CHAPTER SEVEN Wife
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wife
My hands were shaking as I signed the papers. The pen slipped slightly when I finished writing my name. My vision was blurred from tears, my chest tight with a mixture of rage, humiliation, and despair.
The moment I finished, he snatched the papers away without a word. His cold eyes scanned my signature as if ensuring I hadn't made some last act of defiance.
He didn’t respond, didn’t even look at me. Instead, he turned his head slightly, his voice sharp and commanding. “Elena.”
The young maid, who’d been standing silently near the doorway, stepped forward. She kept her eyes downcast, her body rigid, as though afraid to even exist in his presence.
“Take her to the room,” he ordered emotionlessly. “She’ll be staying there as my wife.”
Wife. The word stung. I wanted to scream at him, to throw something, to rip those papers apart, but I couldn’t even move. I was frozen in place, drowning in the reality of what I’d just done.
“Yes, sir.” She nodded.
Without so much as a glance at me, he turned to the man, the lawyer, I guess.
“Please, come with me, miss,” the maid muttered.
I followed her silently, my legs weak and unsteady, my body moving as if on autopilot.
She led me to the stairs and then a sleek hallway. It was endless and inescapable.
The maid glanced back at me a few times. “This way,” she murmured, opening a large wooden door at the end of the hall.
I stepped inside, and my stomach churned. The room was enormous, bigger than any space I’d ever lived in. The bed was massive, draped in luxurious fabrics that screamed wealth and power. The walls were adorned with expensive art, and the windows were so tall they nearly touched the ceiling.
“This will be your room.”
My room. Not our room. Not his room. Mine. That should’ve been a relief. This wasn’t a sanctuary. It was another prison, gilded and opulent but suffocating all the same.
“Does he… does he always get what he wants?” I asked bitterly.
The maid hesitated, her expression conflicted for a second before she masked her emotions. “He… he’s not someone who’s used to hearing no.”
I let out a hollow laugh, more a broken sound than anything resembling humour. “I gathered that.”
She fidgeted with her hands, her gaze darting to the floor. “I’ll bring up your things,” she said softly, as if trying to ease the tension.
I turned away from her, unable to look at her pitying expression any longer. “Don’t bother,” I muttered. “None of it matters anymore.”
The door closed behind her, leaving me alone in the silence of the room. I stood there, staring at the bed, my fists clenched so tightly that my nails dug into my palms.
I walked to the window, my breath hitching as I stared out at the sprawling estate.
It was on the edge of a cliff. The view from the window was cruel.
The endless waves hurled themselves against the jagged rocks as if wanting to wash me along.
Beyond them, the horizon stretched infinitely.
My lids broadened as I looked at the back to find the forest. Even the sky was grey and brooding.
Beauty, I realized, could be a far greater prison than these walls.
This wasn’t an island, but it wasn’t Italy either. I swallowed hard, staggering back, and my reflection stared back at me in the glass. Of a woman I barely recognized. Swollen eyes and face, pale and drawn. I looked defeated.
And in some sense, I was.
Because he had won. The man I didn’t even know the name of. The nightmare I was fucking married to. He had stripped me of every ounce of power, every piece of control I thought I had. He knew things about me I hadn’t even told the people I loved. He knew me better than I knew myself.
I slammed my fist against the window, hoping for pain to take him away from my thoughts.
I hated him. God, I hated him.
But what scared me most wasn’t the hatred.
It was the part of me that feared I would never escape him.
A sharp, bitter laugh escaped my lips, cracking halfway through as it dissolved into a sob. This couldn’t be real. But it was.
I turned away from the window, pacing the room like a caged animal, my breath coming in sharp, erratic gasps. My chest ached.
I needed to feel something, anything, other than the crushing despair suffocating me.
My gaze darted to the bedside table, where an ornate vase filled with fresh flowers sat like a cruel mockery of beauty. Without thinking, I grabbed it, the delicate porcelain cool against my trembling hands as I slammed it on the floor with a gut-wrenching scream.
But even that wasn’t enough.
I moved to the vanity, sweeping everything off with one violent motion.
Perfume bottles, jewellery boxes, and trinkets clattered to the floor, some breaking, others rolling away into the corners of the room.
My reflection in the mirror taunted me, the twisted face of a woman who had nothing left to lose.
“You ruined me!” I screamed again as I shredded everything I could get my hands on. “You ruined everything, you fucking monster!”
When my energy drained, my knees buckled, and I sank to the floor amidst the wreckage, the cold shards of porcelain and glass biting into my skin. But I didn’t care. The physical pain was nothing compared to the storm raging inside me.
I wrapped my arms around myself, rocking back and forth as sobs wracked my body. I felt like I was falling apart, piece by piece, and there was no one to catch me.
He knew everything. My father. My childhood. My friends. My fears. He had peeled me open like a book, reading every hidden chapter, every secret I thought was buried deep. How could someone know so much and still be so cruel?
I buried my face in my hands. There was no escape. No way out. He had trapped me in his web, and now, all I could do was wait for him to pull the strings tighter.
I cried for what felt like hours. I didn’t even realise when I lost consciousness, but when I felt the cold seeping into my veins and stiffness in my body, I stirred.