Chapter 17
Sophie
Everything stills.
The chiming clock in the lobby, the flickering light nestled above the staircase outside my door, the static of the television in the next room. It all fades away, erasing anything and everything but the man across from me.
My deepest self, what I’m made of, swells to unimaginable gravities. I’m here and beyond. Separated from my body, fragilely within and without, stepping blindly into a homecoming that was never supposed to be in the cards for us.
All these years I spent lying up at night trying to conjure him out of thin air, I always imagined I was dreaming up how beautiful he was, distance naturally exaggerating the truth. Only now, with him just out of reach, do I realize how well I memorized him.
He’s just as I remember.
His striking face. His smooth, unblemished olive complexion, marred only by a few scars that softly gleam under the blinking light. More important than anything, his eyes are the same. Endless emeralds, inviting me to lose myself in their depths .
I slowly scan the length of him, valuing each aspect: from the broadness of his shoulders to his trim waist, a powerful physique draped in the remnants of a sculpted three-piece suit that’s missing its jacket.
A classic black ensemble, right down to the vest. If he was wearing a tie, it’s now gone, and three buttons on his shirt are unfastened.
I linger on the exposed skin, burdened by a vision of us in bed, my face nestled into that warm space.
I know every inch of him… and then I don’t.
Xavier’s chest batters down, fighting to catch his breath.
He got here so fast.
He chased after you.
I’m scared, so scared, to offer him my eyes but when I do, hesitantly, his fist tightens around his car keys.
It shocks me that he’s crying. Crying like he’s never felt true fear until now.
Crying like he’s losing some internal battle I can’t see, frozen in place, eyes expanding so wide that I’m able to catch his pupils overtaking the green irises as he stares at me, witnessing my own tears as they trail past my cheeks—because this is real.
Not a dream. Not a figment of the past.
This is real .
We weren’t supposed to meet again. We said goodbye. All my years were supposed to pass in a blur, still reminising those final moments on that unpaved driveway.
“ Sophie ,” he rasps, forcing my name out of his mouth.
His voice breaks my hold, everything flooding back to me. Victoria. Rosa. The red-haired child. His child.
My chest shrinks. It goddamn shrivels as I push past him. The staircase groans beneath my feet while I rush through the unimpressive foyer and out the door, charging into the night.
The sky is drenching the world with rain, fitting for this moment, this unimaginable crushing weight in my chest.
Before I can reach the car door, my hand is seized.
Xavier is anything but gentle, gathering me in his arms, effortlessly hauling me off my feet. We gasp as one, the world suspending before our mouths crash together.
A breath of life.
Living . It makes sense again as my hands dive restlessly into his hair, into sleek, rain-soaked curls.
All of my belongings are pooling in puddles along the sidewalk.
His fingers dig into my back, their warmth radiating to my skin as they drift to the cusp of my neck.
Our breaths mingle, thick with unspoken desire as the world around us fades to inconsequence.
Xavier’s lips part mine with a flattening force, a branding of love. Devotion. Need.
The rain cleanses my tears, my fears, and my losses.
I am one again, no longer alone, safe in the arms of my protector, feeling him shake as badly as I am.
It's not the raindrops or the rising wind. He inhales my breath, his bottomless eyes becoming wells into his soul. Xavier’s lips never leave my face, grazing my cheeks, my chin, my eyes.
He pours love onto me, reminding me it can exist.
This feeling is real. The world can be beautiful; it doesn’t always need to terrify me.
“Cuore mio,” Xavier whispers, his lips trembling against my cheek. My heart .
His breath is so warm, so close. I tilt wherever he touches, that beating force inside me coiled tight. “Xavier.”
As if it shocks him to hear my voice, he exhales in a rush, holding me tighter. He pulls back, just enough to look at me.
The calm, collected man I knew years ago rarely lost his composure, so the lost look in his eyes now is something new.
My legs unwind from him. My boots find the ground, but he doesn’t release me. My hands frame his face as he embraces my jaw, our fingers swiping away tears as they fall.
He couldn’t cry when I married him, but I always knew the tears were there, trapped under a well-guarded wall of guilt and trauma, another burden his father had drilled into him .
I saw his tears for the first time when he sent me away.
I wonder if he’s cried as much as I have without him.
How long? How long has he thought I'm dead?
Since Madrid, she said.
My sister’s revelation explains why he’s shaking this bad, why his grip is so suffocating. To him, I'm a ghost.
When I step back, his fingers flex in refusal at first, but he does eventually release me.
I take in his gloriousness from a distance, letting the rain soak my disheveled hair and tight athletic wear.
He doesn’t know that I’ve been wearing this for days or that blood has dried into the gray nylon fabric.
“I'm… I'm sorry I broke into your house.”
His brows trough inward. “No.”
“I couldn’t bring myself to knock. I shouldn’t have barged in on you like?—”
His response is curt, a little bit stunned. “Don’t speak to me like a stranger, Sophie.”
All I see is that child holding the hand of a woman Xavier has cared for before. I’m not angry… I'm scared. “That little girl. She called you?—”
“She’s mine.” He elaborates when he sees how that statement jolts me. “Isabella’s my daughter, but it happened before us. Before we even married. It’s the reason Rosa objected to our wedding. She found out she was pregnant.”
Her cry of desperation on my wedding day is not something I could forget.
Even more, how she was dragged out of the aisle to argue with her father in the courtyard while Xavier thrust me into a limousine waiting at the curb.
He was furious she’d made a spectacle. I felt pity for her that day.
Little did I know I’d be envying her now, trying to understand how my husband, the love of my life , has a child with someone who’s not me.
“Rosa.” My words falter, my voice betraying me. “Your… wife? ”
Recognition flickers in his wild gaze, bewilderment evolving into understanding. His eyes widen in disbelief as a sharp scoff escapes his lips. “Is this why you ran past me?”
Hope blossoms in the midst of my weakness. I attempt to speak, but no words emerge. Cars navigate the flooded street while my gaze remains fixated, completely surrendered to his.
His eyes sharpen, striking emeralds that gleam like jewels in the dim light as he steps towards me, each movement deliberate and commanding.
“I have a wife. One. For the rest of my life,” he declares, his voice smooth yet resolute.
He pulls me closer, his grip firm as he tilts my chin upward, forcing me to match his unwavering gaze.
“And I'm looking at her,” he adds, each word resonating with a weight that sends shivers down my spine.
He winces at what he sees in my eyes, the fear within them slowly dissipating as his words linger in the air. It’s been years. Nearly four excruciating years. Throughout that time, my eyes have never stopped searching for him, even in my most hopeless moments.
He realizes that I came all this way to uncover his life—the one we used to live out side by side—has completely changed. I knew it would be different, but this? I never expected this.
“We need to talk.” His eyes shift to the unpredictable roads. “Off the street.”
We have a few options to choose from. First, he could take me back to his headquarters, officially announcing the return of his long-lost wife.
We could also risk the city for the night, staying in one of his many hotels, and hope his staff is discreet.
Our last option? We enter this two-star motel with only one room to determine whether I’ll ever enter that estate again.
I realize the answer only after we trail past the bewildered receptionist, scale the stairs, and enter the already open door of the hotel room I booked.
Xavier closes the door, twisting the lock .
The crooks of my knees lodge into the edge of the springy mattress as I watch him place my bag on the table. Our eyes continue to meet, averting when the tension bodies beyond what we can handle.
What he casts my way is electrically charged, a fierce blaze raging past control. It begs. It beckons. It shows me the depths of his soul, reminding me of all we sacrificed to reach this moment.
So many times, I’ve imagined what I’d do if I faced him again: run into his arms, sob, scream, show him how endless my love truly is. In each version, my emotions ran wild. Right now, they’re imprisoned in my body, screaming to be freed, but something holds me back.
I'm frozen, staring at him, weighed down by the pain it took to get here.
Victoria is dead.
After four years, my father is still trying to destroy me.
My husband has a child with someone else.
So easily, memories arise to torture me.
Blood rapidly spreading through my nightgown, between my thighs, my stained fingers shaking as my insides began to turn on me.
Don’t go there.
Swallowing my pride, I disappear into the bathroom, grabbing two towels. When I pass him one, he nods his thanks, patting his face, neck, and the ends of his dripping hair. His phone vibrates continuously in his pocket until he has no choice but to see who is calling.
The corner of his mouth tilts. “Um, it’s Bo.”