Dora feigned surprise, her eyes wide with mock innocence. "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't see you," she cooed, the corners of her mouth twitching into a sly grin that she quickly smoothed over. The air in the grand hallway of Xavier's opulent mansion felt charged-a battlefield of wills and hidden daggers. "At least she's fine, right?" Dora continued, her voice laced with venomous sweetness. "I mean, Cathleen couldn't bear you a son. Maybe you should marry the woman who was supposed to be your wife in the first place; don't you agree with me? It was just a girl. I don't know why she would faint because of a girl; maybe it was a boy. Why make a fuss over a dead girl?"
Xavier's jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing into icy slits as he stared at the conniving woman before him. "Mrs. Jackson," he called out, his voice low and dangerous.
"Yes," Dora answered too hastily, her heart leaping with the mistaken belief that this was her opening, her chance to push her daughter Avery into Xavier's arms and life.
"Do you have a son yourself? Are you even in a position to tell me what is better when you don't have a son?" He towered over her, his presence dominating the space.
Dora's smugness crumbled, the words slicing through her like razor-sharp claws. She could feel the ground threatening to give way beneath her.
"Get out of my house!" Xavier bellowed, his command reverberating off the marble walls. His rage was palpable, like a tempest that had been brewing beneath the surface of his cold exterior. He cursed himself for not seeing through Dora's facade sooner.
"Who is going to take care of Cathleen?" Dora's voice wavered in her last attempt to claw back some control. "I am the only one who can take care of her," she insisted, trying to weave a web of necessity around Xavier.
His laugh was dark, devoid of any humor. "I will take care of my wife, Mrs. Jackson. Get out!"
Defeated, Dora turned on her heel, her heels clicking sharply against the floor as she made her way to the guestroom. With hurried movements, she grabbed her luggage, each item tossed inside as a bitter reminder of her failed scheme. She left, her departure as swift as it was silent, retreating back to the Jackson house, where further plots would surely brew.
In the quiet aftermath, Xavier stood still, his mind a tumultuous sea of anger and sorrow. In his fortress of solitude, the echoes of Dora's taunts lingered, but they were nothing compared to the storm that awaited him beyond the door where his wife, his fierce, calculating Cathleen, lay in anguish.
Xavier's hand hovered over the doorknob, his knuckles whitening with tension. The air outside Cathleen's room was thick with unsaid words, a silent prelude to the storm he was about to enter. Dr. Martin, a grim sentinel at the door, shook his head gravely, his eyes narrowing with concern.
"I hope you know what you are doing, Knight," Martin warned in a hushed tone that carried the weight of dire predictions. "She is not well. I'm afraid she might start to lose it."
Xavier gave a terse nod, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he steeled himself and pushed the door open.
"Get out!" Cathleen's voice slashed through the silence like a blade, raw and ragged with grief. Her tear-streaked face contorted in pain as she recoiled from him, her body trembling with a visceral rage.
"Get out!" She ordered and went on, How could you?" The words left her lips in a scream, each syllable a bullet shot from the gun of her despair.
Xavier's heart clenched at the sight, the walls he had built around his emotions crumbling under the onslaught of her torment. He crossed the room in three long strides, pulling her into his arms despite her resistance. "Baby, please take it easy," he whispered, his voice cracking as he fought back his own tears.
"Take it easy?" Cathleen spat the words out with venom, her breath hitching between sobs. "How the fuck can I take anything easy when I don't know what happened to my baby?"
Her accusation hung in the air, a tangible force that threatened to suffocate him. Xavier felt her fists pounding against his chest, the rhythm of her despair beating against his heart.
"I only had the opportunity to see her on the sonar, Xavier," she choked out. "I wanted us to check the gender when I was nine months old, and now? Now I lost her, I lost my baby, and then I am told you took care of her?"
Each question was a lash, flaying open the wounds of their shared loss. "Why? Who gave you permission to take care of her without my concern? I was her mother; you could have at least let me see her."
Cathleen's voice broke, the dam of her composure giving way to a flood of anguish. Xavier felt the impact of her words deep in his marrow-a guilt that gnawed at his insides like cancer.
"You couldn't even let me see my daughter's face. Do you hate me that much because I couldn't keep her safe?" Her tears were a scalding rain, each drop searing his skin, branding him with the mark of their shared tragedy.
The room seemed to contract around them, the walls closing in with the weight of unspoken recriminations and sorrow too vast to be contained. At this moment, Xavier understood the true cost of his cold detachment-the price paid in broken hearts and shattered dreams. And yet, he held her tighter, as if his embrace could somehow piece back together the fragments of their fractured existence.
Xavier's voice was a hoarse whisper, the words barely escaping his lips. "Baby, I thought it would be difficult for you to see her, so I only took pictures of her before I buried her." He couldn't bear to look at Cathleen and witness the raw agony etched into her features. "I named her Isabella," he continued, feeling the weight of each syllable as if they were lead. "Bella."
Cathleen's cries pierced the stifling air of the room, each one sharper than the last. She choked on her grief, a visceral reaction that shook her entire frame. Her eyes, red and wild with torment, found Xavier's. A moment hung between them, taut as a wire.
"Cat, our daughter isn't coming back; I need you to be strong," he said, his plea falling on deaf ears. "She could have wanted you to be strong."
Slap!
The slap came fast and unexpectedly, the sound of it echoing off the walls like a gunshot. Cathleen's handprint bloomed across Xavier's face, red and damning. "This is all your fault," she spat out, venomously lacing her words. "The juice I drank tasted funny. Someone put something in that juice, and you are to be blamed for all this. What if it was Olivia? She might have given birth to your heir now, right? And you must be very happy since my daughter died."
"Cathlee Knight, stop it!" The sharpness in Xavier's tone matched the anger and despair that warred within him. "Bella was my daughter too," he growled, his jaw tightening. "Don't forget that. I lost my daughter too."
Her retort was merciless. "You just don't look like a man who has lost his daughter."
He tried to steady his voice to conceal the cracks forming in his facade. "I am trying my best here, Cat," Xavier insisted, the strain evident. "We need to be strong, strong... for Bella."
Cathleen's response was a broken wail. "I don't need to be strong; I want my daughter." Her legs gave way beneath her, and she collapsed onto the floor, her sobs wracking her body.
Xavier dropped to his knees beside her, reaching out to draw her into his arms. But Cathleen shoved him away, her grief morphing into fury and defiance. "No!" she screamed, her voice ragged. "I want my daughter!"
His attempts to comfort her were futile. Her pain was a chasm too deep to bridge, and her loss was a void that no words or embrace could fill. In her eyes, he saw not just the woman he'd vowed to protect but the embodiment of their shared devastation. And in that moment, Xavier realized that he had not only buried his daughter but also the fragile trust between him and Cathleen.