Regretfully Yours

One year later

The penthouse was quiet..just too quiet. Not the comforting kind that wraps around you like a robe at the close of a long day, but the claustrophobic kind. The kind that's holding you down and informing you something's off. Something's gone.

Leon Knight stood at the door like a statue, his muscles locked into place. His thousand-dollar finery remained undisturbed, but inside everything came apart. He loosened the silk tie at his neck, hoping to loosen some of the congestion squeezing his throat shut. It did not. Nothing did.

She had gone.

Her presence clung everywhere, suggested by gestures and indefinable cues. Her corner desk, once a busy place with scribbled sticky notes on the walls, pastel-colored writing pens, and lukewarm cups of tea, sat vacant. The couch where she would sprawl after long meetings, book clutched in her hands, glasses slipping down her nose-it still lay untouched, the pillows firm and unyielding. Even the tea-stained mug he complained about using, the one she wouldn't let him get rid of no matter how awful it was, was cleared from the kitchen sink.

All traces of her-vanished.

All except one.

On the dining table was an envelope. Cream. Thoughtfully placed. His name, penned in her delicate script on the outside:

Leon.

He didn't need to open it.

He already knew.

Divorce.

He stood there, regarding it. As if the word might turn, might collapse in on itself to be something kinder. A farewell note, a promise of return. But deep within himself, Leon knew she wasn't coming back. The woman who shared his name but never captured his heart-the same woman who endured his silence, his absence, his slashing indifference-she finally had walked away.

And what shocked him most wasn't the letter.

It was the vacant pain happening inside the hollow of his chest.

He did miss her.

Not the manner in which a man misses a tool or a convenience. No, not that way. He missed the roll of her eyes when he was being intolerable. The smile, even when there were unswept tears. The warmth of her presence-how it heated the room up even if she did not say a word.

He had missed her strength. How she stood her ground in board meetings, voicing ideas he once waved aside with a wave of his hand. The unspoken dignity she showed when he shunned her at dinner parties, stood her alone on their anniversary, or played deaf to the misery behind her plastered smiles.

She had tolerated it all.

Until she didn't.

And Leon, who built an empire of reason and control, discovered he had lost the one thing he never accounted for-her love.

Not stolen from him. But because he gave her every reason to let it go.

She entered his life as his secretary, quiet and concise, modest. But somewhere, along the course of time, she became other things. His wife. His rock. The only one to see the cracks beneath the clipped edges of his triumph.

And now she had left.

But it wasn't only her outfits, her books, or her fragrance that went with her.

She took with her something infinitely more precious.

His heart.

And for the first time in his life, Leon Knight had no clue what to do.

Except one thing.

He had to get her back.

Even if it was already too late.

Aria

I never thought that I'd be among those women-the ones who ended up with a man who didn't love them. But that's exactly what I did.

I am Aria Lane, an executive secretary to a pushy and egotistical boss: Leon Knight. Organized and Invisible...yup that's me. Until one day, I wasn't.

The morning started like any other. Coffee. Calendar updates. A dozen ignored pleasantries.

Then Leon Knight, my boss-the man who never gave a second glance to anyone unless it was in a mirror-called me to his office with an unreadable face.

"Close the door."

I did so, holding my notebook, ready for some legal briefing or PR emergency. What I got was an offer...one that wouldn't exactly give you butterflies.

"I need a wife." His voice was even. Cold. Like he was asking for a quarterly report, not a life partner.

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Should I place an ad or–"

"It's you I want"

"Huh?! Why me?"

"I trust you. You know how to take orders. You don't ask questions."

His words stung more than I expected. But I didn't show it.

"Why?" I asked, not because I didn't understand, but because I wanted to hear him talk.

"There's a catch in my inheritance. I have to be married before the end of this year or my status as CEO is audited. This is business, Aria. Contractual only."

"What if I refuse?"

"I'll get someone else. But I'd prefer someone I can trust.".

The silence hung there. I wasn't dumb. I recognized what this was. A year of standing by his side-publicly, privately-never really being his.

"I need time."

"You have until tomorrow."

That night I didn't sleep. My roommate, Ella, tried to make sense to me. "You can't marry a man like him, Aria. He'll ruin you."

Perhaps I was already broken. Or perhaps I simply wanted to feel important-even if it was a lie.

By morning, I had made up my mind.

"I'll do it," I said, standing before him like I had a spine of steel.

He signed the contract in front of me without even a flicker of feeling. "One year. No real relationship. We attend events, keep up appearances, and then we break up. You'll be compensated."

I put my signature after his.

And that was the beginning of my end.

---

We had a modest wedding. Reserved. More business than celebration. He did not kiss me at the altar. Not even a smile.

He locked himself in his study on our wedding night.

I cried myself to sleep in the guest room.

Weeks turned into days. The distance between us became a chasm. He never yelled. Never touched. Never asked how my day was.

We were wife and husband in name and paper only.

Except the world was fooled. Cameras loved us. Socialites envied me.

Golden couple on the outside. Housemates on the inside.

Behind closed doors, I was invisible in my own home.

He was gone most nights. When he was around, he barely even saw me. My heart shattered silently.

I'd leave him food in the fridge sometimes. He never even touched it.

One night, I tried to stand up for myself. "Leon...what's going on? Do you hate me?"

He looked up at his tablet. "Don't be so dramatic."

"Oh! Am I being dramatic now?

Look, I'm tired of pretending everything is okay!"

"We're doing precisely what we contracted to do."

"But I didn't contract to be invisible."

He remained silent.

Did he just air me?

What have I gotten myself into?

I never should have signed that useless contract.

I'm tired of all this.

---

I asked Ella to come meet me at the café so we could talk.

"Oh my God! Girl you've lost weight. What's happening? Don't tell me that coward beats you." Ella asked as she saw me.

I clamped down on a grin and smiled. My voice trembled as I recount to her everything that has happened; on the edge of crying.

"This isn't what love looks like, Aria." Ella said.

"I know," I whispered. "But it's what I chose."

"Girl I'm not gonna lie to you, this guy doesn't care about you and you need to leave him the hell alone". Ella said to me.

"I don't know. Maybe I can try giving him another chance right? Our anniversary is coming up" I said.

"Okay I've said mine but when you're ready to leave him, I'm here as usual ok?" She said pulling me in for a hug which made me shed crocodile tears.

I've really missed Ella.

The following day was our one year anniversary and I had to pass by the supermarket to purchase ingredients I'll be using in cooking.

Then our one-year anniversary came.

I cooked dinner. Wore a red dress he'd never seen.

I waited until midnight.

When the door finally opened, I stood in the hallway, tears overflowing.

He stood there, surprised. "Why are you still awake?"

"It's our anniversary."

He blinked. "Oh."

"That's all you can say?"

"I had meetings."

I let the dam break. "You don't even try to care anymore. I'm not your wife. I'm a goddamn wall."

He stepped forward, his jaw set. "You knew what this was."

"But I didn't know it would hurt so much."

He didn't say anything. And I realized at last that silence was all I was ever going to receive from him.

That night, I took Ella's advice and packed my bags.

He stood in the study pretending not to notice what was going on. Even if he wasn't, do I care?

I left before dawn.

But I didn't leave without doing something.

I left him the signed divorce papers on the dining table.

I didn't know if he'd care. I just knew I couldn't live like that anymore.

Leon

The penthouse was quieter than ever before. Not the quiet that was peaceful, but the quiet that drew you into its cold, vibrating hollowness. The quiet that screamed "she's gone" even though no voice was heard.

My footsteps bounced off the marble floor as I entered the house that had never, ever been home. Not until today. Not until I'd realized that I was accustomed to hearing her soft humming in the kitchen at midnight, the clicking of the heels down the hall, the scent of vanilla and lavender that clung to her everywhere.

And now...nothing.

I walked to the dining table, where a sleek white envelope sat like a time bomb. My name was written on it in the precise, careful handwriting I'd seen on countless legal documents. Aria Lane Knight. My wife. My secretary. My mistake.

I opened the envelope and unfolded the neatly signed divorce papers.

No note. No goodbye. Just her signature.

The air left my lungs.

"Is she really gone?" I breathed, falling into the chair as if the burden of it all lay in my chest.

It had started out as a game of tactics. I needed a wife for a year to flesh out my persona before I inherited the Knight Empire. Aria was dedicated, effective, unobtrusive. The ideal candidate. She had no family ties, no needy boyfriend, no drama.

She was also beautiful and lovely, too bad I never told her so.

And a year later, she'd left my life as silently and peacefully as she'd entered it.

But the situation is different now.

Because somehow without knowing, I had fallen in love with her.

And I never explained.

---

Our last weeks together haunted my memories.

She'd stopped humming.

She'd stopped smiling.

She barely even looked at me.

But I wrote it off, thinking it was just Aria being Aria. Cool, calm, unfeeling. I never thought to look further, never thought to ask why her eyes were not as bright or why she stayed longer in the guest room.

I never gave her anything more than I had to.

But I took everything.

Her time.

Her name.

Her body.

Her voice.

And now she is gone.

---

I closed my eyes, but she was all I could see.

The way she'd gazed at me on my wedding day-nervous, unsure, but hopeful. I hadn't spoken to her that truly mattered. I didn't even try. It was just a contract.

One year.

A contract.

And still, she'd given me more than I'd had a right to take.

When she'd walk into my office, cup of coffee in hand, herself impeccably dressed but her eyes continually scanning-for what, I hadn't the slightest. Perhaps something I never gave her. Perhaps something that I didn't know how to give until today.

Love.

Not the neat, cold one that arrived with contracts and conditions. But the one who took hands in the dark. That asked about your day. That reminded me of what her favorite tea was when she had cramps or how she hated sleeping in complete darkness.

The kind I never provided.

And the worse thing is, by the time I knew what I did, she was already gone.

---

The doorbell rang.

I stiffened.

My heart thudded in indiscriminate hope.

But it wasn't her.

It was my assistant, Carrie. She blinked, clearly shocked to see me looking like a ghost in my own house.

"Mr. Knight, I'm sorry-should I come back another time?"

I shook my head. "What do you want?"

"The investors would like a statement about your marital status. It's making waves on the web. Apparently Mrs. Knight was seen boarding a plane alone."

My teeth ground together. "Don't call her that."

Carrie winced. "Sir?"

"Don't call her Mrs. Knight. Not like it's nothing. Not like she was some piece."

Carrie nodded slowly. "Yes, sir."

Just as she was exiting, I yelled.

"Find her."

She paused. "What?"

"Find her. Whatever the price. Wherever she went. You have to find her"

Because I now knew something.

Aria may have departed with nothing more than signed papers.

But she also took everything that I didn't know I'd given her.

My heart.

And this time, I wasn't letting her off that easily.

Oh my! What a big mess I've made.