*** Counselling scene - You may read this Chapter as a quick recap or skip to the next Chapter ***
The counselling room was designed to be minimal. Neutral walls, soft lighting, and a faint scent of lavender that made it feel less like a clinic and more like a retreat.
Aveline’s heels clicked against the wooden floor as she entered, her poise unbroken, masking every turmoil. "Hello, Mr. Williams." Her voice was asured.
Psychologist Hugo Williams, a man in his late thirties, was standing by the water dispenser when he turned around and flashed a faint smile. "Please take a seat."
She walked towards the armchair by the window, sat down with elegance, and crossed her legs with quiet ease, keeping her bag at her side.
Hugo observed her as he set two glasses of water on the side table before taking his own seat. A notebook lay open on the chair arm, a pen resting between his fingers.
"I presu," he began, "you saw your ex-husband again..."
"Yes." Aveline’s response was short.
Hugo noted she still didn’t open up and answered to the point. So he asked, "What were you doing at that ti?"
"I had a eting with Theodore Marston. After it, I was calling my creative head from Grace & Bloom when I spotted him... across the street."
Hugo tilted his head. "And then? Did you run after him?"
"No." Her eyes flickered. "I kept watching him while I called my boyfriend. One of his n went after him and brought him out of the building. That’s when I saw... it wasn’t Damien Ashford."
He noticed the tremor in her voice and her finger twitching at the end. He tapped his pen gently, noting the way she didn’t insist on truly seeing Damien, that it was sobody else. The way she almost detached herself from her own words to accept what she saw.
"Alright. Then let’s begin with why you are still so deeply affected by Damien Ashford. Could you share from the beginning?"
"From the ti we t?" she asked softly.
"From the ti you heard about him. Your opinions, your thoughts, everything."
Aveline exhaled slowly. She leaned back, her hands folded neatly on her lap, acutely aware that Hugo was watching her every reaction.
"I might have heard his na a few tis after I returned to the country. I didn’t care much. I had seen n with far more power and charm. He wasn’t different to ." Her voice softened.
"The first ti I paid attention was when my mother spoke about him. She reminded I had been single for two years, and said an arranged marriage wasn’t taboo. My parents themselves had one. She wanted to consider it."
Her lips curved faintly, almost bitterly. "I don’t know if I was ready for marriage. I never truly went against my parents either. Since I was single, I wasn’t against it either. But I wasn’t ready to agree blindly. So I agreed to et him."
Her gaze drifted, recalling. "The first date was at a café. Simple, quiet. He was easy-going, ambitious, soft-spoken, and handso. I agreed to a second. The next ti, he picked up from ho and took to dinner. Not so grand spectacle with music and flowers. Just a calm evening with conversation. He told how he had been working since twenty-one, building himself without distraction. I took it as his inexperience in relationships.
He asked if I liked to do sothing. I told him I wanted to open an event managent company. Floral art fascinated . But my father never approved because he always wanted to enjoy my life, travel, look pretty, stay healthy, and relax."
Her fingers tightened slightly on her lap. "Damien encouraged . He said I should pursue it. And I... I took the bait."
Her expression hardened as she went on. "But the marriage ca with conditions. His family wanted it done in a month. They had reasons. Damien’s business travel, his brother-in-law’s visa issues, and his grandmother’s health. While trying to be understanding, we didn’t question it."
Then her voice stressed each word, as if those were the red flags: "And Damien himself wanted a private ceremony. Said he disliked crowds and dia exploiting family nas for their gain. My parents agreed, and I did too. I preferred privacy anyway."
She paused, her tone flattening. "After the wedding, he was never there. Late etings, business trips, events, conferences, whatnot.
Even at ho, we shared breakfasts before he left, and by the ti he returned, I would be asleep while waiting for him. Weekends were galas and client etings. We never t each other’s friends. No one knew we were married."
Hugo had heard of several deranged marriages in high society. This was new, but it wasn’t surprising. So he listened attentively without missing any details of her words and actions.
"Grace & Bloom existed only on paper. Each ti I showed him a project, he delayed it, dismissed it, and asked for changes. I thought he was guiding to perfection. Foolish of ."
Her throat tightened, but she didn’t falter. "Two months in, I woke up from a nightmare." A nightmare of two years into the hellish marriage, and betrayal.
"... I was scared to sleep alone again. I went downstairs to find him and heard him calling soone ’My love.’ He left in a rush. He had said he was never in a relationship. Then who was he talking to? I followed him. At Obsidian, I found him... with her. Another woman. I walked in on him having sex with her."
Aveline’s composure wavered for the first ti, her words soft but sharp. "That’s when it all made sense. The etings. The trips. The lies. He already had soone he loved."
She closed her eyes briefly. "I cried, yes. But I was haunted by questions. Why marry if he loves soone else? I was afraid to confront him outright. I stayed out with a friend that night to clear my thoughts. Then I started rebelling in small ways. I manipulated him into letting work at my father’s company. I pretended I knew nothing until I uncovered the truth."
Her teeth clenched. "He needed a piece of land that’s in my na. His ’marriage’ was nothing but a strategy for a twin tower project."
"Then I doubted him more. If he wanted that piece of land, he should have been treating like a queen, not ignoring by saying he was busy.
And I learned that the woman’s family held a huge land in the outskirts of Velmora. His dream project was planned to be built there. Damien loved no one. Both won were just his stepping stones."
Her voice lowered, chilling. "And then I got a post about his accomplice inside Laurent Industries. Then ca the slow poisoning. He found a scapegoat, but I didn’t reveal his involvent."
Her eyes sharpened. "I got my answers. He wouldn’t divorce easily. So I planned my divorce by collapsing his empire. When he signed, he thought I couldn’t live without him, and I would crawl back to him. He realized the truth too late. When he tried to use my friend against , I sent him to prison."
Silence hung between them when she finished. More than forty minutes had passed. Hugo slid the glass of water toward her. She drank slowly, steadying herself.
He studied her. "You were a woman who failed to see through his mask. And when you saw it, you stood against him. That’s it?"
Aveline gave a small nod. "Yeah."
False. It wasn’t that simple. If it was a matter of two months, she would have confronted him, and he would have done everything to keep her in his control.
However, her experience through two years of marriage before her regression had taught her a lot of things. It made her stronger because his betrayal ran deep.
Hugo asked, his tone deceptively gentle, "You spoke of two months. Why so precise? mories don’t usually mark themselves with such clean boundaries."
Aveline’s fingers curled against her lap. "I rember clearly when Damien wished a 2nd month anniversary. And how could I forget the day I witnessed him sleeping with another woman?"
It was the truth, but not the whole truth.
Hugo leaned forward, his tone firm but calm. "Ms. Laurent, I can’t help you unless you tell everything."
Aveline didn’t react. Wasn’t she believable enough?
How did he find out she was hiding sothing?
Hugo pointed out, "Though you started smoothly, after ntioning two months into the marriage, you began thinking before speaking. Your asured tone, your hesitation, it’s visible."
Hugo’s eyes lingered on her, sharp but not unkind. He tapped his pen once against the page.
"Your voice falters when it reaches certain points, Ms. Laurent. You speak, but stop yourself halfway, as if there’s more you’re holding back."
Aveline lowered her gaze. Her fingers laced together on her lap, too still, too controlled.
"There’s no sha in telling the truth," Hugo pressed, his tone even. "It’s only the two of us here. You’re not testifying in court, you’re not being judged by your loved ones. You’ve been carrying this for too long. Let it out."
Her throat tightened. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. The mories clawed at her, the nightmares, the poison, the betrayals that weren’t just affairs or land sches but things that blurred the lines of reality itself.
Nobody, not even Hugo, could ever believe she had traveled back in ti after dying. If she gave him the truth, he wouldn’t see it as the truth. He would think she was weaving illusions, retreating into fantasies because her husband neglected her. Worse, he might mark her as unwell, label her with disorders she didn’t have.
So she held herself steady, hiding the tremor in her chest behind a calm mask. "There’s nothing more," she murmured. "I’ve told you everything."
The words settled between them like a wall. Aveline kept her gaze steady, her posture unyielding, daring Hugo to push again.
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