Sweet Romance11 min read
How I Stayed — and How They Fell Apart
ButterPicks10 views
I woke up to the dark of the night and the soft, terrible hush of consequences. My dress lay in a ruined heap on the white rug; so did a shirt, a tie, a pair of trousers. Alcohol and heat had blurred the boundary between shame and relief. A man's steady breathing filled the room. I clung to his neck with arm so weak I could barely lift it.
"Isabel—" he breathed, and I tasted the name the way a person tastes safety.
"Shh," I murmured, because only silence could keep the fragile order of the moment. Only silence could make the chaos we've both skirted feel like a promise.
"Wake up!" a frantic voice from the hallway split the hush. "Isabel! Wake up—big trouble!"
I blinked into sunlight of a later day and a young man was nearly bouncing on the bed, panic written over his face. He looked like a child who'd been told the wrong kind of joke.
"What?" I said, my voice still cotton-soft. His hand shook mine.
"You do know you slept with my uncle last night? How can you even sleep?" he said. "She— he— that's ridiculous."
"Relax," I said, rolling to my side like it was nothing. "I slept. It's fine. It's just a man."
"Are you serious? He was crying, promising to break the engagement, and tonight he wanted to sign the papers—"
"Calm down, Luca," the man beside me said, laughing softly, and I felt the warmth of him deep in my ribs. "He's at the office. He won't sign anything rash."
I rubbed the faint bruises at my collarbone and smiled. "Tell him I'm changing my mind about the engagement. I'm not breaking it anymore."
Luca snatched at his hair. "You can't— you can't just—"
"You always panic," I teased, slipping on my scarf. "Call someone to fetch my car. I'm going to speak with him."
An hour later the car stopped beneath the banked columns of Mercier Industries. The building felt like a vault for the city's breath—that's what Alaric, my intended, always seemed to be: a governor of cold air and restraint. We went up in the elevator. Every secretary stood like a small court. Security scanned us. I rode the tension high like a kite.
"Isabel Vega," said the assistant who smoothed her skirt as we passed. "Mr. Mercier is with visitors. He can see you in five minutes."
"Thank you," I said, and put my hand to my hair like nothing was amiss.
The door opened. He looked up and the light drew him into something softer. For a second he was only a man who had been awake too late, whose face caught the glow.
"Isabel," he said, the single word flattening my composure for a beat. "Is there a reason you are here?"
"Yes," I said. I stepped forward and before I could think the little warmth inside me took over. I tumbled into his arms. "I changed my mind about the engagement. I don't want to break it."
Alaric's jaw tightened. "You were going to run, to refuse me—"
"None of that now," I answered, cheek pressed to his chest. "I think maybe... I think I might marry you."
He gazed at me in slow, opaque silence. "You mean that now? For real?"
"I mean it now." I looked up at him, and then I leaned in and kissed him, because courage comes in acts. He didn't step back. He never did. Instead, his hand pressed to my waist and his other hand found my fingers, holding them like a secret.
He let me sit in his office like a favored absurdity and left. I breathed and tried to remember why the last life had taught me to value so prudently the man who never wasted a word.
He returned in white shirt and black pants, unbuttoned sleeves rolled, jacket in his hands. He closed the office door and smiled, just then but only half, "Do you remember what you told me last night?"
"What?" I asked, because I had rehearsed a thousand acceptable lies for a thousand kinds of daylight.
"About the night. About how it felt." He stepped close. "Which part impressed you?"
"All of it," I said, and my heartbeat named the truth. "I don't remember details." My lie sounded like a love note.
"You mean to say you forgot."
"Maybe." I let my hair fall. I let my fingers toy with the lace at my collar. He smelled like cold coffee and a life that had never been mine before I kept it.
We had dinner at the old Mercier estate that night. My father—Grover Wood—watched us with the steady disappointment of a man who pretends to be neutral. My stepmother—Ludmila Hoffman—smiled as if my heart could be rerouted by manners. My sister, Annika Snyder, smiled too easily; it was the mockery that didn't reach the eyes.
"Isabel," Annika said later, syrup-thin, "you really came back?"
"Of course," I replied, tracing the rim of my spoon with my thumb. "I came back to stay."
Annika's smile didn't change. "We have a plan, remember? After tonight it's done. You'll sign, and you can leave with Luca."
"I remember," I said, but this time I meant other things I would not say.
At dinner I felt Alaric's fingers press against the small of my back beneath the table. The small touches that used to embarrass me now felt like anchors. "Two pieces of coconut pudding," he murmured. "Enough?"
"I want one." I leaned into him like a child.
Someone at the table coughed. "Isabel, have you thought about studying abroad?" my grandfather asked, as though marriage could be arranged with ivy programs. "It's good to broaden horizons."
"I have," I said, though my plans had nothing to do with classes or planes. "But I think, for now, I'm content here."
My words split the table like thrown linen. Annika's face lost color—she had been relying on that plan where I would elope and leave a mess that she would climb into. She wanted the messy freedom. I wanted a different messy: the one where I could keep Alaric's heart intact.
That night in the hall, when Annika led me upstairs with the pretense of helping me, her hand slipped into mine like a serpent. "This is still on," she whispered. "Tonight, you get caught with our brother—and Luca snaps the photos. Deep breath, Isabel. Play your scene."
"You are insane."
"Do it," she hissed, half triumph and half panic. "If you don't, everything falls apart."
I could feel the old life behind my ribs—the terrible ending where I had betrayed the man who loved me, been sold and used, misjudged and betrayed until the tide had taken me. I had died in water once because I had been foolish; I had promised myself I would not be foolish again.
"Fine," I said. "I'll play along. I'll go along with your farce—but I will not be your puppet. I will make sure you fall."
"You can't—" she said, but a daring bristled in her voice. "You won't have the courage."
I smiled the smile of someone who knew a different kind of courage—one that tasted like a ledger. "Annika, I might surprise you."
We went up the stairs and she shoved me toward the inner guest room. The door closed on a dark space, and a hand reached for me. The man inside was strong, violent, an animal of habit called Gunner Song. The door was shut and he circled us.
"Stay quiet," I told Annika with the kind of flatness that keeps a blade steady. She made a face and pushed the blame away from herself.
When the tumult broke out and the household rushed toward the second floor, the scene appeared to everyone as if I had been the one thrown into a trap. Annika sobbed and pointed.
"Isabel did it!" she cried, and her voice shuddered with practiced fear. "She pushed me inside!"
The Mercier house gathered into a storm. Faces hardened. My heart beat an old soldier's rhythm. I allowed them to think the world as they wanted for a while. There is power in other people's assumptions.
Alaric's defense was brutal in its stillness. He stood and moved in front of me like a wall of black silk. "Enough," he said. "Get the footage."
They called for the security tapes. Annika's stakes began to crack; her voice trembled. I let the cameras run and the truth be a blade I controlled.
"Look," I said to Alaric in the corridor, a whisper that carried like a bell. "Let them see."
He nodded, eyes unreadable, and in the room of a hundred glances we pulled the footage.
Annika's face went white as linen as the playback revealed the march of that night's truth: her pushing me toward the door; her staging; her faked clutching for effect. When the tape finished, the room tasted like iron, like a coin dropped into water.
"That girl lied," yelled someone. "She's shameless!"
Annika crumpled. "No—it's not—"
"Shut up," I said, soft as lead. "You made your choice."
At that moment Luca Svensson—who had been the crooked spear behind the plan with his photos and his blackmail—stepped forward to deny everything. "This is ridiculous. You—" his words fell flat as the room turned toward him.
"You were the one who manipulated her," I said. "You used promises. You used my naive past to push us apart. You wanted my father’s company shares."
He laughed a thin laugh. "And what proof do you have?"
"Proof?" I smiled, which felt like lighting a match in a dry hall. "You signed the transfer files, Luca. You met with my father's people to secure the documents. Faking evidence was small change."
He paled. "That's—"
"—enough to be illegal," Alaric said quietly. "And we have copies."
I watched the smile cave on Luca's face like an empty dome. People crowded, phones previously upraised clicked for clarity, and the first rupture widened into an avalanche.
Then I chose to let them fall publicly.
Punishment Scene — The Unraveling (public, 500+ words)
The banquet hall had been set for reconciliation—the kind of gilded room where families buy repentance with china. It became the stage for their reckoning. The room was keen with anticipation: directors, relatives, a scattering of reporters who smelled conflict like blood. My heart was a drummer; Alaric stood at my side, the slow tide at my back.
"Everyone," I said, and the room hushed like a lawn at dusk. "Tonight I want to speak. I want everyone to see the truth."
"Isabel—" my father began, but I raised a hand. Alaric's hand found mine, and never in all my lives had a grip been so comforting.
"I will show you how people who call themselves family—" I looked at Annika and Luca in turn, unflinching, "—betrayed me. I will not whisper this as a secret. I will tell it out loud."
A reporter moved, sensing the angle. Silverware clicked.
"I was supposed to be the victim in a story designed to remove my control," I said. "Annika staged an assault with the complicity of Luca Svensson. They planned to photograph my humiliation and sell those photos, blackmailing both me and Alaric into decisions that would cost my family a company. It was greed, plain and simple."
"That's a lie!" Annika shrieked, the sound of a cheap curtain snapping. "Isabel is crazy—"
"Watch this," I directed to the tech table. "Play the security footage from the hallway and the messages between Luca and Annika."
The projection lit the far wall. Two minutes, ten minutes, the tape showed Annika leaning into the frame, a hand shoved, a stifled laugh. Text messages scrolled in a gutter of the screen—her words to Luca, 'Are they there yet? Are you ready to take the photos?'"
Annika's face collapsed first—like a cheap mask falling away. She tried to speak, to claw for sympathy: "I—it's not—"
But the room had already shifted. Eyes that had once hovered with curiosity now stared with judgment. Some stared harder at Luca, whom they had seen as a quiet, eligible man. The messages exposed his side: "Prepare the photos. The transfer clause will be worth everything. No one will find out—"
You could see the timeline of their arrogance. Dreams, greed, the logistics of betrayal: how they had assumed the world would not look back at their scaffolding. The more the footage and messages played, the more colors slipped from their faces.
There was a window in the hall, and outside thunder rolled like an audience.
"You should be ashamed," someone called. "How could you use your own sister?"
Annika's jaw trembled. She rocked on her heels. "Please—please—" she begged, hands clasping a chair like a child clinging to a rock. "I didn't mean—"
"You meant everything," Alaric said, the voice low, the kind that makes the air go taut. "You meant all of it."
Luca tried to laugh, a brittle sound. "This is a set-up, a frame—"
"Give me the bank wire data," I said. "Show what you transferred, Luca. Or we give the account to the regulators."
"You can't—"
"Oh, I can and I will." I turned back to the projection. "I have copies. You should have thought about that before you decided to betray family."
The crowd drew breath, collectively. Phones streamed, faces recorded, and the staff at the banquet discreetly moved to seal exits while those who could not turn away stayed to witness a moral collapse. A few hands—even some of Annika's friends—found phones and uploaded the scene. The first wave of shares went out before any of them knew what was happening.
Annika's eyes became bright with a kind of animal fear. She stood and began to pace. "Please, Isabel, I was pressured! I only wanted—"
"You wanted to rise," I said. "At my expense."
"That's not fair," she wailed. "You took everything I had—"
"You took what you planned to take with greed," I said calm as water. "You exploited me because you thought I was predictable."
At that, an older director rose, a man who had watched many family squabbles in gilded rooms, and he spoke, "There are regulatory teams, lawyers...'"
"Annika," he said, "you are currently under investigation for fraud. Luca, you are suspected not only of complicity but of attempted extortion. You both are to remain where you are until the inquiry is completed. Security, please."
A hush: the kind you hear in hospitals. Both Annika and Luca were led away by security guards, faces blotched, mouths opening to form apologies that could not be taken back. They tried to beg, to promise, to reach out for sympathy that did not come.
Outside the hall, there were already reporters clustering, calls being made. People whispered about recorded messages, about the transfer clause Luca had attempted to secure. Their social world collapsed in real time: text chains that had once been cheerful now read like indictments. The humiliation was public; the proof had been shown to everyone present, then to the city, then to the internet.
Annika's reaction was an arc: pride, panic, pleading, then raw collapse. She tried to explain, tried to say she had been afraid, then sobbed as the cameras found the vulnerability she had once used as a tool. Luca's face, at first defiant, crumbled into disbelief. He mouthed apologies that sounded rehearsed. The people who had once smiled at him turned their backs, some whispering accusations, some already making calls to unfriend, to cut ties. Power shrinks quickly when the world sees the skeletons.
I did not dance on their ruin. I simply stood and let the room see what had been plotted. I said each sentence quietly, precisely, because the public undoing of their lies had to be clean—no melodrama, no petty cruelty. This was a settlement of accounts.
Around and after, the consequences spread: my father called his lawyers; my stepmother refused to look at the two; members of Luca's social circle texted to distance themselves. Annika was suspended from family affairs, forced to move out, and her friends who had been complicit began to receive polite but firm notices from legal teams.
Luca's company would eventually break contracts with him; some investors sent immediate notices. At least one director from Mercier Industries made a public statement: that predatory behavior would not be tolerated.
The most devastating part for them was the witnesses—the people who had once been indifferent became witnesses and narrators. They filmed, they posted, they talked. The story of betrayal could not be buried because everyone had seen it. The public eye does not pardon easily.
That evening, as Alaric and I walked out into the rain—he offered the collar of his jacket to me—the city was a blur of lights and quiet vindication. I did not feel triumphant in a tasteless way; I felt relief, the strange clean kindness that comes from righting a ledger.
I had used a sharp instrument to carve away rot. In return, I had Alaric's hand in mine and a clear future, not bought with blackmail but reclaimed with truth.
After the fallout, the world reorganized. Annika's friends found that their alliances were no longer safe. Some of them lost contracts; one of Annika's flatterers had his job suspended pending investigation. Luca's attempt to seize our family assets collapsed under the weight of the evidence, and as people turned their faces away, you could see how quickly envy becomes loneliness.
Back at the house, Alaric came to me and whispered, "You played a dangerous game."
"I did what I had to," I said. "And you stood with me."
"I always will," he said.
The months that followed were not a parade. There was work to do: lawsuits, control meetings, damage control for our companies. There was counseling for the wounds that had been opened. But crucially, there was truth.
We rebuilt the parts that needed rebuilding. We did it together. He was not the silent god I had once misread; he was a steady storm who guarded without spectacle. And with every loyalty proved, I learned to owe him less and choose him more.
We learned small things, too. The first time he offered to be gentle after a night where we misread each other's rhythms, he held my head and laughed softly. "You are impossibly stubborn," he said.
"And you are remarkably indulgent," I replied.
"Indulgent to the woman who lies awake and insists on loving me," he said.
"Promise you won't let me go," I said, because some bargains are more sacred than contracts.
"I promised you already," he said, and the way he said it made me believe it.
The ending of this part of my story is not the kind you can apply to everyone. It's not a line you can drop into a different life and expect it to fit. There are small tokens—his scarf still folded in the drawer, the faint violet bruise at my collarbone when the mood overwhelms restraint—that will always tell this particular story.
At times I still wake in the night and remember the tidal violence of my previous life. I still sometimes tremble at the memory of being betrayed into ruin. But the memory of being rescued by someone who refused to let me fall is stronger. I live because I decided to fight for the man who saved me once and without fail every day since.
The End
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