Chapter 32 Chapter 32: Rumors
Catherine’s P.O.V
I felt my face drain of color as soon as I heard Xavier’s words. My chest tightened and my hands itched to grab onto something, anything, to steady myself.
“What… what do you mean?” My voice came out hoarse, barely more than a whisper, and I hated myself for sounding so fragile. “What kind of rumors?”
Xavier didn’t even glance at me. He just kept talking, like I wasn’t even there. “Hunter… he’s always got this untouchable aura. You know? He’ll date someone for a couple of months, maybe longer if it works, but then he just moves on. And the weird part is… no one ever has bad blood with him. No one. He just leaves things clean, smooth, like he’s never really been there.”
I swallowed hard, my throat dry, and tried to make sense of the words without letting panic rise too fast.
“Okay… and?”
Xavier leaned back on his pillow, arms crossing over his chest, eyes distant like he was telling some story he’d told a hundred times. “But this time, it’s different. I heard… It's been almost three years. He’s supposedly been with this woman in secret. No one knew. And now, apparently… he’s in love. Like, for real and finally, he’s going to announce it to the world.”
The air left my lungs. My hands trembled, my knees felt weak. If I wasn’t already lying down, I probably would’ve collapsed by now. I wanted to speak, to say something, anything, but the words lodged themselves in my throat. My chest felt like it was being squeezed, like someone was crushing the air out of me.
“Three years?” I barely managed to whisper. “Are you… serious?”
Xavier nodded, still not meeting my eyes. “Yeah. I mean… it’s all rumors, you know? But every piece I’ve heard points the same way. He’s… happy. People are saying that he’s actually changed a lot but no one has really noticed until now.”
My breath came in shallow, uneven bursts. I could feel it…the absurdity of it, the utter ridiculousness. He and I had nothing. Nothing. Just that one forced kiss that neither of us had wanted. At least I hadn’t. And yet… Why did it feel like my heart was being ripped out from the inside? Why did I feel like the ground was crumbling beneath me, like my ribs were hollow and my chest was breaking apart?
“I… I don’t understand,” I murmured, my voice shaking. “Hunter… he… he’s in love? And he’s going to announce it?”
Xavier shrugged lightly, like shrugging made the weight any less real. “Yeah I guess so. People change. Or… maybe he just finally lets someone in. But whatever it is, it’s serious this time. He’s… committed.”
I pressed my hands to my thighs, trying to stop them from shaking. I felt breathless, my chest tight, and a sick, twisting feeling churned low in my stomach. It was ridiculous, completely irrational. He and I… we had nothing but every nerve in my body screamed that something had just shifted, that I’d lost something I didn’t even have.
“I…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I tried, tried to make my voice normal, but it cracked like dry wood.
I shook my head, not wanting to believe him, not wanting to believe any of it. My heart pounded so hard it hurt, my stomach felt hollowed out, and I couldn’t stop the thought repeating in my mind: Three years. Secret Relationship. In love with her.
And just like that, my chest ached with a weight I had no right to feel, because Hunter and I…we really had nothing between us. I should’ve known that Hunter was never going to change, that he was just toying with me all this time.
I should’ve seen it in the way he smiled, in the way he made promises he never intended to keep. And yet, even with all that, the sting of betrayal still cut deep, sharper than I expected. It wasn’t just disappointment…I felt like every lie, every touch, every word he’d ever given me had been a calculated move, and I had been nothing but a pawn in his game.
“Catherine,” Xavier’s voice broke through the fog of my thoughts. “Why are you so quiet? You’ve barely said a word.”
I forced a tired smile, trying to make my exhaustion believable. “I’m… so sleepy. I almost didn’t catch half of what you just said,” I lied, letting my voice be soft, almost breathless.
He chuckled, and the warmth in his laughter made my chest tighten. “You really should rest more,” he teased, leaning closer. Then, without hesitation, he kissed my cheek. Soft and gentle. Like a whisper against my skin.
Before I could even register it, his lips were on mine. It wasn’t Hunter’s raw, desperate passion, the kind that had once made me forget myself. Xavier’s kiss was careful, measured, tender, and it caught me off guard in the most disarming way. I pulled back quickly, shaking my head slightly.
“Not tonight,” I murmured, almost apologetically. “We… we can do this another night.”
He looked at me for a moment, reading the layers behind my words without pressing further. Instead, he simply nodded and settled beside me, letting me lean against him. No insistence, no push, just the quiet comfort of his presence.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Then we’ll wait.”
And there, in the stillness, I felt a strange sense of relief. Hunter might have broken my trust, but Xavier… Xavier reminded me that not every touch, every kiss, needed to hurt. As he held me in his arms, I closed my eyes and let myself breathe, knowing that this time, I wasn’t being played.
Xavier doesn’t push me for intimacy this time. I noticed that suddenly, but almost like an afterthought. Instead, he just pulls me closer, one arm firm around my waist, his chin settling lightly on the top of my head. No urgency. No hunger. Just… presence.
“Get some sleep,” he murmurs, voice already heavy.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, babe.”
I nod even though he can’t see it, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. His body relaxes against mine almost immediately, his breathing evening out far too quickly, like sleep has been waiting for him all along. Typical. I stay there, staring into the dark, listening to the quiet rhythm of him, and wishing my own mind would follow but it doesn’t.
Instead, Hunter’s voice slips in like it owns the place.
I shut my eyes tighter, my jaw clenching. “Idiot,” I whisper under my breath, though I don’t know if I mean him or myself.
Why would he say all of that? Why look at me like he knew something I didn’t, like he was standing ten steps ahead and enjoying the view? The past two days replay in fragments I don’t ask for…his pauses, his half-smiles, the way he spoke in riddles and then acted surprised when I wanted clarity.
“What was the point?” I murmur quietly into the dark. “Was it just to mess with me?”
Xavier shifts slightly in his sleep, his arm tightening around me like an answer I didn’t ask for. I swallow and keep my voice low.
“I don’t even know what you did,” I say, more firmly now, like Hunter might hear me wherever he is. “You don’t get to say things like that and walk away.”
But the truth burns worse than the anger. I let myself admit it, if only here, if only now.
“I believed you,” I whisper. “I fell for it. Again.”
The realization makes my chest ache. How easily I’d listened. How quickly doubt had rooted itself in me because of a few carefully chosen words. Lies and manipulations or maybe truths wrapped in cruelty…I don’t know, and I hate that I don’t know. I hate unanswered questions more than anything, hate how they linger and rot.
“Never again,” I tell myself, my voice shaking just a little. “I won’t let you do that to me again.”
Xavier breathes out slowly, deep and steady, completely unaware of the storm spiraling inches from his heart. I press my forehead into his chest, seeking something solid, something real. His warmth anchors me even as my thoughts refuse to settle, looping and looping until exhaustion finally dulls their edges.
Sleep takes me eventually…not gently, not peacefully but in fragments, restless and thin, tangled in Xavier’s arms while Hunter’s words echo faintly in the back of my mind, unanswered and unwanted.