Chapter 190 CHAPTER 190
Because If I Don’t…
Tessa had held herself together for days, tight, controlled, stitched by willpower and the stubborn belief that she needed to stay calm for the children. Marcus’ mansion felt too large, every hallway echoing sadness.
Marcus’ scent still clung to the curtains. His shoes still sat near the foyer. His handwriting still marked notes on the kitchen counter as if he were returning. The silence pressed against her chest, squeezing her breath until her ribs ached.
But Ayisha’s voice had not helped. It had chipped at her, pushed at her, filled her head with thoughts she wasn’t ready to consider. Ayisha wasn’t malicious, she was just loud, bold, unfiltered, always speaking what Tessa wasn’t brave enough to vocalize. And today, Ayisha’s words had landed like cracks on a fragile surface.
“You’re his widow, Tessa. His actual widow. You have rights. You have access. You have ownership, stop sulking. You won.”
Tessa had tried to focus, tried to answer calmly, tried to reason with the barrage of suggestions, but her heart was not steady. Her mind wasn’t steady. And as the minutes passed, Marcus’ absence felt heavier instead of lighter. The walls seemed to close in.
The children’s laughter, usually grounding, echoed faintly from the backyard as they played with their nanny, a reminder that she was supposed to be strong. She wasn’t strong today. She was unraveling.
By the time Ayisha grabbed her shoulders to emphasize another point, Tessa’s chest tightened too sharply, too suddenly. A tremor moved through her fingers. A deep, unexpected pressure burned behind her eyes. She didn’t know when her breath started coming too fast, but once it did, she couldn’t stop it.
“Tessa? Babe, breathe,” Ayisha said, startled.
But Tessa couldn’t stay in Marcus’ house another second. She couldn’t sit in his chair or walk past his study or hear his name echo in her mind. She couldn’t handle Ayisha pushing ideas into her skull like nails. She couldn’t bear the feeling that she was drowning in memories she did not ask for.
She snapped. Not a small snap, a fracture that had been forming for years. She grabbed her keys. Ayisha tried to stop her, but Tessa pulled away.
“Tessa, where are you going?”
But Tessa didn’t answer, she needed air. She needed answers. She needed him.
The anger had been building since the day he told her she was responsible for his parents’ deaths. Since he refused to entertain a test. Since he walked around with that cold gaze, with that stiff jaw, with that unmovable hate lodged inside him like stone.
Ares hated her. She felt it every time he looked her way. And today she was done pretending she did not feel the weight of his resentment crushing her.
She drove to his mansion in under ten minutes, barely aware of the streetlights or the turns she took. Her palms were sweaty on the steering wheel. Her heartbeat was too loud, too violent in her ears. When she reached Ares’ mansion, she didn’t knock.
She didn’t text. She didn’t wait. She slammed the door open so hard it hit the wall and bounced. That alone startled the guards, who stiffened but recognized her. None dared to stop her. Not with the wild, broken fury blazing in her eyes.
Her voice tore through the quiet foyer before she even saw him.
“Ares!”
He was in the living room, halfway through reading a stack of documents. The moment he heard her voice which was raw, cracked, ragged, he rose to his feet immediately.
“Tessa?”
She marched toward him, fists clenched, chest heaving as if she had run miles. He had never seen her like this. Not once. Not even during their worst confrontations.
“You want to blame me for everything?!” she screamed. The words flew out sharp and trembling. “You want to carry that hate like a badge? Fine! But you will hear me today!”
Ares’ brows tightened. His expression shifted, confusion flashing before his usual guardedness returned.
“Tessa….”
“NO!” Her voice tore from someplace deep inside her, a place she had kept quiet for too long. “You won’t shut me up. Not today.”
Her hands shook. Tears burned her eyes but she blinked hard, refusing to let them fall. She wasn’t here to beg. She wasn’t here to plead innocence. She was here because she couldn’t carry the weight of someone else’s hatred anymore.
“You blame me for your parents’ death,” she said, her voice cracking. “You won’t look at me. You won’t speak to me like a human. You’ve punished me for something I don’t even understand, something I lived through, something that scarred me, something that nearly broke me!”
Ares opened his mouth but she spoke over him again.
“You’ve treated me like a curse! Like something you need to survive through, not someone with actual feelings, actual pain!” She wiped her face angrily. “Do you think this is easy for me? Do you think any of this ANY OF THIS…is easy?”
Ares took one step toward her, but she stepped back sharply as if his presence burned.
“You think I killed your parents,” she choked out. “You think every bad thing in your life is tied to me. You think I woke up every morning plotting your downfall.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper, trembling.
“Why? Why me? Why have you made me carry this blame alone?”
Ares’ jaw tightened, but for the first time, his stare faltered.
Tessa pressed a palm to her chest, as if trying to keep her heart from falling out.
“I have tried,” she whispered. “I’ve tried to stay calm, stay strong, be reasonable, be quiet, rise above everything. But today, today I can’t. You found out the kids are yours, you couldn’t even come to claim them, instead you brought lawyers to read a will…why? You used to love those kids so much. You said you loved me…we didn’t beg you to be in your life, your forced us into your life and blamed us for the consequences of your younger self.”
The tears she had been holding finally escaped, sliding down her cheeks in shaky streams.
She looked at him, not with anger now, but with something so raw he felt it like a punch.
“Why do you hate me so much?”
The room fell silent.
Ares stood before her, this man who never bent, never showed anything beyond control…lost. Utterly lost.
Her question sliced through every wall he had built around himself. And for a moment, he looked like he couldn’t breathe.
Tessa swallowed.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me why you hate me.”
Ares’ throat bobbed. He stared at her as if she had peeled open something he had spent years burying.
He took a slow step closer, not aggressively, not confidently, but carefully, like he was approaching a wounded creature he himself had wounded.
When he spoke, his voice was barely air.
“Because if I don’t…”
He swallowed hard, eyes glistening in a way she had never seen before.
“Because if I don’t, I will forgive you.”