Chapter 154 154
Mathieu had fallen asleep on the couch, his small body curled into the cushions.
Damien scooped the boy into his arms with careful ease and carried him down the hall. He laid him in his bed, pulled the covers up to his chin, and lingered only long enough to make sure he was settled before quietly shutting the door. Then he retreated to his own room.
Jacqueline hadn’t known real sleep since the day she arrived. Her body ached for it, begged for the mercy of unconsciousness but fear held her hostage. The nightmares were merciless, and she had no sleeping pills, no antidepressants, nothing to quiet the chaos in her mind.
Long after midnight, she slipped out of her room.
She moved down the stairs softly and noticed Damien’s jacket draped over the couch. He was home.
She peeked into Mathieu’s room. He was sleeping peacefully.
In the kitchen, she opened the fridge and stared at its contents without really seeing them before pouring herself a glass of orange juice. Cradling it in her hand, she made her way to the porch her sanctuary in this house. It was tied to one beautiful memory and one terrible one, both etched too deeply to ignore.
She exhaled and lifted her gaze to the sky. The stars shimmered against the dark canvas above, and a thin crescent moon bathed the world in pale, tranquil light.
She took a sip.
A sharp gust of wind swept past her, raising goosebumps along her skin. She shivered but didn’t move. She just stood there, staring upward.
And then it began.
The emotions swelled too fast to contain. Within moments, tears slid silently down her face.
Jacqueline was never someone who wore her pain openly. To the world, she was laughter and warmth, always smiling, always talking. But beneath that brightness was a grief so heavy it threatened to crush her ribs from the inside.
She had never told anyone. Not her friends. Not anyone.
Her mother had been taken from her far too early, and from that moment on, she had learned how to suffer quietly. To endure. To bury.
No one knew the weight she carried. Everyone believed the mask. The endless chatter, the constant need to surround herself with her friends and her brother it was never about being social. It was about survival. She couldn’t bear being alone with her own thoughts.
In the mansion, Julien’s cruelty had hollowed her out. The pain had been so constant she’d grown numb to it.
But here?
Here she had time. Silence. Space to think.
And it was unraveling her.
She was dissecting her entire existence, thought after thought spiraling until she could barely breathe.
She had wanted to ask Damien to bring Charlotte and Eugénie. She missed them desperately. But he was hardly ever home and when he was, he kept his distance, avoiding her like she carried some contagious disease.
She took another sip of juice, though she could barely taste it. Her tears soaked through the fabric of the shirt she wore.
His shirt.
The same one.
She missed her friends their constant teasing, their ridiculous pranks, the way they filled every room with noise and life. After Mathieu, they were the most precious people she had.
Inside, Damien stirred.
His throat felt dry. He reached for the water bottle on his bedside table, only to find it empty. With a tired groan, he got up and stepped into the hallway then stopped.
He had turned off all the lights before going to bed, leaving only the stairway lamp on because he knew she was afraid of the dark.
So why was the kitchen light on?
He walked into the hall and caught her scent.
Without thinking, he followed it.
He stopped near the wall at the edge of the porch.
Jacqueline stood there barefoot, dressed in his shirt and a pair of sweats. The same shirt she had worn the night he kissed her.
Her hair spilled down her back, reaching her waist. She faced the sky, unaware of him.
He wondered if she had slept at all. He had noticed her awake more than once in the middle of the night.
He should leave.
That was what logic told him.
But he couldn’t move.
The wind toyed with her hair, lifting strands before she tucked them behind her ear. And suddenly he remembered how those silken strands had felt wrapped around his fist.
He stepped farther onto the porch, leaning against the wall behind her but at an angle where he could see her profile.
And his breath stalled.
She was crying.
Not just crying.
Breaking.
He almost strode forward immediately, ready to demand who or what had hurt her. But then he paused.
She was biting her lower lip so hard it had turned pale, as though she were swallowing down screams.
This wasn’t a fleeting sadness.
This was years of buried agony spilling out in silence.
He recognized it.
That kind of misery was vicious because you carried it alone. And the loneliness made it fester.
But seeing her like this so strong on the surface, yet splintering underneath twisted something deep inside him.
He wanted to wipe away her tears.
He wanted to gather her against him.
But he had no right.
He stared at her, his gaze heavy, burning.
Maybe she felt it.
Her head snapped toward him.
For a second, all the air left his lungs when their eyes met.
Her wide brown eyes glistened under the moonlight, wet and luminous.
But it wasn’t just the tears.
It was the vulnerability. The raw despair. The naked emotion that hit him straight in the chest.
She blinked quickly, looked away, and brushed at her cheeks. By the time she turned, she had pulled herself back together at least on the surface.
She moved to walk past him.
He caught her forearm.
“If you want… you can tell me,” he said quietly. “It might help.”
It was the same thing his mother had pleaded with him countless times. Words he had always ignored.
But right now, he couldn’t stand watching her shatter in silence.
She slipped her arm from his grip.
“I can handle myself,” she whispered.
Then, softer but steady, “I don’t want you doing something in the heat of the moment that you’ll regret later.”
She tried to step around him, but he blocked her path, his broad frame immovable.
“I never said I regretted it.”
Her eyes lifted to his.
She smiled but it was small. Fragile.
“Your eyes did,” she murmured.
Then she walked past him.
And the truth burned.
She didn’t believe him.