Alessandro POVI wasn’t prepared for the weight of the words she’d just spoken.Not for the quiet devastation in her voice.Not for the truth that shattered everything I thought I understood."He raped you."The sentence didn’t echo. It detonated.The breath escaped my chest as if I had been hit in the side. My thoughts yelled at me to act, to talk, to take action, but I was unable to. I simply gazed at her, at Sarah, with her shaking hands and courageous, shattered eyes, pondering how she had managed to endure all of this with such strength remaining in her.“Why didn't you tell me, Sarah?” My voice didn’t seem like my own. It was rough, split, something that had been ripped apartHer answer gutted me."Because by the time you came into my life, I was already crawling out of hell. I didn’t want you to see the ashes on me."God.I wanted to hold her. I wanted to bury her in my arms and never let her go. But something told me that if I reached for her too quickly, I’d crush what little
Sarah’s POVAlessandro stared at me like the air had been ripped from his lungs."He raped you?" he said, barely above a whisper. His voice cracked like something inside him had fractured."Why didn’t you tell me, Sarah?"My hands trembled in my lap. “Because by the time you came into my life,” I whispered, “I was already crawling out of hell. I didn’t want you to see the ashes on me.”He flinched. His breathing faltered, as if the burden of my suffering was choking him. “I was wed to a man who treated my body as If I was an object,” I conveyed, each word laden with bitterness, quaking, quaking as if my body still recalled every single night“He didn’t make love to me. He conquered me. Pinned me down like an enemy and destroyed my self esteem. Called me wh*re with every breath, with every occasion he got. When he was done, he’d get up like I was dirt and go to her. Jessica.”Alessandro’s fists clenched at his sides, veins bulging white against skin. His jaw locked. The anguish in his
Sarah’s POVThe door slammed behind Adrian as he fled, cowardly, like smoke escaping through cracks, before security could reach him.I was still gasping. Still shaking.The nanny was kneeling next to me now, her hands near but not making contact, her voice quivering. “It's fine, He’s gone. I locked the door. It’s okay now. You’re safe.”Safe?The word meant nothing right then. Not with the way my blouse hung half off my shoulder, not with the raw ache in my arms where he’d pinned me down, not with the way my skin still felt like it wasn’t mine.I heard Gabriel wailing. That was the sound that sliced through the rest. My body reacted before my mind could keep pace. "I'll fetch him," I said in a strained voice, struggling to stand up“Sarah, wait, let me,” the nanny tried, reaching for me. But I shook my head.“I have to hold him. He needs me.”The pain in my joints, the cold perspiration, the heat on my skin—none of it was relevant. I walked down the corridor, holding my shredded sh
Sarah POVI stayed motionless for a minute, words locked between my head and my tongue.And then, quietly, deliberately, I stood up."You're unbelievable," I said, not loudly, but firmly.His eyes flickered, but he stayed seated, watching me like he expected me to waver. Like he believed some part of me was still reachable, still vulnerable to the version of him I used to love.“I mean it, Sarah,” he said. “This doesn’t have to be complicated. We already have the pieces, we just need to put them back together.”I almost laughed. I almost choked on how absurd it was.“Adrian,” I said, taking a step back. “You think you can build a family out of ashes? “I’m trying to fix what I broke.”“No,” I said sharply, “you’re trying to own what you lost.”His mouth pressed into a hard line.“You didn’t just break us, Adrian. You broke me, piece by piece. When I told you I was pregnant, you treated it like I’d ruined your life. You called it a mistake. You disappeared when I needed someone beside
Sarah’s POVThe week had passed in a blur of deadlines, meetings, and the kind of focused, mechanical energy that only came from deliberately drowning emotions under work. Every morning, I got up before the sun rose, fed Gabriel, dressed him in his onesie with the tiny stars, and passed him off to the nanny with the kind of smile that said, “We’re doing fine.”By Friday afternoon, I was back in the boardroom, defending a marketing pivot against a room full of tired, under-caffeinated executives. The previous day, I had met Alessandro for a project review at the firm’s downtown office. He was doing better now.We were professional. We were polite. It wasn't very comforting how well we danced around the unspoken truth.Not a word about that night. Or the breakfast. Or anything about the past.Ester had caught me staring into my coffee one morning like it held all the answers. “You’re not talking about him, but you’re not over him either,” she said.I didn’t answer.Because she was right
Adrian POVSunday Night I lit the cigar slowly, the flame licking at the edge with a patience I didn’t possess tonight. The smoke curled up into the darkness of my study, mingling with the silence like venom in a still pond.She’d gone to him.Sarah.I had eyes on Alessandro's building, of course. I knew the moment she walked into Alessandro’s tower, carrying some damn box like she was his wife. The woman who used to flinch from my proximity was now playing nursemaid to a man who’d walked away from her not once, but twice.And she went willingly.I gripped the crystal glass tightly and took a long, punishing sip of the scotch. It burned, but not nearly enough. Not enough to cauterise the anger twisting under my skin like a nest of snakes.That was when Jessica and Chloe arrived.Chloe, the little sycophant, trailed behind Jessica like a designer handbag with too much gloss and not enough substance. Jessica, on the other hand, wore her arrogance like perfume, strong, expensive, and im