Chapter 65 Chapter 65: The Hidden Past Part 1
Cathy’s P.O.V
I pulled my hand back slowly. Not because I wanted to do that, but because his words had reached somewhere so unexpected inside me that my whole body needed a moment to catch up with what my ears had just heard. It almost felt like…he was speaking a different language entirely, a language I couldn’t understand.
"What do you really mean...when you say…you've been in love with me?" I asked.
The question came out careful, almost cautious, like I was afraid the answer might be something I had misunderstood. Like if I pushed too hard on it, it would turn out to be something else entirely.
Hunter didn't seem rattled by the question. He leaned back slightly, giving me room to breathe, and folded his hands loosely in his lap.
"There was a charity auction," he began. "About two years ago. You came with Xavier."
I remembered it. A cold evening in November, a grand ballroom full of people I barely knew, champagne I barely touched, and a bidding war over a painting I found neither interesting nor beautiful, the whole idea was really crazy.
I had spent most of that evening standing slightly behind Xavier, nodding when spoken to and checking the time more than I would ever admit to anyone.
"I remember that night," I said slowly.
"You stood out," Hunter said simply. "And not in the way most people try to stand out at those things. You weren't performing. You weren't working the room or angling for attention. You looked like you wanted to be somewhere else entirely." A quiet smile crossed his face. "And I thought, honestly, the same."
I stared at him, blinking.
"You were different from every woman in that room," he continued. "The ones who come to those events usually know exactly what they want and they aren't shy about it. The loudest bid, the most expensive lot, the biggest entrance. But you, you kept stepping back. When someone talked to you, you listened like you actually cared about what they were saying. When Xavier was being Xavier, you smoothed things over quietly and made it look effortless." He paused. "I noticed all of it."
"Hunter." I didn't know what I was going to say after his name. It just came out.
"I started paying attention after that," he said. "How you walked into a room like you didn't expect anyone to look at you. How you always positioned yourself a little away from the center of things. The way you talked to people, not at them." He looked at me steadily. "I wanted to know who you were."
I sat very still. There was a warmth moving through my chest that I didn't entirely know what to do with. Not discomfort exactly. More like the strange, slightly overwhelming feeling of being truly seen by someone and realizing it had been happening for far longer than you knew.
"I had no idea," I said quietly.
Hunter chuckled softly, a low and genuine sound. He reached over and lifted my hand and pressed his lips to the back of it, a light, unhurried gesture that made butterflies flutter quietly in my stomach.
"I wanted it that way," he said. "Because I knew my limits. You were Xavier's wife. Whatever I felt, that boundary existed and I respected it."
I looked down at my hand, still held loosely in his.
"So you just watched?" I asked.
"I paid attention," he said. "For a year, I watched Xavier too. Trying to find a reason to let it go, honestly. If he had been a good husband, if he had treated you the way you deserved, I would have walked away and kept my distance for good. Even if it meant swallowing my feelings for you." He let go of my hand gently and sat back. "For a while, he was. He seemed faithful. Attentive enough at least. I thought, alright, leave it alone. So I tried to."
"But then he changed," I whispered, knowing where this was going.
"Suddenly," Hunter agreed. "Like a switch had been flipped. He started moving differently, talking differently, spending time in places and with people that didn't make sense for a married man. And Caroline started appearing." He said her name without particular venom but without warmth either, just raw fact.
I exhaled slowly through my nose, my heart feeling heavy just at the thought of it.
Then something nudged at the back of my mind. A detail Hunter had told me in that coffee shop downtown while I went shopping for Caroline’s things. I had tried to not pay attention to it for so long that I had almost forgotten about it. I had filed it away and never pulled it back out.
Until now.
"Hunter," I said slowly. "Can you tell me why Xavier had to change colleges? You mentioned it that day…I remember. But you never told me the reason."
The shift in Hunter's face was small but it was there. Something behind his eyes became heavier. He was quiet for a moment, long enough that I almost told him he didn't have to answer. But then he exhaled, a long and careful breath, and ran a hand over his jaw.
"I knew I was going to have to say this eventually," he said. "I just didn't think it would be this soon."
My stomach tightened. "Tell me. Whatever it is. I need to know."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at the floor for a moment before he looked back up at me.
"Xavier had a girlfriend in high school," he said. "Her name was Sophia."
I had never heard that name before. Not once in all my years with Xavier, the name sounded strange, an anomaly. Xavier never really talked about his ex’s but I’d occasionally hear a name or two. But Sophia? Never.
"They had been together since around the middle of high school to the their first year in college," Hunter continued. "About three years in total. She was quiet, petite, the kind of person you'd describe as gentle. She had plans, a real future she was working toward. But by all accounts, she was completely devoted to him." He stopped for a moment. "And he was to her, or so everyone thought."
Three years? That was practically half the length of my relationship with Xavier. He had been with Sophia that long and never once mentioned her…almost like he had erased her. If she was with him till his first year of college…it meant I came into his life right after Sophia. Then why had he never once mentioned her name?
I watched Hunter’s face. It was serious now, the easy steadiness replaced by something that looked like genuine grief for a story that wasn't even his own.
"They ended up at the same college," he said. "Xavier may have had his parent’s money backing him, but Sophia earned a full scholarship. Things seemed fine at first. And then one night, Sophia went to his dorm room."
I didn't say anything, but something in the air of the apartment had changed. Even the city outside seemed quieter somehow. I held my breath, knowing that whatever came after…was going to change everything.
"She found him with two women," Hunter said, voice suddenly harsh. "Not one but two women, in his room, having sex."
The words hit me like something physical. I felt my lips part slightly but no sound came out. I thought about Sophia, this woman whose face I would never know, standing in a doorway and having her entire understanding of her relationship collapse in a single moment. Three years. She had given three years to Xavier, believed in him, built something with him in her mind and her heart. She had seen a future with him…
And he had treated all of her devotion like nothing, fucking around like a dog.
"She wasn't able to handle it," Hunter said, and his voice had dropped lower now. Quieter. The kind of quiet that comes when the words being spoken are heavy enough to change the shape of a room. "The betrayal was too much for her to take."
I looked at him. He met my eyes and held them. The silence that followed was absolute and intense.
I heard my own breathing. I heard the faint hum of the refrigerator in Hunter's kitchen. I heard the muffled sound of a car passing somewhere far below on the street. Everything felt very far away and very close at the same time. Like I was looking at the world through a prism.
"Did she move away?" I asked, voice trembling, even though a part of me already knew. The words felt strange in my mouth, like they didn't belong in this conversation, in this warm apartment, in this night that had already asked so much of me. “Please…tell me she just moved away? Or quit school? Anything! Hunter…”
Hunter shook his head, his eyes reflecting the grief he couldn’t voice.
"Sophia took her life, Cathy."