Chương 2
He looked surprised.
“You’re asking me?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the one everyone is pitying.”
Clara looked ahead.
“I don’t need their pity.”
A few seconds passed.
Then she added,
“But maybe you don’t either.”
Sebastian looked at her differently after that.
Not like a woman he had purchased.
Like someone he was trying to understand.
At the mansion that night, Clara expected a celebration.
There was none.
The house was enormous, but it felt empty.
The walls carried paintings worth more than her entire neighborhood.
The rooms looked untouched.
Even the flowers seemed arranged for people who never arrived.
Sebastian stopped outside the bedroom.
“You can take the bed.”
Clara blinked.
“I thought you said I would sleep somewhere else.”
“I changed my mind.”
“That quickly?”
His expression hardened.
“Don’t misunderstand.”
The coldness returned.
“This marriage exists because of a contract.”
Clara nodded.
“I know.”
“You don’t have to pretend to care about me.”
“I’m not pretending.”
He looked almost annoyed by that answer.
“Everyone pretends.”
“Maybe everyone you know does.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Sebastian turned away.
“Good night, Clara.”
She watched him leave the room.
Later, she discovered he slept in a different part of the house.
Not because he was rejecting her.
Because he had chosen to avoid making her uncomfortable.
The next morning, she found him struggling alone with a simple task.
His medication bottle had fallen onto the floor.
Before she could stop herself, she walked over and picked it up.
Sebastian immediately reached for it.
“I can do that.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you help?”
Clara handed him the bottle.
“Because you needed help.”
He looked at her for a long time.
“That’s not how people usually treat me.”
She wanted to ask what people usually did.
Instead, she simply said,
“Maybe people should.”
For the first time in years, Sebastian had no answer.
The following weeks became a strange arrangement neither of them knew how to name.
Clara learned the rhythm of Sebastian’s house before she learned the rhythm of his heart.
The staff arrived quietly every morning, carrying out their duties with the careful distance people often used around him.
They respected him, but they also feared him.
That difference bothered Clara.
Respect came from knowing someone.
Fear came from keeping them far away.
She began noticing small things that did not match the stories she had heard.
Sebastian remembered the names of every employee.
He knew which gardener had a daughter applying for college and which cook had been taking care of an injured husband.
He complained when people wasted money, but he paid medical bills without telling anyone.
He acted as though kindness embarrassed him.
One afternoon, Clara found him leaving an envelope on the desk of an employee who had quietly mentioned needing help.
When he noticed her watching, he immediately looked irritated.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“Why?”
“Because now you’ll think I’m a better person than I am.”
Clara leaned against the doorway.
“Maybe you’re afraid of that.”
His expression changed.
Only for a second.
Then the wall returned.
“You’ve been here three weeks.”
“Yes.”
“You think you understand me?”
“No.”
She walked closer.
“I think you don’t understand yourself.”
Sebastian looked away.
For some reason, that bothered him more than an insult would have.
The marriage had been supposed to be simple.
A transaction.
A contract.
A debt erased in exchange for a name beside his.
But Clara had started creating complications without trying.
She asked questions.
She noticed things.
She treated him like a person before she treated him like a husband.
That frightened him.
Because people who saw him clearly usually left.
The first person who broke through his defenses was also the first person who made him believe he could be hurt again.
His past had taught him that affection often came with conditions.
Before the money.
Before the mansion.
Before the headlines.
Sebastian had been a different man.
At twenty-six, he had been athletic, impatient, and convinced he could build anything if he worked hard enough.
He had inherited a struggling family company after his father’s sudden death.
Instead of selling it, he rebuilt it.
Years of pressure and neglect changed him.
He worked until he forgot how to stop.
He ate when he was stressed.
He ignored his health because he believed success could repair every wound.
It could not.
Then came the accident.
The scars on his face were not from birth.
They were reminders of the night everything changed.
But the public never cared about the details.
They saw a wealthy man with a damaged face and a larger body.
They created a story because stories were easier than truth.
Clara discovered pieces of that history slowly.
Never from Sebastian directly.
Always through moments.
A photograph turned face down on a shelf.
A business award he kept hidden inside a drawer.
A newspaper article he refused to throw away.
One evening, while looking for a charger in the library, Clara found an old picture behind a stack of books.
She picked it up before realizing she was holding something private.
The photograph showed Sebastian standing beside a group of young engineers.
He was smiling.
Not the controlled expression she knew.
A real smile.
He looked confident.
Alive.
When Sebastian entered the room, he stopped immediately.
His eyes went to the picture.
Clara lowered it.
“I’m sorry.”
He walked over and took it from her.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
“I forgot this was here.”
“You look happy.”
“I was.”
“What happened?”
The question was simple.
His answer was not.
“Life.”
Clara waited.
He looked at her.
Most people would have filled the silence for him.
She did not.
That was something he noticed about her.
She allowed silence to exist.
Finally, he placed the photograph back in the drawer.
“I used to think being successful meant nobody could hurt me.”
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“And now?”
“Now I know people can hurt you more when they know exactly what you have.”
