Chapter 23
BELLE
We fell asleep tangled together.
The kind of sleep that came after too much emotion and too much intensity in one day. My body was warm, pleasantly heavy, with his arm draped over my waist like it belonged there. It felt natural.
His breathing evened out first. Steady against my back. I lay awake a few minutes longer, staring into the dark, replaying everything.
It was quiet, too quiet. The kind of stillness that only exists at two in the morning. The room was dim, moonlight stretching long and pale across the floor.
I slipped out from under him carefully. He didn’t stir.
I walked down the hall to the bathroom so as not to wake him. In the bathroom, I splashed cool water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror.
“What are we doing?” I said to my reflection, but she said nothing back, equally confused as I was.
You are not powerless. His voice echoes in my head.
But Mel’s voice was there too. If something goes wrong, he holds more cards.
The words settled more heavily in the dark.
When I stepped back into the hallway, I didn't go straight to bed.
The upstairs felt different at night. Quieter. More cavernous. The library door was open down the hall, moonlight brushing the spines of my newly placed books.
And then my eyes shifted to the two doors closed at the far end of the corridor.
I’ve noticed them before, of course. I’ve cleaned upstairs. I’ve moved through these halls. But they’ve always been firmly shut.
I had been told on my first day that they were strictly off-limits. I didn't know why they’re off-limits, just that they are. They sat there now, darker than the rest of the hallway.
When I thought about it, I didn't actually know him all that well.
I knew the version of him who makes breakfast and gives me bookshelves and carries me up the stairs. I knew the man who touched me like I was something precious.
But I didn’t know what was behind those doors. The thought unsettled me. How could I have feelings for a man I didn’t truly know?
I took a slow step down the hallway. Then another.
The floorboards were cool beneath my bare feet.
The first door stood heavy and unmarked. The second lay just beyond it. My pulse ticked faster. This was ridiculous. People are allowed privacy.
But privacy feels different when you’re sleeping in someone’s bed. When you’re filling their shelves. When you’re falling in love.
I stood there in the dim hallway, heart pounding away in my chest, staring at the doors that had never opened for me.
I can’t help but wonder what else I haven’t been told.
I know I shouldn’t, but my hand was already on the knob. It turned easily. The first door opened with a soft click, and I stepped inside before I could talk myself out of it.
Moonlight filtered through the tall windows, catching dust suspended in the air like fine ash. The room was larger than the one we sleep in now. It was another main bedroom. The bed was made, but everything was covered in a faint, even layer of dust. Like it hasn’t been disturbed in years.
My stomach tightened. This wasn’t a guest room.
This was his room.
There are framed photos on the dresser, the glass dull with neglect. I step closer slowly, pulse ticking louder in my ears.
And there he was. A much younger Raphael. He looked . . . different. He seemed softer, less guarded than the man I knew.
He was standing beside a woman with beautiful auburn hair cascading over her shoulders, her green eyes bright and laughing at something outside the frame. She’s leaning into him, and he’s looking down at her like she is the center of his world.
He was smiling. Not the restrained curve I’ve seen, but a full, unguarded smile.
This was a wedding photo.
The room feels sacred in a way that makes me step back instinctively.
This wasn’t some salacious secret. It was a wound. I didn’t know what to feel.
Jealousy flickered, quickly chased by shame. Sadness settled in its place. I’ve only ever known the version of him that carried this weight. I didn’t know there was a version that once carried joy so easily.
I swallowed and backed toward the door.
There’s still another one. My heart is already pounding when I reach it. This one felt heavier. I hesitated. Then I opened it.
The air inside was colder. The moonlight here was softer, filtered through sheer curtains that had yellowed slightly with time. The walls were pale.
And in the center of the wall is a crib. This was a nursery.
My breath left me in a rush.
There was a rocking chair in the corner. A mobile hanging above the crib, still as if it hasn’t been touched in years. Tiny folded blankets rested on a shelf. A stuffed rabbit slumped against the wall.
It’s untouched. Preserved. I took one step inside.
Then another. My hip bumped lightly into a small dresser beside the door.
There was a faint click. Then music filled the air.
It was slow and tinny, but clearly La Vie en Rose.
But it wasn't the warm, lilting version I hummed in the kitchen.
This one was slower. Haunted. The melody stretches thin and delicate, echoing through the stillness of the room.
My blood ran cold. The song. The way he had commanded me to stop.
My heart dropped into my stomach.
I really didn’t know anything. Nothing about this. Nothing about her. Nothing about what happened here.
The music continues its fragile, broken lullaby, winding through the dark.
A low, rumbling voice from the doorway.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?”