(Lucas' POV)
I knew something was wrong before anyone told me. The house always had a rhythm. Even before Clara arrived, it moved according to rules quiet footsteps at dawn, measured voices, doors opening and closing with purpose. I built it that way. Order was not a preference; it was a requirement. That morning, the rhythm was off. She hadn't come down for breakfast. At first, I dismissed it. She had learned quickly not to attract attention. Skipping a meal was inconsequential.
Yet the absence lingered. I finished my coffee untouched and stood, irritation coiling beneath my ribs. By the time I reached the corridor outside her room, I had already justified the intrusion in half a dozen ways.
Concern. Responsibility. Appearances.
Control.
I knocked once but there was no answer. I opened the door and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, hands folded in her lap. Perfectly still. As if she had been waiting.
"You didn't eat," I said.
She looked up slowly. "I wasn't hungry."
A lie.
Her face was too pale. Her eyes too sharp.
"You were seen with Julien Hart last night," I said flatly.
Her fingers tightened.
"I didn't hide it."
"No," I agreed. "You didn't."
That was the problem.
I crossed the room, stopping a few feet away. "You will not meet him again."
She lifted her chin. "You already said that."
"And yet here we are."
Her voice was calm when she replied. "You don't get to erase my existence because it makes you uncomfortable."
The words struck deeper than they should have. "You are protected here," I said. "You have everything you need." "Except freedom," she replied.
I felt something crack. "You confuse freedom with recklessness," I snapped. "You don't understand the kind of man Julien Hart is." Her eyes hardened. "And you do?"
"Yes," I said coldly. "I know exactly what he wants."
She stood. "So do I," she said. "He wants nothing from me.".
"You're naïve if you believe that." I argued, my anger boiling slowly. "And you're terrified," she countered softly. Silence roared between us. I turned away, jaw clenched. "This conversation is over," I said. "You'll remain on the estate until further notice."
Her breath caught. "You're grounding me?" she asked incredulously. "I'm protecting you." She laughed. The sound was thin and fractured.
"You're suffocating me." I turned back sharply. "You belong here." Her eyes widened. Neither of us spoke. I knew that very moment that I had crossed a line.
She stopped speaking to me after that. It was neither open nor rebellious. She just complied; which was worse. She followed instructions, attended events, ate meals in silence, smiled when required. The house regained its rhythm, but it felt hollow now, like a performance without music. She avoided me. And I found myself obsessively tracking her absence the way I once tracked market losses. Julien's name crept into my thoughts uninvited. The way she looked at him. The way she didn't look at me. I had always believed love was a liability.
Now I understood that neglect was far more dangerous.
Three days later, I snapped. She was in the garden when I found Clara, kneeling in the dirt, sleeves rolled up, hair pulled back carelessly. She looked… real. Untouched by my world. I hated that Julien had seen her like this. "You're not to be here alone," I said sharply. She didn't look up. "The staff is nearby." "That's not the point."
She finally turned to face me. "Then what is?" I struggled for control.
"You're becoming careless," I said. "Defiant."
She rose slowly. "I'm becoming myself."
I grabbed her wrist. It was not hard enough compared to my burning fury. Her breath hitched. "I will not have you undermining me," I said lowly. "Not in my house." She didn't pull away. She looked at our joined hands. Then back at me. "You don't touch me when you're angry," she said quietly. "You touch me when you're afraid."
The truth sliced clean through me.
I released her instantly.
She stepped back.
"I won't live like this," she continued. "Watching my words, my breath, and my thoughts."
"You won't leave," I said.
"Then I'll disappear," she replied.
"You won't dare to, even though your father is recovering, I am capable of doing things, you won't even want to imagine". I threatened. She looked at me sharply and said, "Try me and see, you wouldn't know what I am capable of doing unless you try it". The threat was quiet and devastating. She walked past me without another word. After she walked away from me in the garden, I did not follow.
That alone should have told me how badly I was losing. In the past, when something slipped beyond my control, I tightened my grip until it stopped moving. That was how business worked. How enemies learned their place. How chaos was neutralized. But she wasn't an acquisition and she wasn't an enemy. She was something far more dangerous. She was human.
That night, I stood alone in my study. The surveillance feed played silently on the wall.
She was in her room, sitting by the window, while reading. She was alive but still slipping away. Julien Hart had planted something dangerous in her; hope. And hope was harder to kill than rebellion.
I poured myself a drink and didn't touch it.
I remembered the boy I had been, watching my father lose everything because he trusted the wrong people. Because he loosened his grip. Never again, I had sworn.
"She is nothing to me, I just needed a role and she was there to provide. Nothing more." I reminded myself.
But standing there, watching my wife through a screen, I realized something far worse. I wasn't losing control because of Julien. I was losing it because I cared. And caring made me cruel because if I didn't tighten my hold then I might have to face the truth. That she was never mine to cage.
And that terrified me more than any rival ever could.