chapter 13
I sit on the edge of the parapet wall, watching the sun sink into the horizon. Wen is downstairs, playing piano for Ma and Pa, and I’m here alone once again. Loneliness has become my best companion, another love I must hide from the world.
I’m exhausted from pretending in front of my family, exhausted from forcing smiles and laughter when happiness is nowhere inside me.
There’s an emptiness hollowing me out, growing heavier with each passing day.
I don’t know when it started, but now it’s the only thing I feel.
It has smothered every spark that once made me smile.
I don’t write anymore. The motivation is gone.
Books no longer shield me from reality. The worlds I once escaped to now collapse into ash as soon as I turn a page.
Stories no longer grant me the illusion of freedom, instead, they remind me of the cage I live in.
Reality presses down on me, suffocating, inescapable. And I feel it killing me, slowly.
I’m tired. Tired of craving what I can’t have. Tired of carrying this guilt and shame for wanting him. Tired of carrying a secret so heavy it crushes me every time I breathe.
Tired of everything.
I tilt my face up to the sky, eyes blurring with tears. My lids shut, and the world dissolves in muted darkness.
The creak of the rooftop door jolts me. Footsteps follow. Hastily, I wipe my tears away and force my eyes open, blinking until they look normal. If Ma, Pa, or Wen find me crying again, I won’t have any excuses left. I’ve already used them all.
Wen has started to notice. I overheard her talking to Ma about my mental health.
The last thing I need is to be sent to therapy, compelled to unearth secrets of an unforgivable love, of a life where I possess everything yet remain desolate.
Sometimes I feel guilty about it too—how dare I be like this?
I have everything people dream of, every fortune, every luxury, and yet here I am, crying over the one thing I cannot have.
How can a single impossible want make every other blessing look so small?
“Why are you sitting on the edge?”
My heart stills at the voice. I don’t turn my head. What if it’s just my mind playing cruel tricks again?
But then I hear footsteps approaching, slow, steady, certain. With each step, my heartbeat grows louder, pounding against my ribs until it’s the only sound left in my ears.
“Dove.”
My jaw clenches to stop its trembling. The tears I fought so hard to bury come rushing back, spilling hot down my cheeks.
A warm hand presses against my cold shoulder. The contrast makes me shiver. I bow my head, trying to hide my face, and climb down from the edge. But he doesn’t let me retreat.
His hands turn me gently by the shoulders until I’m facing him. Then, with such unbearable tenderness, he cups my jaw in his hot palms and tilts my face upward. His thumbs brush across my skin, wiping away the evidence of my weakness.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice weighted with concern.
I shake my head. Words are impossible. My tongue sticks like glue to the roof of my mouth, this always happens when I cry in silence. I can’t speak, even if I tried.
But even if I could speak… what would I say? That I love you, Zoan. That this love is a fire burning me alive from the inside out.
He presses my head against his chest, holding me in a tight embrace.
My fingers clutch at the sides of his shirt near his waist. I don’t want to touch him, because every touch is a curse.
It haunts me for months, replaying in my mind until the next time I can touch him again, until one memory can be replaced by another.
I want to stay like this forever. If I could hug him every second of my life, I wouldn’t ask for more. But that’s impossible. I know how this goes. In a few minutes, he’ll leave me again, vanish for months, and I’ll be left aching.
Only this time, he says something that tilts my entire world on its axis.
“I’m taking you with me. You’re not okay, and I can’t leave you here anymore. I’ve already talked with Mom, Dad, and Ma and Pa.”
My head snaps up, I push against his chest to see his face. A frown etches itself across his face, his jaw locked tight, his usually frozen eyes clouded with a storm he can’t mask. Zoan showing emotion on his face means only one thing, he’s deeply upset, too upset to hide it.
He stares at me for seconds, or maybe minutes. I don’t know anymore. When he’s with me, time loses all measure.
Then he takes my hand. “Let’s check your luggage. We leave in a few minutes.”
I follow him downstairs without a single word. His hand is large and steady, wrapping around mine like a chain I never want to break free from.
When we reach my room, Wen is already there, halfway through packing my luggage.
She looks between Zoan and me. He releases my hand, and it takes every shred of willpower not to seize it back.
“I’ll be downstairs,” he says, then turns and leaves.
Wen watches the door click shut before rushing toward me. She cups my face between her palms. “Did he scold you?”
I shake my head.
She sighs, dropping her hands and resuming the packing.
“He looked on the verge of murder when he came in here.”
“He said he talked with Ma and Pa about taking me with him.”
Wen turns her face toward me, her lips pressed in a thin line. “If you can count ‘I’m taking Avira with me. Wen, pack her luggage,’ as talking… then yes, he did.”
I sit on the bed, my hands curling into my lap. “Did you tell him something?”
She shakes her head.
Zloban
I force myself to calm down.
She is alright.
She is fine.
She is coming with me.
I repeat those three sentences in my head over and over.
I knew about her depression for a long time, and today it scared the living hell out of me. I felt like I was about to lose her.
She had been sitting on that damn edge of the parapet for three hours, even with the sun burning down on her. Detached from her surroundings, she was somewhere else, lost in a place inside her head where I can’t fucking reach her.
“Are you calm now?” Grandpa asks.
I nod, unclenching my fists and forcing myself to sit straighter, trying to look composed.
He doesn’t buy it. “No, you are not. What happened?”
“She’s in depression,” I say through clenched teeth, “and she needs treatment.”
His frown deepens. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” My voice shakes with frustration. If I knew, I would have fixed it. I would have obliterated the reason she feels so helpless.
Grandma lets out a long sigh. “I’ve been watching her spiral for months, but she isn’t opening up. Not even with Wen.”
“Did you talk with Alex and Abi?” Grandpa asks.
I nod. “Before coming here, I told them.”
Grandma asks. “And how did you figure it out?”
All the drones. All the cameras. Every second of surveillance I have on her told me. But I can’t say that.
“I talked with her,” I answer instead, giving them the general truth.
She comes downstairs. Behind her, Grandpa’s service robot carries her luggage.
Wen instructs the robot to follow us outside.
We reach my chopper. The machine sets her luggage inside, and once she kisses Grandma, Grandpa, and Wen goodbye, I take her hand and guide her into the cabin.
After waving them one last goodbye, I signal the pilot to take off.
“I didn’t hear the sound of your chopper when you came,” she mutters.
I cup her cheek, my thumb brushing beneath her tired eye. She leans into my touch. “You’ll be fine,” I promise.
Her starry golden eyes lift to mine. “I’m fine.”
I keep watching her face for several long minutes. It’s still hard to believe she’s here, sitting beside me in flesh and blood, not just another flickering hologram on one of my screens.
Reluctantly, I pull my hand back, though every part of me aches to keep it against her skin.
She shifts closer, rests her head on my shoulder, and hugs my arm. The earthy fragrance of her shampoo fills my lungs. I lower my head, greedily inhaling more. I have a lifetime of hunger for her—her presence, her warmth, her scent.
When I was younger, deprived of food for years, I stole from the Bennett house after I first arrived there. But it didn’t take me long to realize I would never be deprived again, that food would always be in abundance, and so I stopped stealing.
Now I find myself in that state once more. But Avira Bennett is not food. She is my life. And I have been starved of life for so long that now, with her here, close enough to touch, I want to steal her and never let her go.
Avira
My sleep breaks when I feel myself being carried, cocooned in a hard embrace. Slowly, I open my eyes and find his face close to mine.
I’m really in Zoan’s arms. Everything that happened wasn’t a dream. He’s going to keep me with him. A smile spreads across my lips, and my heart swells with happiness after what feels like an eternity.
I tilt my head and take in the familiar surroundings—the mansion where I grew up. Every corner carries memories of mama, daddy, and him. All those moments rush back through me like sunlight after endless rain.
I look up at him again. “Put me down. I want to walk.”
He glances at me, then lowers me to the ground, but takes my hand.
His fingers wrap around palm, I curl mine tightly around his palm, feeling the rough texture of his skin against my softer one.
The rough texture against my skin, combined with his warmth, is oddly calming.
With him beside me, reality becomes the only place I want to stay, my mind isn’t wandering into dreams or escape into imagination.
He leads me toward the dining room attached to the kitchen. A beautiful woman in her late twenties steps out and sets our plates on the table.
I glance between the woman and Zoan, my stomach tightening.
They don’t look like they’re having an affair, but how could that even be possible?
Zoan is so handsome that even men could fall for him, let alone women.
Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but unless I confirm it, I won’t be able to sleep.
From all the stories, scandals, and headlines I’ve seen about him over the years, I wouldn’t even be surprised if he had twenty or thirty children already.
Not surprised, just furious. Very, very furious.
Furious enough to kill a few of his lovers.
Once she sets the last plate down, Zoan speaks. “July, she is Avira, as you already know, the lady of this house.”
Then his eyes meet mine, my obviously hostile ones. “Dove, she is July. She manages the kitchen.”
I force myself to nod, trying to look polite after just being introduced as the lady of the house. “Hello, July.”
She nods back with a smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Miss Bennett.”
I narrow my eyes. “And how do you know I’m a Bennett?”
“Everyone knows about you, miss.”
I turn sharply toward Zoan. He looks at her with a calm gaze. “Send everyone else here.”
She leaves with a nod.
The moment the door closes, I ask, “Why do you have a woman working for you?”
“She’s talented. And professional.”
I throw my hands up. “I don’t believe anyone is professional enough to not have a crush on you.”
His brows lift. “If she weren’t professional, I would’ve fired her.”
“Or maybe you like her.” The words comes out before I can stop them. “She is beautiful,” I add.
He exhales heavily. “Do you think I have nothing better to do than indulge in useless distractions with random women? What sort of image have you built of me in that head of yours?”
“It’s not my fault,” I pout.
But then I recall how many times he’s been spotted outside hotels, and my anger rises again.
“And it’s not like you’re a virgin. Even if you’re not having an affair with your staff, you’ve had plenty outside.”
And out of all the reactions I expect, what I get is—a smirk. No verbal answer.
I grit my teeth. I can’t even show my anger and frustration out loud, or he’ll know about my feelings for him. And that’s the last thing I want.
The doors open, breaking the suffocating tension. Three people enter the dining room.
Zoan gestures toward the man in his early thirties. “Dove, this is Antonio, our butler, and July’s husband.”
Oh. July has a husband.
He then gestures toward a woman in her thirties. “She is Mina, Antonio’s subordinate.”
And finally, a man in his forties. “This is Rex, our head of security.”
He looks at me. “If you ever need anything, you will ask them.”
I say hello to everyone. They leave after that.
Zoan uncovers his plate and then mine. I begin eating, sneaking glances at him every few moments, unable to stop myself.