Ruslan... he looks at me like I’m poison. Maybe I am. Loneliness claws at me every hour. I miss the noise of the city, the anonymity of the club. Here, I’m invisible—yet trapped under his gaze.
Loneliness.
The word bled from the page, soaking into me like acid.
My mind supplied images I had refused to see at the time:
Elena curled into one corner of the vast library, knees drawn to her chest, dwarfed by furniture chosen to impress oligarchs and kings, not to comfort a young woman who had never belonged anywhere. Her reflection faint in the rain-streaked windows, watching the world outside move on without her.
I saw her padding barefoot into the kitchen long after midnight, careful not to wake anyone, brewing tea she never finished.
Sitting at the marble counter while the house slept, fingers wrapped around a cooling mug, whispering nothing into the silence because even the walls felt like witnesses.
Control, I had called it.
Order.
Discipline.
In truth, it had been isolation—clinical, deliberate, devastating.
I kept reading, each line tightening the vise around my chest.
Today I tried to talk to one of the maids. She smiled politely but hurried away. Am I that tainted? Or is it his shadow that scares them off? God, I just want someone to see me.
My vision blurred.
I scrubbed a hand down my face, smearing moisture I refused to acknowledge.
I had done that too. Without lifting a finger. My reputation, my presence, my silence—everything about me had warned the staff that she was untouchable. Dangerous by association. A wife in title only, stripped of protection.
The entries moved forward. Days bleeding into weeks.
The tone shifted—not lighter, but... complicated.
A fragile yearning threaded its way through the despair, tentative and ashamed, as though she were confessing a crime even to herself.
I watch him from afar.
The ink was smudged there, the sentence blurred where a tear must have fallen mid-word.
He’s so fierce. So commanding. Even in his anger, there’s something that pulls at me. Last night he stormed into the dining room, yelling at Petros about a deal gone wrong. His voice filled the room like thunder. I hid in the doorway, heart racing.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, guilt roaring in my ears.
Why does he affect me like this?
I should hate him—for forcing this marriage, for treating me like an enemy. But when he glances my way, even with that cold stare, I feel... alive.
Alive.
The word struck deeper than any accusation.
Yearning for what? she’d continued, the handwriting tighter now, more frantic.
A touch? A kind word? It’s pathetic, Elena. Stop.
I exhaled a sound that was half laugh, half sob.
