Jaguar emerged from the bathroom with a radiant smile gracing his features, his lips brimming with an overwhelming euphoria his heart had never previously experienced; for their marriage was finally consummated, dissolving the long, freezing estrangement. Throughout his shower, he couldn't restrain the soft, clear laughter that erupted from within; his mind struggled to process that his obsession with Fati had escalated to such a profound level of devotion, and that simply possessing her heart and body could compel him to laugh with the spontaneous joy of a young boy granted his ultimate wish.
Yet, the most breathtaking and satisfying reality one that deeply placated his pride was the absolute purity he had uncovered the previous night; she had remained a spotless maiden throughout all those years! Despite her prolonged absence, her travels, her enforced distance, and despite the bitterness and rejection she had continuously hurled at him, she had never violated her sacred vow nor yielded herself to another. She had remained fiercely faithful to the ancient covenant of their marriage and her noble dignity.
He stepped out, drying his damp locks with a small towel, a larger white sheet secured snugly around his waist. He called out in a baritone dripping with warmth and affection,
- Fati... will you not awaken yet?
Yet, an absolute, heavy silence was the sole reply that met him. His gaze swept through the room, only for the stark reality to strike him: Fati had vanished!
The smile vanished instantly from his lips, his features cloaked in a sharp, dark grimace. There she was, fleeing from him yet again! Just as he had solidified the conviction last night that he had finally breached her innermost defenses and conquered her heart, she violently recoiled, pushing him into the abyss! Why did she act like this?! Why did she insist on reconstructing the walls every time warmth dissolved them?!
Striding with tense, heavy steps toward the nightstand, he retrieved his phone with a heart bracing for impact. His eyes snagged on her dry, muted text message that had arrived merely two minutes prior... the exact message that arrested his surging happiness and reignited the psychological war between them!
Jaguar stood before the expansive living room window, the white towel still secured around his waist, exposing his powerful, sculpted upper torso. He tracked her movements below as she crossed the street with hurried strides toward the opposite side. Retrieving his phone, he dialed her line; she received the call the exact moment she reached the outer plaza of the hospital. Rather than stepping inside immediately, she halted beneath his watchful gaze, elevating her head to study the elevated window panes. Yet, she was incapable of detecting his silhouette or penetrating the darkness behind the reflective crystal glass, whereas he could discern her clearly, registering every flustered nuance of her behavior.
Jaguar uttered in a low, quiet baritone laced with reproach and possessiveness,
- You vanished... Where have you gone?
She responded in a tone she fought desperately to stabilize, despite the frantic, echoing hammerings of her heart within her chest,
- To the hospital...
Jaguar narrowed his eyes, speaking in a raspy, frustrated voice,
- So... you are fleeing and engineering an escape yet again?
Fati fixated on the mirrored glass, striving to solidify her voice to strip it of all tension and agitation. She asserted with surface composure, walking toward the edge of a lush flowerbed blooming before the hospital entrance to take a seat,
- I merely learned from the best, hero... You are the one who routinely abandons and walks away.
Her venomous words struck Jaguar's ears, igniting the latent embers of wrath within his chest. Beginning to lose his characteristic, icy patience, he fired back in a sharp, protesting tone brimming with anguish:
- Once! It was a single, solitary time that I abandoned you in the past... How dare you claim that I do it continuously?
A suffocating, heavy silence blanketed the line for prolonged seconds, as Fati offered no immediate reply nor uttered a single word. Detecting her heavy quietude, Jaguar pursued in a tone where his characteristic coldness shattered, transforming into a low, anguished plea:
- A single time, Fati... I abandoned you to face things alone just once. Will you truly never forgive me for it?
Fati closed her eyes tightly as she sat on the stone border of the flowerbed before the hospital entrance, inhaling the floral-scented breeze to reconstruct her external composure. She then questioned in a tone as frozen as the ice of death yet far more agonizing than any screamed fury:
- Just once, Jaguar?! Are you genuinely certain of your claim... or has your mind simply mastered the art of erasing what you inflicted upon me?
Jaguar's breath hitched behind the crystalline reflective pane as he inquired with guarded apprehension,
- When else did I ever do so, save for that distant time?
It was then that Fati unsealed the dark vault of their agonizing history, methodically reciting her catalog of betrayals in a raspy, dry voice, as though reopening wounds that had never truly closed:
- On the night of our wedding... you abandoned me in the hall and walked away. Prior to our departure for our honeymoon... you refused to board the aircraft beside me, compelling me to fly entirely alone with a shattered spirit. In the hotel... the very night you finally arrived, you left me submerged in isolation, retreating to sleep in the living area. Upon our return... you abandoned me within that desolate mansion all by myself and vanished. When our grandfather collapsed, you rushed him to the hospital, leaving me behind for hours without bothering to answer my panicked phone calls! And when you finally returned... you struck me mercilessly, dragging me forcibly before my grandfather to make him draw his last breath in my presence, only to leave me with his corpse and depart once more. Even during the burial rites and funeral... you were nowhere to be found, completely absent throughout the wake
At that precise moment, Fati failed to restrain her voice from trembling and fracturing. Yet, swallowing the remnants of her wounded pride, she fixed her tear-rimmed eyes resolutely upon the grand, elevated window, as though penetrating the veil of the reflective glass to behold Jaguar concealed behind it with absolute clarity.
As for Jaguar, he wanted to tell her that he had been keeping his distance so as not to hurt her, but he stopped and chose simply to listen, letting her unburden herself so she could find relief.
She pursued in a voice dripping with bitterness and heartbreak:
- You were nowhere to be found after my father auctioned our home and left me without sustenance or funds for an entire week! You were absent... and ultimately, I was compelled to travel and depart into exile entirely alone without your presence... So precisely how many times did you abandon me to face fate alone, Jaguar?! Or shall I catalog for you what I endured throughout those six unforgiving years of starvation, illness, and bone-crushing exhaustion all while being, on paper, the wife of a billionaire who lacked the barest means for her daily bread?
Her words pierced Jaguar's ears like detonating shrapnel; he discerned from her raspy cadence that tears had begun to stream unrestrained down her cheeks. Speech abandoned his lips, stripping him of all capacity to articulate a defense; he comprehended with absolute clarity that he had destroyed her, and here she was, unleashing volcanoes of years-long silence upon him. He dug his nails viciously into the palms of his hands until they nearly bled, a dry lump constricting his throat. He longed to cry out his remorse, to implore her forgiveness... yet he realized with agonizing helplessness that absolution was utterly unattainable after all he had inflicted.
Just then, a passerby lady approached the flowerbed where Fati sat. Fati swiftly brushed her tears away with her characteristic dignity, offering a subtle greeting before raising the phone back to her ear to conclude the exchange in a clipped, decisive tone:
- However, Jaguar... you will never fathom how deeply you shattered me; therefore, do not bother yourself with asking, nor even attempting...
She exhaled a profound, chest-rending sigh, before delivering the ultimate, crushing blow that demolished his entire morning euphoria:
- Jaguar... forget that last night ever transpired at all
Silence paralyzed Jaguar's tongue for a fleeting handful of seconds, yet it did not endure. Gathering his ragged breaths, he declared in a resolute tone brimming with both defiance and desperate entreaty,
- No, Fati... I cannot forget, and I shall never erase it
She countered with a surface frost, striving to reconstruct her violated pride:
- Yet you must, Jaguar... because I extinguished every emotion that once bonded us together a very long time ago.
Jaguar pressed his fist against the reflective windowpane, uttering in a deep, darkened voice radiating with possessive fervor:
- I will awaken your feelings and fan their embers for me once more... precisely as transpired last night
Fati's breathing quickened, sensing the earth threatening to sway beneath her feet and her psychological ramparts nearing total collapse before the suffocating warmth of his possessive cadence. Rising hastily from the edge of the flowerbed, she advanced with hurried strides toward the hospital's primary portal, striving to terminate the tempest:
- I am disconnecting the call now, Jaguar... as I am about to step into my workplace.
Jaguar gripped his device tightly, interjecting rapidly in a tone fluctuating between desperate pleading and fierce possession, his lips uttering the ultimate word for the very first time with sweet hesitation:
- Fati... I will arrive to personally transport you to the mansion at eight... Wait for me, my... my beloved!
The echo of his final word struck her ears like a spellbound melody. At that exact instant, Fati's lips curved into a subtle, fluttering smile she failed to suppress a sweet radiance that illuminated her features for mere seconds. Yet, it evaporated as swiftly as it appeared, masked beneath a veil of rigid composure before she crossed the threshold of the hospital, vanishing from his gaze perched behind the elevated crystal glass.
A profound silence descended, leaving only the dull tone of the disconnected line echoing in his ear. Jaguar remained rooted behind the crystal reflective glass, his hand clutching the phone pressed against his ear, his intense gaze tracking her fading silhouette that had vanished seconds ago behind the hospital's automatic glass doors.
A sharp ache coiled within his heart, fused with a monumental resolve. Elevating his head with unyielding stature, he declared inwardly in a tone dripping with relentless obsession and absolute commitment:
"This time... I will never abandon you, Fati! I will be permanently present in your life, even if you continue to reject me and wage your war against me... I will cling to you, and I shall never grant you the chance to flee from me again!"