I will be the perfect wife this time

Chapter 146: The Long-Awaited Confession

• ​[Content Warning: Extreme emotional distress and physical assault. Reader discretion is advised.]

"To kill Mathias? Olivia, what on earth are you saying?"

Olivia bit her lower lip, her teeth digging into the flesh as she smoothed out the crumpled parchment once more. She swallowed hard, a wave of sheer, unadulterated dread washing over her. Her breath hitched, coming in ragged, shallow gasps, and her hands flew to her throat as if to pry away an invisible noose. The air in the room suddenly felt thin, suffocating, as though the very walls were closing in to stifle her.

She collapsed onto the sofa, her strength failing her.

Panic flared in Isabella’s eyes. She rushed to the decanter, pouring a glass of water with trembling hands before kneeling at Olivia’s side. "Olivia! Olivia, look at me! Are you alright? What is happening?"

Olivia took a shuddering breath and downed the water in a single, desperate gulp. The coolness seemed to tether her back to reality, dragging her from the brink of a breakdown. With a practiced, almost chilling efficiency, she wiped the terror from her features, masking her soul behind a pale, hollow smile.

"I am fine," she lied, her voice brittle. "In fact, I have never been better."

She turned her gaze toward Isabella’s fretful face, her eyes turning cold and dismissive. "I think it would be best if you left. It is nearly evening."

"What?" Isabella stammered, taken aback by the sudden shift.

"You heard me. Leave."

"Why? What has possessed you all of a sudden?"

"Nothing," Olivia snapped, the mask beginning to fray. "Just go."

Isabella set her jaw, her own stubbornness rising to meet Olivia’s wall of ice. "I will not go. I won’t leave you in this state, and I don’t care how much you shout—I am staying right here."

Olivia let out a sharp, mocking laugh that held no humor. "This suffocating concern you’re wrapping me in... perhaps it would be better served if you saved it for your husband."

Isabella froze. "What? What does Leon have to do with this? Did he say something to you?"

She searched Olivia’s face, a realization dawning on her. "So, the two of you truly did fight."

"We had a discussion," Olivia corrected dryly, her eyes narrowing. "Not a fight."

"Well, from the way he was speaking, it certainly didn’t seem like a mere ’discussion’ to him."

Olivia’s eyes flickered with a weary irritation. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Olivia began, her voice sharpening like a blade, "that I haven’t the faintest idea what idiocy you’ve committed, but your husband has convinced himself that you prefer my company to his."

Isabella’s breath hitched. "I... what?"

"Don’t look at me for answers. You were so busy preening, wagging your tail as you lectured me on how to handle Mathias, while your own marriage is a ruin. Now, do me a favor and get out of my sight. I wish to be alone. You wouldn’t want to give Leon more reason to be ’displeased,’ would you?"

Isabella stood frozen, the sting of the words leaving her breathless. She couldn’t fathom where she had stumbled, but the strength to argue had vanished. The thought that Leon viewed her with such resentment drained the very marrow from her bones. Without another word, she turned and fled the room.

Once the door clicked shut, Olivia slumped back, staring into the hollow silence of the chamber. The hours bled into one another as twilight gave way to a thick, oppressive night. She refused the evening meal, ignoring the servants’ anxious hovering. Finally, the silence was broken by a familiar cadence—footsteps she could recognize in her sleep.

The door opened. Mathias stood there, his expression a mask of chilly indifference. "Why did you not come down for dinner? Is there a problem? Do not tell me you took my words in the carriage to heart and decided to revert to your tiresome, childish antics."

Olivia did not rise. She merely looked at him, her gaze unnervingly cold, and patted the velvet cushion beside her. "Come, Mathias. Sit."

The request was strange, jarring against their usual friction, but he complied, lowering himself onto the sofa. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the parchment clutched in her hand. "What is it? What is that paper?"

Olivia didn’t answer. Instead, she set the note aside and moved toward him with a haunting slowness. She reached out, her arms encircling his chest, and pulled herself into him, burying her face against him in a silent, desperate embrace.

"Olivia? What has come over you?"

"Nothing," she murmured against his chest, her voice muffled but steady. "I am simply gathering the strength to confess something I have kept from you for months."

Mathias tensed, his body turning rigid beneath her touch. "A confession? What could you possibly mean?"

"I will tell you. But for now... let me just stay here for a few minutes."

Mathias slowly brought his arms around her, returning the embrace. Yet, even as they held each other, Olivia’s face remained as cold and unyielding as marble. She was not leaning into a husband; she was leaning into a pillar of stone, desperately seeking any shred of warmth she could scavenge from his presence.

After a long, hollow silence, she broke away and sat upright, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor as if she were forcing herself to swallow a cup of bitter regret.

"Well?" Mathias asked, his voice softening with a trace of unease. "What is it you wish to tell me, Olivia? If it is too difficult, you may keep it to yourself."

"No," she said, her voice dropping to a low, haunted register. "It is exactly the right time to say it."

"Say what?"

She took a jagged breath, her eyes glassing over with memories. "About a year and a half ago... perhaps longer, I cannot recall. No—let us go back to the very beginning. To the start of our marriage."

"I am listening."

"During those first two years..." she started, her hands beginning to tremble visibly.

"Go on."

"Do you remember when I used to return to my family’s estate?"

"I remember," he replied dryly. "You went quite often."

"One of those times..." Her voice cracked, a rare fissure in her armor. "One of those times, I was pregnant.

Ah, what?!!!!

I was only in the early weeks. I was going to tell you, but... things did not go as planned."

A bitter, hollow laugh escaped Mathias’s throat. "You’re kidding right? No way, you mean, Elias was not our first child?"

"No," she whispered, the word heavy with sorrow.

"Then what happened? Where is the child? Where did it go?"

"I lost it."

"Lost it what do you mean Olivia, How?" he demanded, his voice rising with a mixture of shock and dawning horror. "How did it happen, I ....I don’t understand?"

Olivia swallowed hard, the truth clawing its way out of her throat. "My father... he... he forced me to end it."

Mathias’s hands flew to her shoulders, his grip tightening until it was almost painful.

"How?" Mathias roared, his voice thick with a strangled, burgeoning horror. "How could he force you to lose a child?"

Olivia looked at him, her gaze so detached and glacial it was as if she were reciting the history of a stranger’s misery. "He kicked me," she said flatly. "He kicked my womb until the child was gone, that’s how it happened."

"He... he struck you?"

She didn’t answer. Her eyes fled from his, seeking sanctuary in a dark, distant corner of the room. The memory, visceral and jagged, clawed its way back to the surface, replaying behind her eyelids like a macabre theater.

*"You worthless slut!"* Roland’s voice had thundered through the study, echoing against the cold stone. "I sent you there to harvest secrets, and you return carrying a brat? Is this all you are capable of?"

The first boot had caught her in the stomach, folding her double. Then another followed, and another, rhythmic and brutal, drowning out her pathetic whimpers.

"Father, please!" she had gasped, clawing at the floorboards. "My baby... please, stop, I beg you!"

The assault continued, again and again, without a single metcy

Until Sirine had burst into the room, throwing herself at Roland’s back, her small hands catching on his heavy coat. "Roland, stop! You’re killing her! Please, let her go!"

Had it not been for Sirine’s frantic intervention, Olivia might have bled out then and there.Sirine had knelt to gather her into her arms, but Roland snared her by the hair, dragging her away with savage force.

"Get out!"he spat at Sirine. "I told you a thousand times not to involve yourself with this mindless fool!"

Sirine had screamed Olivia’s name, her voice fading as Roland hauled her from the room and slammed the heavy oak door with a final, bone-shaking thud.

Left in the oppressive silence, Olivia had tried to push herself up, every nerve in her abdomen screaming in agony. She looked down to find the floorboards slick and dark. With a trembling, blood-stained hand, she touched her belly, her breath hitching in a sob that fractured her soul.

"My baby... I’m sorry," she had whispered into the shadows. "Your mother is so sorry she couldn’t protect you." Then, the world had tilted, and she had slipped into the mercy of unconsciousness amidst the gore.

The sharp crack of a table splintering brought her back to the present.

Mathias had surged to his feet, a wild, kinetic energy radiating from him. He paced the room like a caged predator, suddenly lashing out with a kick that sent a small side table flying across the rug.

"He beat you?" Mathias turned to her, his eyes wild and shattered. "He beat you until you lost our son? Omg...No, fuck no, damn him to hell!"

He lunged forward, gripping her shoulders again, his fingers digging into her flesh as if trying to anchor himself. "Why? ....Olivia Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you tell me? Why, Olivia?"

"And would it have changed a single thing?" she countered, her voice as flat and unyielding as a frozen lake.

"Of course it would have!" Mathias roared, the veins in his neck bulging. "I am your husband! I was supposed to protect you, I suppose to protect our child!."

"My husband?" She reached up, slowly peeling his white-knuckled fingers from her shoulders as if she were discarding a pair of soiled gloves.

"Every time you looked at me, you made sure to remind me exactly whose daughter I was. You threw that bastard’s name in my face like a curse. What was I supposed to do, Mathias? I was torn between a husband who told me I was nothing but the spawn of a villain, who, as it turns out, isn’t even my father, and a monster who brainwashed me into believing I was his slave. Of course, I looked to him as my sanctuary, even while he was burning me alive in his hell."

Mathias turned away, pacing in frantic, jagged circles. The opulent room, once vast and grand, seemed to shrink around him, the walls pressing inward until the air felt like lead. Guilt, sharp and corrosive, began to gnaw at his very marrow. Meanwhile, Olivia remained seated with the terrifying stillness of a soldier who had lost so much they had simply run out of things to feel.

"Mathias, be still," she commanded quietly.

"Be still?" He whirled around to face her, his voice cracking. "How can you ask me for calm after what I’ve just heard? Olivia, do you even comprehend the magnitude of what you’ve told me?"

"It was a long time ago," she replied, her indifference more cutting than any scream.

His eyes welled with hot, stinging tears, his voice breaking into a fractured whisper. "Even if it is the past... it hurts. God, it hurts so much."

"Sit down."

He looked into her cold, dead eyes, stunned by her composure. "Sit?"

"This is only the beginning of the tale," she said, her voice dropping to a low, melodic thrum of impending doom. "You deserve to know everything that happened. It is your right to hear the rest."

"There is more?" he breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

"Unfortunately," she whispered, a ghost of a bitter smile haunting her lips, "yes."