The night he was marked was the night his body became a graveyard for his own dignity.
Isidore Davenant lay alone upon his bed, a bed far too grand for a man who had never known comfort. The satin sheets tangled around him like pale serpents, mocking the hollowness that had swallowed him whole. His round spectacles—slipped low across the bridge of his aristocratic nose—remained upon his face, as if the world itself had refused him even the privacy of blindness.
His hand, long and elegant, pressed against the slight swell of his lower abdomen, feeling the unrelenting pressure of another life coiled within. He trembled, not from weakness, but from the memory of the Alpha who had left him in ruins. Tristan Ashford. That name was a wound, a knife carved into his soul, and he whispered it now into the darkness, not as a plea, not as a prayer, but as venom dripping between clenched teeth.
"You will never touch me again," he rasped, each syllable a splinter of loathing. "You used me as though I were nothing…"
He loathed him—more than the dawn loathed the night, more than silence loathed the scream. To Tristan, it had been nothing: a drunken haze, a careless rut, a forgotten mark. To Isidore, it was everything. The shattering of his body, the theft of his choice, the chain around his future. He swore, in that moment of trembling solitude, that Tristan Ashford would never step again into the sanctuary of his life.
And yet, from the ashes of despair, a fragile light began to kindle.
The present. London Notting Hill, three years later.
"Rain slid down the vast glass walls of the Davenant penthouse in Kensington, each drop tracing the glittering skyline beyond. The city hummed below—sirens, engines, neon lights—but inside Isidore's private world, there was only the soft giggle of a child."
Julian. His Julian.
The boy sat upon the wide, luxurious bed, curls of pale beige falling into his wide eyes, his fingers tangled now in his mother's undone hair. He pulled at the silken strands with clumsy fascination, babbling in the language only children knew, until at last his voice found a question sharp enough to split his mother's heart.
"Mama… where is Daddy?"
The words were soft, but they struck like an iron bell. Isidore froze, the light beige of his eyes shattering into something far more fragile. Slowly, carefully, he gathered Julian into his arms, pressing the small body against his own chest as though the boy's warmth might mend the fractures within him. He could smell the faint sweetness of his son's hair—so much like his own—mingled with a hint of Tristan in the boy's gaze. It was unbearable.
He said nothing. His lips trembled but no sound came, only silence pressed tight against the ache in his throat. His Julian stared up at him, confusion softening into weariness. The child's lids fluttered, heavy with the weight of sleep, and he murmured again, this time barely a breath:
"Mama… I will wait for Daddy."
And then he was gone to dreams, clutching at the fabric of Isidore's shirt with one tiny hand.
Isidore bowed over him, placing kiss after kiss into the boy's hair, whispering words that were never meant for such small ears.
"No, darling. He does not deserve you."
The words dissolved into the silence of the room, into the restless hum of London beyond the glass. And as the gaslight flickered, illuminating both the mother's tears and the child's peaceful slumber, the world seemed to hold its breath—unaware that the fragile line between hatred and destiny had already been drawn.
That late afternoon, light slanted through the tall windows, spilling in golden stripes across polished marble floors. From the study, the muffled clatter of keystrokes echoed; Isidore Davenant, immaculate even in exhaustion, was buried in legal briefs that needed his sharp eye and sharper tongue. His world had long been reduced to documents, clients, and the small heartbeat that followed him everywhere—Julian.
In the living room, little Julian sat cross-legged on the wide rug, remote clasped tightly in his tiny hand as though it were a treasure. His curls framed his soft cheeks, and his round eyes blinked earnestly at the television screen. Beside him, the housemaid folded laundry with distracted efficiency, trusting the harmless glow of cartoons to keep the boy occupied.
But tonight, it wasn't a cartoon.
The screen flickered with roaring flames, smoke coiling upward like some dark cathedral roof collapsing. A crowd screamed and pointed, cameras jostling. And then—through the fire's hungry red—a figure appeared. Tall, broad-shouldered, a man whose very presence seemed carved out of myth. His arms cradled a coughing ten-year-old, his stride measured and steady as though danger bowed itself before him.
The cameras caught the blaze in his hair—red, tousled, glinting like embers—and those eyes. Those unmistakable light blue eyes, cool as winter skies and sharp enough to cut straight into memory. Tristan Ashford.
Julian's small mouth parted. He leaned forward, transfixed, watching the man on the screen as though the world had suddenly offered him magic.
"Ah a Daddy," he whispered to no one, clutching the remote closer. His heart thumped in the open innocence only a child knew.
The housemaid only glanced up, barely noticing the heroics blazing across the television.
It was then that Isidore's footsteps echoed, measured and poised, as he crossed the marble threshold into the living room. His round glasses caught the lamplight, a dignified armor for the fatigue shadowing his face. He barely looked before his voice, cold and clipped, cracked the silence.
"What is he watching?"
The housemaid startled upright, fumbling the laundry. On the screen, Tristan Ashford smiled for the flashing cameras, soot smeared across his jaw yet still breathtaking. The audience roared approval.
Isidore froze.
For a heartbeat, his pulse lurched violently in his chest. There he was—flesh, blood, and unbearable memory—though only a recording. The same man who had shattered his dignity, who had once pressed him down with careless hunger, who had walked away while Isidore's life collapsed inward. That smile—so dazzling to the world, so venomous to him—raked like claws down his spine.
Julian, oblivious, scrambled up from the rug, his tiny feet pattering across polished floorboards. He launched himself into Isidore's arms, the scent of milk and soap clinging to his hair. His little hands tugged at his mama's collar, eyes wide with excitement.
"Mama! Look—look! I want him to be my daddy!" Julian's voice tumbled with blabbering joy. "He's so big, and he saved the boy—I want him, Mama, I want him to lift me up high like that!"
Isidore's gaze snapped back to the television, rage blooming hot and poisonous in his chest. Tristan's face glowed larger than life on the screen, smiling as though he had never left behind wreckage, as though his touch had not marked Isidore with shame.
"Turn it off," Isidore hissed, his voice sharp as a whip.
The housemaid fumbled with the remote, hands shaking, and the screen blinked to black.
Julian blinked up at his mama, startled by the sudden anger but still clinging tight, his small arms looped around Isidore's neck. His nose rubbed clumsily against Isidore's cheek as though seeking reassurance.
Isidore pressed his son close, burying his fury under the weight of love. "Julian, my darling," he said, his voice trembling between steel and sorrow, "I am your only mama. And your mama doesn't need any man—any daddy—to take care of you." He tried to smile, though it cracked at the edges. "I will get you a teddy bear, as big as you, bigger if you like. But promise me—you won't ask again for a daddy."
Julian's brows furrowed, confusion clouding his young face. The concept of longing had bloomed in him, simple and pure, yet he did not understand the pain it stirred in his mother. Slowly, obediently, he nodded, still pressing his nose against Isidore's neck as if clinging would mend the unspoken wound.
Isidore kissed the crown of his son's curls, eyes shutting tightly as though the darkness might drown out the face that still glowed in his memory.
Tristan Ashford. Even after all these years, his shadow still reached into Isidore's carefully built sanctuary. And now—through the eyes of a child—he had entered again.
The housemaid, pale and rattled, gathered Julian into her arms, bowing quickly at Isidore's clipped words. "Keep him away from such things," he commanded, his voice soft yet thrumming with a force she dared not question. Julian wriggled against her shoulder, his gaze flicking once more toward the blank television as though the magic might reappear if he wished hard enough. Then the pair disappeared down the hall, leaving Isidore alone in the living room, the silence as suffocating as smoke.
He pressed his palms against his heart, inhaling deeply through the ache in his chest. The image lingered stubbornly: Tristan, smiling for the world, adored and untouchable, while Isidore himself was left with a wound that never healed. How cruel that fate should use his own child's eyes to conjure the ghost of that man.
The sharp trill of his mobile shattered the silence.
Isidore snatched it up, irritation already stiffening his spine. "Yes," he answered, his voice smooth, clipped, the professional armor sliding over raw nerves.
"Isidore," came his superior's genial tone, as though discussing weather rather than altering the course of Isidore's evening. "Have You seen the news, you see it haven't you? Tristan Ashford. The whole city's obsessed. That man's face is everywhere."
Isidore's grip tightened. His silence was its own brittle reply.
His superior chuckled. "Well, brace yourself. The board just confirmed—Ashford is signing with us. Imagine it: his name, our firm. The publicity alone will triple our standing. The man is too famous to ignore. This contract is gold, Isidore.
A beat of stunned quiet stretched long enough for the clock on the mantel to tick, each second louder, heavier.
Isidore's lips parted, but nothing came. Only the low rush of his own pulse in his ears, cold and furious. He clenched the phone tighter, the plastic creaking faintly under the pressure of his hand.
"I—" His voice caught, uncharacteristically unsteady. He swallowed, steadied it with sheer will. "That is… unexpected."
"Unexpected?" His superior laughed again, all warmth, all business. "It's brilliant, that's what it is. He arrives tomorrow afternoon to finalize. Don't be late, Isidore. We cannot afford to let this contract slip. Think of what it means for the company. Think of what it means for us."
The call ended with the cheerful efficiency of someone who had no idea they had just driven a knife into old flesh.
Isidore lowered the phone slowly, his knuckles white, his jaw rigid. The silence returned, but this time it throbbed with a darker weight.
Tristan Ashford.
The name pulsed like venom. It wasn't enough that the man haunted his memories, wasn't enough that he lived larger-than-life across billboards and glowing screens. Now he would walk into Isidore's professional sphere, intruding on the one domain where he had carved his independence, where he had clawed dignity back with tooth and nail.
His stomach twisted. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would see those light blue eyes again—not framed by fire on a television, but across a polished boardroom table.
What more could fate possibly strip from him?
He pressed his hand to his abdomen—an old, instinctive gesture, one born from a night he never allowed himself to relive. His round glasses slid slightly down his nose as he lowered his head, whispering under his breath, not for anyone but the walls to hear.
"Why? Wasn't it enough?"
The empty room gave no answer. Only the rain outside answered him, streaking down the glass like silent tears, as though the city itself wept in sympathy.
Isidore lowered the phone with a hand that trembled despite his iron will. He could not fathom why fate, ever merciless, had chosen to twist its knife once more. To see those eyes again—
those blue eyes, mercilessly that had shattered his life without even knowing it—felt like punishment devised by the heavens themselves. His chest tightened, breath shallow, as if the very walls leaned in to suffocate him. For years he had built barriers of silence, of dignity, of solitude—and yet tomorrow, all of it would splinter beneath the weight of Tristan Ashford's gaze.