Chapter 22 Olivia
OLIVIA
Love.
Is that what this is?
I watch Stefan’s face, waiting for him to answer my question. But he just looks at me with those impossible eyes and says nothing.
I set down the croissant. “I need to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“Your father. What was their marriage like? His and your mother’s?”
Stefan’s jaw clenches. “Why?”
“I just want to understand. You said she was cold. But was she always that way? Or did something change?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, staring at a point somewhere past my shoulder.
I think he’s going to leave this question unanswered, too, until finally, he starts to speak in a low, hazy murmur.
“From what I remember, she was always detached. My father would try to make her happy. Gifts, trips, attention. Nothing worked. She’d accept it all with this.
.. this… this polite distance. The way you’d accept a gift from an aunt you didn’t know and didn’t particularly like. ”
“Did he love her?”
“Too much.” His forehead creases. “That was the problem. He poured everything into trying to win her, and she just... took. Never gave anything back. A fucking parasite.”
I think about the journal Natalia gave me, still hidden in my bag back at the estate. The entries I haven’t read yet. “Do you think he knew? That she didn’t love him, I mean?”
“He must have. But he kept trying anyway.” Stefan runs a hand through his hair and lets out a weary sigh. “My father was brilliant in business. Ruthless when he needed to be. But with her, he was just weak. Desperate. It was pathetic to watch.”
“Maybe he just loved her.”
“Love like that isn’t love. Love doesn’t rot you from the inside out.”
“Is that what you think will happen to us? That I’ll destroy you?”
His eyes snap to mine. “You already have.” Before I can respond, he continues. “My father used to write. A lot. Journals, letters he never sent. That’s where I got the idea.”
“The idea for what?”
“Writing about you. The pros and cons list, all of it.” He looks almost embarrassed. “It helped him clear his mind, put things in perspective. I thought maybe it would do the same for me.”
I choose my next words carefully. “Did it?”
“No. Because every time I tried to be objective about you, I failed. A list can’t contain you, Olivia. You can’t be reduced to words on a page, no matter how fucking hard I try. You’re just... you.” He reaches for my hand. “I’m sorry for that, for even trying. You deserved better.”
“Stefan—”
He pulls something from his pocket. A phone. Brand new, still in its box. “I know you lost yours. Everything’s backed up to the cloud. You can restore it whenever you’re ready.”
I take the phone, surprised by the gesture. “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.”
But it’s not nothing. It’s thoughtful and practical and exactly what I need. I turn the box over in my hands, not opening it.
“What’s wrong?” Stefan asks when he sees my hesitation.
“I’ve kind of liked being cut off. From the world, I mean.” I set the phone on the nightstand. “The moment I turn this on, everything comes flooding back. My mother’s calls, work emails, all the chaos.”
“You don’t have to turn it on right now.”
“I know. But I will. Eventually. And then this...” I gesture between us, at the quiet intimacy of breakfast in bed. “… all of this goes away.”
“It doesn’t have to. You choose what to let in and out.”
I want to believe him. But I’ve learned the hard way, over and over again, that wanting something doesn’t make it true.
I pick up a strawberry and examine it instead of looking at him. It’s so perfectly ripe and red, so pure, so hopeful, if that’s even something a fruit can be. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Always.”
“It’s about your parents’ relationship again.”
He half-sighs, half-chuckles. “You’re fixated.”
“I’m curious,” I protest. “I just…” I chew at my lip for a second before plunging ahead. “Do you think there’s any chance your father wasn’t... perfect? That maybe your mother had other reasons for being distant? Maybe even good reasons?”
Stefan goes very still. “What are you saying?”
“Just that no one can understand the workings of someone else’s relationship unless you were part of it. Maybe there was more there than you saw.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I shake my head. “No, you’re right. Maybe not. But I’m just saying that maybe your mother had valid reasons not to want to be with your father.”
He pulls his hand away from mine. “You have no idea what their relationship was like.”
But the more Stefan insists I’m ignorant, the more I want to double down. “Neither do you, not really. You were a kid. You saw what they showed you.”
“I saw enough.” His face has gone cold, his voice even colder. “I saw him worship her and her treat him like shit.”
“Or maybe she was protecting herself.”
“From what?”
I hesitate. I don’t want to reveal what Natalia told me. But I also can’t let Stefan keep painting this picture of his father as some kind of saint when I have a journal that says otherwise. “I might know more than you do.”
His eyes narrow into angry slits. “Why? Because you spent two minutes with her? I would have thought you’d be smart enough to know when you’re being manipulated.”
“Stop trying to make me the enemy. I’m not your enemy.”
“No, you’re just the main spokesperson for my enemy.”
“Now, you’re being childish.”
“Maybe, but at least I haven’t been brainwashed by a vindictive, conniving bitch.”
“I guess that makes you a son of a bitch then, huh?”
Stefan’s face goes white. Then red. He throws back the covers and stalks out of the cabin, slamming the door behind him.
I sit there, stunned by how quickly we went from tender confessions to… to this. The breakfast tray mocks me with its brightly gleaming fruit and warm croissants.
Son of a bitch.
God, what did I just do?
I push the tray aside and pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. The yacht rocks gently beneath me, but I feel unmoored. Adrift.
He was opening up to me. Actually letting me in, showing me the raw parts of himself he keeps locked away. And what did I do? I threw his dead father in his face. Defended the woman who destroyed his family.
My stomach churns, though I can’t tell if it’s morning sickness or guilt.
The thing is, I don’t even know if I believe what I said. Natalia’s version of events felt true when she told me, but so does Stefan’s pain.
Maybe they’re both right.
Maybe they’re both wrong.
Maybe the truth is somewhere in the messy middle where most truths live.
But it wasn’t my place to push. Not like that. He was vulnerable and I just… lunged. Teeth bared, like a freaking viper.
I think about my own parents. My mother’s version of their marriage is exactly what she needs it to be for her professional and social reputation, while my father sometimes gets this distant look that makes me wonder what he thinks about when the nights get long and lonely. Does he wish things were different?
Who is right there? Whose story do I believe?
The answer is I don’t know. Because I wasn’t inside their relationship. I only saw what they let me see.
Just like Stefan only saw what his parents let him see.
I press my forehead against my knees. The truth is, I wanted to believe Natalia.
If there was more to the story than Stefan’s black and white version, then maybe there was still a way to find a happy ending that he’d sworn he could never reach.
Because if his mother had reasons for what she did, if his father wasn’t perfect, then maybe Stefan’s darkness isn’t inevitable.
And if his darkness isn’t inevitable, then maybe there’s hope for us.
Or maybe I’m exactly what he says I am: a selfish, conniving, naive little girl meddling in things she does not and cannot ever understand.
I pick up another strawberry from the tray, then set it back down. It no longer looks as fresh and wholesome as it did a few minutes ago.
And I’m not so hungry anymore.