words—same place, no more excuses—and the line blurred.

---

Upstairs, floorboards creaked. My footsteps.

Gabriel snatched up the phone, shoved it into the pocket of his robe, and straightened just as I appeared in the doorway, sleepy-eyed, my hair tumbling loose over my shoulders.

“You’re still awake?” I murmured, voice soft, almost guilty. “What are you doing down here?”

Gabriel’s throat worked. He forced a smile, casual. “Couldn’t sleep.”

My gaze dropped, scanning the counter. Then back to him. Suspicion flickered in my eyes. “Did you… move my phone?”

His chest tightened.

The weight of it burnt in his pocket.

“No,” he lied smoothly, stepping toward me, brushing a hand down my arm like it was nothing. “You must’ve left it upstairs.”

I studied him for a moment too long. His heart hammered, waiting for me to press. But then I sighed, weary, and leaned into him.

“I just want things to be normal again”. I whispered.

He held me. His hands closed around my waist. But over my shoulder, his eyes were hard, fixed on the shadows.

Normal was gone.

And if I was lying to him, he was going to find out.