He Chose Her Lies Over My Love
“I agree to marry Killian Arrows.”
The words dropped like stones in the silence of the penthouse boardroom.
My grandmother, Victoria Valcruz didn’t even look up. The gold spoon clinked gently against porcelain as she sipped her tea elegantly.
“You are bluffing aren’t you?” she said, finally glancing at me, her voice cold. “The cameras will love it. The press will worship the fairytale. You will wear the ring, play the rich wife. But behind closed doors?”
She finally met my eyes.
“You will be nothing but a baby making machine…a mere surrogate who carries the heir. Nothing more nothing less.”
“I know and I accept.” I replied calmly.
She tilted her head, something close to disgust passing through her expression. “So that’s it. You will warm the bed of a killer just to buy your name into a legacy that never wanted you?”
I met her gaze unfazed. “Wasn’t it you who once suggested marrying me off to that eighty-year-old real estate mogul whose last wife mysteriously drowned in a champagne tub?
I am making it easy for you…selling off myself to the highest bidder.”
Killian Arrows, Mafia King of Spain, the once Wall Street’s crown prince had walked out of federal prison just three weeks ago. The photos of his release had made front pages around the world: the sharp suit, the cold eyes, the silver cuffs.
They called him the evil man in Dior.
And now… he would call me wife.
His family wanted a marriage to maintain their bloodline but my father’s beloved daughter Jessica refused, crying like there was no tomorrow.
She always had the luxury of saying no unlike me.
Victoria finally leaned back in her chair. “You are that desperate for attention? Trying to prove your worth.”
“No.” I said. “I am doing this because you need the Arrows Empire. And I am the daughter no one noticed until you needed a name to sign on the dotted line.”
She studied me, cold and calculating.
“This could work.” she murmured. “A noble sacrifice. The media will adore it and soon the Valcruz shares will recover. Yes... very well.”
“I want compensation.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“I want half of your private estates, thirty percent of Valcruz shares and fifty million dollars as compensation.”
Victoria’s mouth twitched, just slightly. “That would make you richer than your uncles combined!”
“I am not asking.” I said getting up. “ Even if you don’t recognize me, I am still the legitimate daughter and Jessica is an illegitimate bastard my father brought home. “
My voice cracked but didn’t falter.
“If I am going to chain my body and soul to a man who may never love me, just to save your crumbling empire, I will be paid… for every year you made me invisible.”
“You ungrateful brat-”
“Ungrateful?” I let out a breathless laugh, one that sounded far too close to a sob.
“I was raised in the servant’s quarters scrubbing dirty floors on my knees while Jessica wore diamonds to parties. Don’t talk to me about gratitude.”
I turned to leave, then paused.
“One more thing,” I said, my voice bitter and choked. “Reassign Xander to Jessica.”
“The bodyguard?” she asked. “The one you shielded with your own body when your father tried to whip him? The man for whom you once refused to eat for four days until his punishment was lifted?”
She gave a short amused laugh. “I thought you were in love with him even when he used you like a tissue.”
My throat tightened as unshed tears glistened in my eyes.
“I thought that too.” With that I left.
Three days ago, a drunken night led me to Xander’s bedroom and the next thing I knew was we were sharing a searing kiss as I confessed my undying love to him.
And then, in one of the most vulnerable moments of my life, I gave him everything-my love, my soul…only to wake up in an icy cold bed the next morning.
Xander stood near the mirror, his back towards me already dressed in his tailored suit, adjusting his cufflinks like nothing happened….Composed. Emotionless.
“Now that you are up, get dressed and leave. You are not supposed to be in my room.” His voice cut the silence like a knife.
That was it.
No worry
No words of love or asking me if I was in pain from yesterday.
I sat up slowly, heart pounding as I felt my entire world crumbling. “Xander…I told you I love-”
“Love?” He turned slowly, his muscles taut and eyes detached. “Yestertday was a drunken mistake, Miss Athena Valcruz so I would advise you not to throw a tantrum over it.”
The cold words cut deeper than any wounds making me look at Xander in horror.
My knees buckled slightly as I rose, each step toward him like walking barefoot on shattered glass.
“Was it all nothing to you?” I asked, reaching out but he wouldn’t even look at me.
“You stayed by my side for three years. You wiped my tears when I had no one else. You remembered my birthday when even my own family didn’t-”
“I did all of that because it was my job. I am your bodyguard. Nothing more.”
His eyes met mine sharp, distant… unrecognizable.
“Don’t romanticize this. I never saw you as anything but a responsibility. A duty I was assigned and paid to protect.”
My breath caught.
“And the way you dress… the way you act…” he added, his words turning to knives as he looked at me in disdain. “don’t pretend last night was some sacred moment. You flirt like it’s second nature, Athena. It’s not like you were a goddamn virgin to begin with..”
I reeled.
The air punched out of my lungs.
Without warning, he grabbed my wrist, his grip bruising as he dragged me to the door like I was dirt beneath his boots.
“Don’t confuse attention for affection, Athena.” he said with quiet cruelty. “That’s where women like you always go wrong.”
And then the door slammed shut.
And I was left completely shattered, sobbing on the floor that morning, utterly used and discarded.
Everyone had chosen to abandon me so this time I would be the one to decide my future.
I will leave the father who loved his ‘illegitimate child’, the man who used me and the family who never once considered me their own.
This time, I would be the one to walk away.
Chapter 2
My grandmother Victoria Valcruz always gave Jessica everything. The billion dollar inheritance.
A perfect debutante ball and a curated rise in the tabloids as “Valcruz’s Darling Heiress.”
So I knew that she would finally give me this- a wedding full of thorns.
As anticipated, an envelope arrived the next morning sealed in blood-red wax with the Arrows crest- a coiled serpent around a crown.
I stared at it for a long time, my fingers trembling as I broke the seal.
[MARRIAGE CONTRACT
Athena Valcruz and Killian Arrows
Status: Approved]
Along with the contract was a letter for me.
[I will come to receive you in three days. A private villa that had already been prepared and bridal fittings are scheduled. Our marriage is in two weeks~ Killian]
The wedding ceremony? In two weeks.
I placed the letter down on the desk, my hand numb.
So this was it.
I had been sold. Again.
Just this time, it was my own voice that sealed the bargain and made me realize that this family never accepted me from the beginning.
Walking down the hallway reminiscing my life that I was about to throw away I came across Xander’s room
And the noises stopped me cold.
Low pants and masculine groans ignited the atmosphere.
It was raw…ferocious… Shameless.
My hand reached for the door and opened abyss.
Xander was muscles taut, sweat gleaming off his skin, his hand buried between his legs his eyes half-closed, lost in pleasure.
His back to me as papers were scattered everywhere….The floor. The bed. The desk.
My eyes widened as I stumbled back.
Jessica.
He had drawn her face in every angle laughing, looking over her shoulder, hair tousled like she had just rolled out of bed.
And then there was something more.
Some of her paintings and photos that look very hot.
Not crude but intimate soft curves.
In one image, she was lying on her back, her head turned slightly, mouth parted.
In another her arms above her head, a silk sheet barely covering her thighs.
I stood frozen as Xander lifted one particular sketch of Jessica hot, back arched and kissed the paper softly before groans of pleasure filled the room.
“Jess….Jess…”
I felt everything inside me sink. Collapse.
He hadn’t just used me.
He had never even seen me.
Then his phone buzzed.
“No” he said gruffly. “I can’t return to the mafia until she’s mine. I want her at my side as my queen. Jessica is my everything.”
I choked on my breath.
Mafia?
Xander Thorn.
My heart froze completely.
My once-betrothed fiancé that I never even saw… who publicly rejected me after my mother’s funeral, calling me “unworthy of his blood.”
A tear escaped my eye in horror.He had been beside me this whole time, with a new name, a new face…
and I had welcomed him like a lamb to slaughter.
“I am only here for Jessica..” he continued. “Always was. Athena? Still throwing herself at me like a dog in heat.
You think I would waste three years on Athena if it wasn’t for the bigger picture?”
Tears dribbled my eyes as a dagger twisted in my heart deep.
“She is useful and lonely. That’s what makes her easy. Always trying to seduce me wearing such clothes…it is almost like she is a shameless woman.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t feel my legs.
Three years. Three goddamn years. I let him into every corner of my life. My schedule. My insecurities. My mother’s ashes.
I thought he was stone, unmoved by glitz and glamor.
But all this time… he was chasing her…the reason my mother died of heartbreak.
The day my mom found out my father had a secret mistress and a second child, something in her snapped. I witnessed her stop eating…stop speaking and soon began scratching at her own skin until she bled.
I was eight when they took her to the psychiatric wing, her broken eyes looking at me for the last time.
One day, she walked into the sea wearing pearls and never came back.
They called it “an accident.”
Jessica moved in the next week. Took my room. Called my mother “that unstable woman.”
She framed me at ten for trying to push her down the stairs. My father slapped me across the face in front of the servants.
I should have walked away. Should have screamed when Xander chose her and yet I stood in the doorway frozen with Xander not even flinching as our eyes met.
He saw that I looked at his body and unabashedly dressed himself without a care, eyes staring at me like I was just another assistant who had forgotten to knock.
I should have screamed. Should have thrown something.
“Even if I am your guard, knock before you enter Miss Valcruz.”
Miss Valcruz.
As if he hadn’t memorized the sound of my footsteps, the pattern of my panic attacks, the way I liked my wine after boardroom disasters.
As if he hadn’t held me when I collapsed on the bathroom floor the day I lost my mother’s estate in court whimpering and thrashed like a ragdoll..
He moved to pick up his sketchbook, wiping it like it was some treasure before keeping it away.
I could no longer bear and said "Tomorrow is an event I am organizing, you have to follow me as my bodyguard-”
“Will Miss Jessica come?”
My heart shattered completely as I looked at him with my eyes wide.
“W-What? It’s a tribute for my mom…for her death anniversary! Do you think I will invite that wench?!”
As soon as my words fell into his ears, Xander’s face darkened instantly.
Not for the mother who raised me in a backroom apartment while Jessica had nannies and ponies.
“Follow me tomorrow, it is an order!” I turned to leave, my throat burning.
Then, as if to make sure the knife twisted fully, I heard him mutter under his breath-
“She’s still chasing me…” he muttered behind my back. “Thinks one night in my bed changed anything. It’s pitiful.”
I stopped walking.
He didn’t know I heard.
Didn’t care if I had.
For him I was just the stepping stone.
I left the door open behind me.
Let the wind blow through as I told myself that everything as coming to an end.
And I was going away from the chaos.
Chapter 3
The next evening Xander was waiting at the bottom of the marble staircase, his hand stretched out like always waiting for me to take.
At the very next moment I walked past him without a word for the first time in three years.
He froze for a second before composing himself, a flicker of surprise reflecting in his eyes before he composed himself.
With that he followed me without another word, sitting opposite in the car like a stranger.
It was my night.
The Valcruz Legacy Showcase.
REVIVE.
My first fashion line.
Six dresses that took me years to prepare..
Every thread was a wound that I remembered.
The collection was my love letter to a woman the world tried to erase.
To a girl who was eight years old and alone when she watched her mother stop wanting to live.
At the fashion show of the year my dresses began to appear one by one.
‘Ariadne’ the dress in pink, my mother’s youthful love to my father.
‘Descent’ a bird in cage when mom realised that father married her for her money.
‘Unspoken’ Cerulean blue when my father’s mistress was found and my mother was locked for ‘creating a scene’.
‘Inheritance’ midnight-black embroidered with barbed vines. Strength passed through pain.
‘Resurrection’ a scarlet blaze cut high and fierce. The fire she lit in me.
But then the clapping intensified as my final piece appeared with thousands of people cheering and applauding yet my face was pale as a ghost.
My stepsister Jessica stepped onto the stage, wearing the final masterpiece.
‘Love’
A dress I had stitched with trembling hands, tears slipping onto the fabric.
It held a piece of mom….actual strands of her hair sealed inside the brooch at the collar.
Her heartbeat lived inside that gown.
My mother’s dress.
My ears rang in horror.
“No!” I choked out, stumbling towards the stage “She is not supposed to wear that…she can’t! No!”
At that moment a hand gripped my wrist in a bruising grip.
I whipped around on the verge of breaking down and saw him.
Xander.
His fingers dug into my skin, his gaze unreadable.
“Let go of me!” I hissed, shaking with rage. “That dress has my mother’s hair in it! My mother’s killer is wearing a part of her? No! Don’t you understand that?!”
But Xander didn’t flinch.
“Don’t cause a scene, Miss Valcruz. This isn’t about you.” I staggered back snapping my hand out of his hold, my entire world collapsing.
That’s when a voice boomed across the room.
A man stepped forward in black uniform.
“My name is Peter. Butler to Mr. Xander Thorne, CEO of Thorn Enterprises.”
He bowed elegantly before continuing “Our CEO believes that all beautiful things in this world should go their rightful owner and all these dresses can only have one master and that is Miss Jessica..”
Jessica blushed, pressing a gloved hand to her chest as if embarrassed. “Oh… I had no idea Mr.Xander would show me such favor. I-I am just honored….I would want to meet the man who is so kind…I have never seen him before so I hope we can arrange a meeting soon.”
The crowd swooned.
The flashes grew louder.
“Xander Thorne? Everyone knows about him but he has never made a public appearance, and to think Miss Jessica already has him wrapped around her finger?”
“Xander Thorne must be head over heels for Miss Jessica. To think she attracted the attention of such tycoon.”
My steps faltered.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, low and sharp, barely breathing.
Before I could reach the stage, event staff wheeled out racks. The five other dresses shoved onto plastic hangers. Not handled with gloves. Not even with care.
“All six pieces, exclusively gifted to Miss Jessica Thorn by our master Mr Xander Thorne, who has said that Miss Athena should know her place and not bully the innocent miss Jessica.”
The crowd gasped and everyone watched me like I was a specimen in zoo, harsh and calculating.
Jessica looked around, feigning innocence.
“Sister? Please don’t..don’t be mad okay?…I am sorry but I never wanted to steal your spotlight.” she said with eyes wide and innocent.
I wanted to scream and cry.
Xander stood behind me watching me closely like a judge.
He didn’t speak.
He looked at me like I was an eyesore. Like this was a necessary punishment for not inviting Jessica and for calling her a ‘wench.’
His wrath was precise.
Public.
Humiliating.
I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood.
The event ended and just like that all my dresses were gone with my name completely erased.
With that I didn’t had anything left in me.
Turning around I did not watch Xander looking at Jessica like a lovestruck man, nor did I see Jessica’s sly smile.
I drove to the countryside farmhouse which was on the verge of collapse.
To the garden.
My mother’s garden. The one she fought to keep when they wanted to demolish it for an underground vault.
The jasmine had bloomed early.
I stood beneath it in heels and ruin, looking like a woman who was left with nothing.
And I cried.
Not polite tears but the deep cries that shake one’s soul.
The kind that come from the deepest corner of a broken girl.
Not because I had loved Xander like a fire in winter and he had used that very same fire to burn me alive.
Not because the crowd adored Jessica like she was the heroine and marked me as the villainess.
But because I was letting go of all the love that once I held for anyone in this place.
The screams that echoed were left unanswered.
Chapter 4
Two days.
That’s how long I stayed locked up in my bedroom packing my things in silence and preparing for my departure.
I ate nothing and barely survived but now the previous emotional wounds did not hurt…I was numb.
Soon a knock came.
“Athena?” Jessica’s voice came sugary sweet.
When I didn’t move to answer, the door creaked open anyway.
Jessica stepped in like she owned the place.
“Sister, I know you have been… going through things but.. it’s my birthday, and everyone’s asking where you are. You have to come and greet guests because even if father is angry with you…you are still his daughter.”
I still said nothing and continued emptying my wardrobe.
“Athena… Please? I’m just trying to keep the family together.”
And then another voice followed
Deeper. Colder. His
“Where are you going? Why can’t you act normal once-”
“You are my servant not master, no need to forget your place.” My words sliced through the atmosphere like a dagger and Xander froze for a second, his face devoid of emotions as he looked at me.
I hadn’t seen him since that night. The night he sold my legacy like it was a clearance item.
“Miss Athena you have everything.” he said finally in a formal tone. “The Valcruz name…the fortune and legacy. You don’t need to compete with your sister or bully her.
The least you can do is show up for one night. Just behave.”
I laughed.
It broke out of me bitter and raw and more painful than a sob.
Behave?
Jessica sniffled, acting innocent. “Xander, you are my sister's bodyguard and friend so please help me…I just want Athena to come downstairs. Everyone’s talking…”
I turned my face away.
If I looked at either of them another second, I was going to scream.
“Get out, I will be there.” I said finally, my voice hoarse and dull.
Because the only thing worse than being broken…was letting them see it.
The ballroom glittered in soft pink and gold, walls dressed in roses, chandeliers dripping light like liquid sugar. Laughter floated like perfume, thick and sickly.
And then I heard him.
My father.
Laughing.
Proud.
“So, the Thorne heir himself chased after my Jessica!” he beamed to a circle of men in tuxedos. “Xander Thorne, of all people. I always knew my daughter was special!”
Someone asked about me.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Athena?” A wave of dismissal passed over his face. “She is a troublesome child. Not like Jessica. She is incomparable with that well behaved child and is always in conflict, always needing attention.”
I froze. The words sank their claws in my throat. Still, I stood there in the shadow of the marble column, invisible but listening.
Then Jessica’s voice rang out over the mic.
“Everyone!” she sang. “I want to say something before the cake!”
People gathered, drawn like moths to her manufactured glow.
She smiled sweetly, her gaze sweeping over the crowd until it landed on me. She beckoned me forward like I was part of her little act.
“I know things have been… tense…” she said, voice soft and saintly. “But I want you all to know…that I and my sister have made amends.”
I blinked.
She turned to me, eyes wide with false vulnerability. “I am sorry to make you angry and jealous sister, my intention was never to compete with you no matter how much you hated me I have always looked upto you…. because at the end of the day, we are sisters.”
The guests murmured.
Jessica smiled like she had just performed a miracle. “I just want us to be a family again. Don’t you, Athena?”
My lips parted, but I had no voice.
She turned back to the cake, slicing it elegantly before lifting the first bite.
“To my sister.” she said sweetly. “May she one day find peace and purpose.”
She stepped closer and offered the fork to me.
I didn’t take it.
Her whisper reached only my ears: “That’s the last thing you will ever taste as part of this family. First your mother was thrown out and now is the time you follow her. Your father is not your own, your ex-fiance is running after me like a man in love and even your bodyguard whom you loved has chosen me above you… ”
My eyes were bloodshot red and yet I did not wish to give Jessica the satisfaction of making a fool of me thus I spun on my heel, ready to walk out of that golden hell.
And that’s when it happened…my dress tugged strongly and then..
SNAP!
Air hit my spine like ice.
Gasps tore through the room.
The weight of silk slid down my body in a merciless wave as my dress slipped down half my body making me partially bare- my breasts visible.
I clutched the fabric to my chest too late.
Cameras flashed instantly.
A low whistle cut through the silence as men openly gawked lecherously.
My arms shook as I tried to pull the ruined dress back up, but the clasp was gone. A deliberate cut which was clean and cruel making me kneel on the floor with tears in my eyes.
Behind me, Jessica gasped like she was the one attacked.
“Oh no, sister!” she said, hand flying to her lips. “Athena… why would you do something like that? Is this for attention again?”
The crowd turned.
Their faces melted together…shock, curiosity, disgust.
And then…
He moved.
Xander.
From the edge of the room, his gaze locked onto mine. Cold. Distant as he came forward and yet didn’t shield me.
He shrugged off his jacket like he was shedding pity and then dropped it at my feet.
Not on my shoulders.
Not around me.
At my feet. Like it was a choice.
A gesture that said: ‘Cover yourself. You have embarrassed us all.’
I knelt and grabbed it with shaking hands teared tumbling down my eyes in absolute devastation, pulling it over my trembling frame.
The room fell away in blurred edges and muted laughter as Xander guided me toward the exit.
No words. No comfort.
Just pressure at my elbow like I was some clown to be escorted out quietly.
We reached the bathroom that I rushed inside clicking the shut behind me.
My back hit the cold wall, and I slid to the floor, the marble biting into my bare thighs as I clutched Xander’s jacket around me like a makeshift shield. My breath was ragged, hands trembling, shame crawling up my spine like fire ants.
Hot tears trailed down my eyes as I felt like it was better if the earth would open up to swallow me whole.
Then I heard Jessica’s crying voice outside.
“W-Why would my sister do it?!”
“They way she acts…” Xander said coldly, his voice low and clipped. “Like it means nothing. Like stripping in front of hundreds was a performance she was proud of is something an innocent person like you will never understand Miss Jessica.”
Then came the words that pierced my heart like knives.
“I can’t believe a woman could act with so little self-respect.” Xander muttered. “Who takes their clothes off like that? For what…attention? Sympathy? A moment in the spotlight?”
I stared at the floor feeling like the walls closed in.
“I mean, she’s always been an attentionseeker framing you and acting like a…prostitute.” he continued outside. “But tonight proved it. No woman with dignity would do something like that. She exposed herself in front of everyone.”
The words were bullets.
One.
After.
Another.
He truly thought I chose this. That I planned the humiliation. That I wanted eyes crawling over my skin, wanted to be less than human in front of a ballroom full of people.
To think I loved this kind of man and gave him my heart?
I was full of regrets.
Loving him was the biggest mistake of my life.
Chapter 5
Inside the bathroom my breaths came in shallow bursts but with the last of my strength I stood up trembling.
In the mirror the woman who reflected back was hollow and broken but her eyes were ablaze.
Pushing the bathroom door open, I got out with my dress wrapped around me tightly.
Xander’s body stiffened as he saw my mascara streaked eyes with his arms folded, jaw clenched as he stood beside Jessica…Watching.
Waiting.
And for a moment a doubt emerged in his heart…what if I didn’t meant for the wardrobe malfunction to happen?
That can’t be true.
“Miss Valcruz.”
I walked past him without giving him any reply and in the very next moment, I peeled off his ink black jacket before dropping it in the big thrash can at the side, right in front of him.
Silence cracked as Xander’s mouth parted slightly, a flash of something in his eyes…was it confusion? Regret? Annoyance?
I didn’t care anymore.
“Miss Athena” The butler who had been part of the estate since my childhood came running, his voice worried.
“Paul, what happens to insolent servants who gossip behind their masters?”
“They are punished, Miss Athena?”
I didn’t answer Paul. My heart was no calm… It was burning with hurt, rage and sorrow.
I turned.
And without a flicker of hesitation, my hand flew.
CRACK.
The sound of my palm meeting Xander’s cheek cut through the hallway like a gunshot. Louder than the ballroom music, louder than Jessica’s dramatic gasp that followed.
Xander didn’t flinch. He stood frozen, the mark blooming red on his skin.
His jaw clenched.
But I leaned in, my voice shaking, low and full of venom.
“Who the hell are you to decide my worth?” I hissed. “Who gave you the right to determine my character and then call me… that?”
My voice broke, but I didn’t.
“A cheap woman? Really? After everything I gave you…after every time I protected you..you humiliate me like this?”
His eyes shifted with a flicker of guilt like he wanted to say something. But I wasn’t done.
“Out of everyone who’s ever hurt me… you?” I whispered bitterly, stepping closer, my breath trembling. “You are my biggest regret because even a dog never bites the hand that feeds it but you…you are worse than a dog.
This house has never been a safe haven and the woman whom you are chasing so desperately..you have no idea who she is but you are a fool who will never believe it, not until she makes you fall to the depth of hell!”
Xander’s eyes that always remained calm and indifferent now lightened with some sort of shock as he called.
“Athena..”
I turned around and left.
At that moment when I finally made it inside my room completely breaking down recalling the humiliation.
My mind spiraled as with trembling fingers I clicked on the latest news on social media thinking that all of it without a doubt will be filled with evil words about what happened at the party today….of how my body was exposed.
I would be make a joke of the century.
At that moment my phone buzzed.
[Anonymous: No pictures, no traces, no news….not even a single thing will leak outside.Those who wronged you today, remember their faces.
They will pay their debt in blood.]
My tears paused as my eyes widened as I read the message again and again before hurriedly opening the news channels.
[Breaking News: Media House CV goes bankrupt.]
[Breaking News: Famous News reporter Jason Barrew accused of sexual assault, court ordered immediate trial.]
[Breaking News: Valcruz Princess Jessica Valcruz’s business venture in America fails terribly, loss of ten million dollars.]
There was not even a single mention of the incident today, the reportors who flocked to take my pictures were either suddenly in prison accused of serious crimes or ….dead.
I took a sharp breath before a shock registered across my face.
This anonymous helper…it must be the work of Spanish Mafia.
Of Killian Arrows..
But why?
Chapter 6
The next morning arrived in silence where the servants were all aware of what happened yesterday and did not know how to approach me at all.
In an eerie silence I sat at the breakfast table, flipping through a magazine and eating my breakfast.
“The Arrows empire has said that they will not wait anymore, in three hours they will send someone to fetch you.”
Just like that a folder passed to me by my father who sat in front without a word for half an hour, his own food left untouched.
[TRANSFER OF ASSETS
SHARES: Athena Valcruz - 30% Valcruz shares
COMPENSATION: $50 million
PROPERTY: Seventeen estates.]
“I-I didn’t knew that you were going to marry Killian Arrows. Your grandmother suddenly made the transfer official and informed everyone just today.” he said softly. “I-I don’t hate you Athena, if you be a little more obedient-”
“I will not be here anymore to stop you from bringing your mistress home so go on and bring Jessica’s mother here with you and give her my mother’s place.”
Mason Valcruz flinched, the death of my mother was a sore subject and everyone acted as if she never even existed.
“With this we are no longer father and daughter Mr Valcruz. I am cutting off all our relations so live well with your mistress and daughter.”
My tone sliced through the atmosphere making him open his mouth before if was clenched shut.
His shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t argue.
At the threshold of my room, Xander stood like a shadow refusing to leave, that slap would have made him rage for I dared to lay a hand on the heir to the Thorne empire but my words from yesterday made him feel as if he had crossed a limit…for that he took the slap without any complaints.
Xander’s eyes narrowed slightly as he scanned the boxes, the folded clothes and the empty perfume trays. His voice came low, frustrated when he saw picture albums thrown into the thrash along with silly journals that I used to write about my life.
“Athena you could have at least told me you were leaving. Now I have to wrap everything up in a rush.”
I didn’t respond.
“You always do this.” he muttered, frustration brewing. “No warning. No schedule. Just disappearing like the world is ending. What’s going on, Athena?”
I folded my last scarf and placed it gently into the trunk before facing him fully.
“I am leaving for a vacation.” I said, tone void of emotion. “You don’t have to follow me anymore.”
His brow furrowed, voice rising with disbelief.
“What are you talking about?” He knew I had a troubled medical history, having panic attacks and a fragile body so how could I be left alone without any supervision?
“We had a contract Athena, its my duty to follow you 24/7 and protect you from any sort of harm-”
“And yet you have failed. I don’t trust you to protect me anymore so the least you can do is follow my orders.”
At that moment I handed him a small velvet box wrapped in navy ribbon.
“Bring this gift to Jessica from me.” Xander opened the box and his body froze as if I had slapped him hard.
In it was the key of the jewelry chest the heiress of Valcruz family was given at childhood as a recognition of her status.
“This chest? I remember you crying when Miss Jessica wanted to even see it, claiming that you will die but never hand it over…… and now you are giving it away?”
“I was foolish to think such things holds any value, since Jessica likes it so much, she might as well have it.”
Xander looked at my bare face and stark black dress that covered every inch of my skin, no jewelry and nothing like the fiery dresses I used to wear.
I almost looked….unrecognizable.
For a second…just a second his mask cracked and his heart felt uncomfortable like a bad premonition.
His eyes trailed over me like he was seeing a ghost or maybe watching someone slip through his fingers while still standing in front of him.
“You can send me the location where I have to join you..” he said stiffly. “I will give this to Jessica first… and then come to you.”
He stood there searching my face for an answer that wasn’t coming. In silence I dismissed him.
“Go.” And he did.
An hour passed and I was standing infront of the cemetery, a private jet humming with quiet readiness behind me.
My mother’s photo reflecting on the stone as I laid down beautiful blooming red roses…a color she loved.
“Mom, I am getting married to the man called Beast and yet it feels half not bad.” I spoke gently, tears streaming down my face.
“I used to believe love looked like Xander but it was an illusion that I have discarded completely. From now on I will be happy no matter what.”
Five missed calls from my grandmother Victoria Valcruz reflected on my phone, seven from my biological father and more than hundred messages from my younger brothers who chose Jessica as their ‘favorite sister’ for I was just ‘too strict’.
[Xander: When are you leaving?]
[Xander: When is your flight Athena?]
{Xander: Send me the address.]
I smiled before taking out the sim card from my phone and tossing it aside, cutting all contacts with the so called family.
The pilot tipped his hat. “Miss Valcruz, we are ready for takeoff.”
I stepped into the aircraft without hesitation.
Farewell.
I no longer need you follow me Xander.
For I was leaving for ever.
