Chapter 3
364words
He stood paralyzed, the sensation under his fingertips terrifyingly vivid. This scar shouldn't exist in his nineteen-year-old memories, yet it felt so familiar it made his heart race.
The moment he touched it, Ella's body violently trembled. She wrenched herself from his touch as if burned, recoiling like someone bitten by a snake.
"Seen enough?" She stepped back, covering her wrist protectively. For the first time, those ice-cold gray eyes betrayed a flash of panic.
Adrian's heart skipped. "How did you get that scar?" he blurted.
"It's none of your business." Ella turned away sharply, her voice colder and harder than usual—defensive.
Her defensiveness only convinced him there was a secret here. That intimate feeling—of having kissed this scar—lodged in his mind like a thorn.
"How is it not my business?" He advanced on her. "Ella, we're husband and wife! Don't I deserve to know about your past?"
At "husband and wife," Ella's shoulders trembled imperceptibly. She turned back, her face already reset to its perfect mask of mockery.
"Husband and wife?" She sneered, the laugh painfully jarring. "Adrian, don't forget—our marriage is nothing but a contract on paper. You play your role, I play mine. As for the rest, I advise you not to pry. It won't do either of us any good."
Her words hit like ice water, dousing the emotions that had just sparked within him.
Right. The agreement. How could he forget that between them existed only a cold transaction? The sympathy and curiosity he'd just felt was laughable.
"Fine." Adrian gritted his teeth, forcing out the words. Looking at her beautiful, frigid face, his chest tightened. "Miss Vance, remember what you said today."
With that, he stormed upstairs without looking back, throwing himself onto the cold guest room bed.
In the darkness, Adrian tossed restlessly, his mind replaying images of that silvery scar and Ella's frightened eyes.
He growled in frustration, grabbed his phone, and called Ethan.
"Ethan, I need you to investigate someone."
"Who?"
"Elara Vance." Adrian's voice dropped to a whisper. "I want to know everything about her, especially what happened to her twelve years ago."
***
