Chapter 21: Pity
Kian paused.
Isabella had never asked him that question before. In all the years they had been together, through the wedding, through her father’s death, through her losing her sight, she had never once questioned how he felt about her.
She had always been so sure of his devotion, so completely confident that he was hers. Hearing her ask it now, in that quiet, empty voice, felt strange and unnatural.
Kian smiled, leaning in closer until his breath brushed against her lips. "Of course I love you, Bella. That’s why you’re staying right here. I’m never letting you go."
Isabella turned her face away before his lips could touch hers.
"That doesn’t sound like love to me," she whispered.
Kian froze, his smile completely disappearing. His hand dropped from her face. "And what exactly sounds like love to you?"
Isabella looked straight ahead into the dark room.
"You letting me go," she said softly. "That’s love."
The room went dead silent. The only sound was the faint patter of rain against the window glass outside.
Kian stared at her, his jaw clenching so hard a small muscle twitched near his ear. "That isn’t going to happen, Bella."
Isabella closed her eyes, raising her thin hands to cover her face as a quiet sob broke from her throat.
She pulled her knees up, turning her back to him, shrinking into the pillows. "I don’t understand... Why are you doing this? I thought this is what you would have wanted..."
Kian frowned, his brows drawing together. "What I would have wanted? What are you talking about?"
"Please..." her voice was muffled behind her hands, thick with tears. "Just leave me alone. I want to be alone, Kian. Please."
Kian sat on the edge of the bed for a long moment, watching her shaking shoulders.
Her words bounced around inside his head, irritating him, confusing him, poking at something deep inside his mind that he couldn’t quite reach.
’What he would have wanted?’
Did she think he wanted to be cheated on? Did she think he wanted his name dragged through the mud? She was talking nonsense again. She was exhausted and out of her mind with stress.
He stood up from the bed, pulling "he duvet up over her shoulders to tuck her in.
"Get some sleep, Bella," Kian said quietly, his voice cold and flat once more. "We’ll talk more tomorrow."
She didn’t answer him. She didn’t move.
Kian turned around and walked out of the room, locking the heavy door firmly behind him with a sharp, final click.
Downstairs in his study, the room was cold.
Kian stood behind his desk, staring down at the polished wood. The house was quiet now, the servants long gone to their quarters, the guards posted silently at the end of the hallways.
His mind was a dark, tangled mess. He couldn’t sit down. He couldn’t rest. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Isabella turning her face away from him, heard her quiet, empty voice telling him that keeping her wasn’t love.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, his fingers tapping rapidly against the screen as he scrolled through his contacts until he reached a private number.
’Dr. Harrison — Specialist.’
It was the doctor who handled Isabella’s eye drops and medical treatments.
Kian’s thumb hovered over the call button.
A dark, terrifying thought crept into his mind, slow and quiet like poison spreading through water.
’If she couldn’t walk...’
If her legs didn’t work... she couldn’t run.
She couldn’t try to climb out of windows.
She couldn’t stumble over glass in the dark.
She wouldn’t be able to reach the door.
She would have to stay in bed, safe, warm, and entirely dependent on him. He could take care of her completely.
He could feed her, wash her, hold her, and keep her locked away from Aaron and the rest of the world forever.
A simple nerve-blocking injection. A small change in her prescription. No one would ever know.
His hand shook slightly as he pressed the call button, lifting the phone to his ear.
Ring...
Ring...
"Hello? Mr. Carter?" the doctor’s voice came through the speaker, heavy with sleep. "Is everything alright, sir?"
Kian stood frozen in the dark study, listening to the quiet hum of the line.
He pictured Isabella lying upstairs in the large bed, her small foot wrapped in white bandages, her blind eyes fixed on the ceiling.
He remembered the way she had cried out when he held her, the bright red blood spreading across the pale carpet.
He hated it.
He hated seeing her hurt.
The sight of her bleeding on the floor had made his stomach twist in a way that made him feel sick.
If he crippled her, if he caused her more physical pain, he would have to look at the damage every single day.
"Mr. Carter? Are you there?"
"Nevermind," Kian said flatly.
He hung up the phone instantly, tossing it onto the dark leather blotter on his desk. It slid across the wood, hitting the brass lamp with a loud clatter.
Kian sank into his heavy leather armchair, pulling his hand over his face.
No. He wasn’t going to hurt her like that. He wasn’t a monster. He just needed to be smarter.
He had been too aggressive, too sudden. He needed to ease her back into her place, break down her guard slowly until she realized that running away was impossible.
He stared out the tall window into the dark, rainy night.
Isabella was changing. The quiet, obedient girl who used to wait by the door for him to come home was gone, replaced by someone cold, distant, and completely unreadable.
Kian leaned his head back against the leather headrest, his eyes dark as he stared up at the high ceiling.
"Something happened to you, Bella," he whispered into the empty, silent room. "And I’m going to find out what it is."
..
One day later~
Alice paced across the soft rug of the high-rise apartment, her heels digging into the floor with sharp, angry thumps.
"I don’t get it," she snapped, turning sharply at the end of the room and walking right back the other way. Her arms were tightly crossed over her chest. "It makes no sense. Not a single bit of it."
On the king-sized bed, her friend Vivienne lay sprawled on her stomach, her legs lazily kicking the air behind her as she scrolled through her tablet.
The television mounted on the living room wall was muted, but Kian’s face was still plastered across the screen from the morning’s press conference.
"I mean, say what you want about the situation," Vivienne said, pausing her scrolling to glance up at the screen. She hummed softly, tilting her head.
"The man is painfully handsome. Look at him. He didn’t even sweat out there. If I had a husband who looked like that, I wouldn’t cheat on him."
"Shut up, Vivienne !" Alice hissed, glaring at her with venom. "I’m serious!"
Vivienne rolled her eyes, shifting her weight onto her elbows.
"Alice, calm down. You’re going to wear a hole in my rug. What is getting you so worked up? He handled the press. He made her look like the unstable one. Isn’t that what you wanted?"
"No!" Alice threw her hands in the air, her face flushed with frustration.
"He was handed a golden platter today, Vivienne ! A gift! Isabella handed him the cleanest, easiest way out of that marriage. She publicly admitted to sleeping with Aaron Kazarov. All Kian had to do was step up to that podium, put on a heartbroken face, and announce the divorce!"
She stopped near the large glass window, staring out at the city below, her heart beating fast against her ribs.
"Think about it," Alice continued, her voice trembling with anger.
"If he divorced her today, no one would have questioned it. Everyone would pity him! He could have walked away with her money, her estate, her father’s company, and not a single person would ask a single question. We could have been together out in the open in six months! Instead, he goes up there and tells the whole damn world they’re staying together?"
Vivienne set her tablet face down on the duvet. "So what do you think is going on? You think he’s suddenly grown a heart?"
"No," Alice muttered, though the word tasted sour in her mouth.
That was the thought that had been eating at her since that night, the terrifying little seed of doubt planted in her mind when she saw Kian walking up the stairs carrying flowers and pastries for a blind girl locked in a dark room.
Kian had always been a quiet man.
He didn’t lose his temper easily, and sometimes, if you didn’t know him, his patience could look like kindness.
Alice knew he pitied Isabella.
He had felt bad for her after her father died, and even worse when she completely lost her sight.
But pity was supposed to have limits. Pity wasn’t supposed to stop him from taking everything they had worked for.
"Maybe he just feels sorry for her," Alice said, trying to convince herself as much as her friend.
"He’s always been soft like that with people who can’t fight back. He sees her as a helpless little charity case. He probably thinks throwing her out right now makes him look like a bully."
"Or," Vivienne said softly, a slow, teasing smirk spreading across her lips as she leaned back against her pillows, "should I tell you what’s really going on?"
Alice’s eyes narrowed. "Don’t start—"
Before she could finish her sentence, her phone buzzed loudly on the glass coffee table.