Chapter 95 Fractured Mirrors
Chapter 95 Fractured Mirrors
ROSEMARY
It felt like the silence in the penthouse had grown teeth.
It was now two weeks left on the contract, and the space between Julian and me now felt like a living wound - raw, pulsing, and refusing to heal.
I moved through the day like a ghost in my own empire, signing contracts, attending strategy sessions, and smiling for the cameras while my mind churned with questions I could not dare voice because I was too scared of the answers.
Nyra noticed, of course. She always did.
“You’re now carrying the weight of two empires on your shoulders,” she said during a quiet moment in my office, sliding a fresh espresso across the desk.
"And one very stubborn husband who won’t stop looking at you and treating you like you’re both his salvation and damnation.”
I managed a tired laugh.
“Ha. I guess so.”
But the truth was heavier. The texter’s messages had planted seeds of doubt that were blooming into something too venomous.
And Julian’s refusal to be fully honest was watering them daily.
JULIAN
My phone buzzed while I was reviewing the latest supplier reports in the guest room that I had unofficially been exiled to.
It was the unknown number again. This time it was not just words.
It was a screenshot of a folder labeled “Scarlet Archive.” Inside were dozens of images and short video clips.
Rosemary was in various disguises: long wigs, heavy makeup, and there was even one of her in a different city.
She was laughing sometimes, dancing, tangled with strangers in dimly lit rooms. One clip showed her in a red dress, her head thrown back in ecstasy as a man kissed her neck and danced with her.
My grip tightened on the phone until the screen creaked.
A fresh message from the number came in moments later:
"Are your eyes finally open now? Do you finally see the truth behind the person that you are married to?"
I typed back quickly, my pulse thundering:
"Who is this? If you have more, I’ll meet you and you will be rewarded very handsomely, I swear it. Name the time and place."
No reply came. At least not in that moment.
But the damage was done. The images burned behind my eyelids.
My wife - the same woman I was now desperately trying so hard to keep - had once lived a life of reckless freedom I had never imagined.
And now I had ammunition.
ROSEMARY
The fight started over something small.
I had asked him again about the night the contract began - asked him to tell me the real reason Mario had chosen that exact moment to cut off the black card.
Julian deflected, as always, charming his way around the truth with half smiles and carefully chosen words.
“You were not exactly innocent either,” he said suddenly, his voice low and sharp as a hidden blade.
I froze.
“What did you just say?”
He stepped closer, his eyes dark with a mixture of jealousy and something dangerously close to triumph.
“Your nights as Scarlet. All the clubs. All the masks. The men who got to see a version of you that I never did ... that you never showed me. You were not exactly the perfect Parisian heiress or princess back then, were you?”
The words landed like they were cruel punches. My cheeks burned with humiliation and rage.
“You dare use that against me?” I hissed, shoving at his chest.
"While you are still hiding whatever you signed? While you’re still protecting your father’s empire over ours and what we could build?”
The argument spiraled fast and ugly.
Wild acusations flew like shrapnel. He threw my past in my face while I threw his weakness with Mario back at him.
We were yelling at each other without even really thinking. We argued about almost everything - even Nyra - before finally arguing about his secrets against my growing distrust, and the way we had both pretended this marriage could ever be simple.
The air crackled with raw pain and unresolved desire, every word cutting deeper than the last.
“You never chose me,” I cried.
"Not really. You chose survival. You chose your father’s approval.”
“And you never fully let me in,” he shot back, his voice breaking.
“You keep waiting for me to fail so you can justify walking away from all of this when the contract ends."
The fight burned itself out eventually, leaving us both raw and exhausted, standing on opposite sides of the room like opposing armies after a brutal skirmish.
JULIAN
I looked at her - at the woman who had captured my heart from the very first meeting, while also having secrets of her own - and felt myself soften.
She did not ask for any of this. I did not, either. But at least, I was the son of Mario Dale and maybe attracting endless problems was just punishment from the universe for my father's sins.
But Rosemary?
She was innocent. She was the good and golden girl who was always supposed to be perfect and who eventually cracked. How was I supposed to betray this woman and put unfair power over her company in my father's hands?
ROSEMARY
I looked at him - the man that I had fallen for despite every warning and every precaution that I took - and felt my heart splinter.
“It's two weeks, Julian," I whispered to him.
“That is all that we have left. And I’m starting to wonder if there would really be anything left of us to save when this ends. Do you think there would be anything left?'
He didn’t reply - just kept on staring at me like he was trying to see into my soul.
The silence between us felt heavier than any scream could have been.