Chapter 4Back In My Own Body

On our wedding night, we were both clueless.

After a clumsy, agonizing ordeal, I literally passed out from the pain.

When I opened my eyes again, the bedroom was bathed in the warm, dim glow of a wall sconce. Nick was sitting right by the bed. He held a warm, damp towel, repeatedly wiping the cold sweat from my forehead. His movements were incredibly light, like he was afraid I would shatter.

Seeing me wake up, he let out a massive breath. But the relief lasted only a second before his brows slammed together again.

"Hazel, if it hurt that badly, why didn't you make a sound?"

I was already terrified of him. I yanked the duvet up to my chin, trembling. I nodded frantically, then shook my head just as fast.

He froze. He clamped his mouth shut and didn't say another word. He just sat there, his dark eyes quietly studying me for a long time. There was an emotion hidden in his gaze that I couldn't read.

It looked like regret. Or maybe something else entirely.

For the next entire month, he didn't lay a single finger on me.

At first, I felt like I had dodged a bullet. But soon, a different kind of terror crept in. Did I disgust him? Did he think marrying me was a bad deal? Was he going to throw me out on the street? After all, he only took me because he had no other choice.

After years of surviving in the Woods household as a punching bag, fawning and people-pleasing were my only survival tactics. I locked myself in my room, blushing fiercely as I spent a whole day researching online. Late that night, taking a massive gulp of air, I squeezed my way into his slightly ajar bathroom door.

That night, I passed out three more times. Though, this time, it definitely wasn't from the pain.

The floating chat insisted Nick was a block of ice that could never be melted. I thought the same at first. But as the days bled into months, I realized he was just cold on the outside.

Whenever he traveled for business, he would video call me a dozen times a day. Keeping a straight, serious face, he would report mundane details like how many slices of beef he had for lunch. A few times, I was too slow to answer. He would stubbornly claim it was fine, but through the screen, he was visibly sulking, fully convinced he was hiding it perfectly.

Every evening when he walked through the front door, he always had something in his hands. A slice of cake from a bakery, or a neatly wrapped bouquet of flowers. Rain or shine, he never missed a day, always tossing them on the counter with a feigned nonchalance. "Just picked it up by the road."

I never had a good sense of style. Even if I spent hours staring at the mirror, my outfits always looked like a messy disaster.

Nick would sit on the velvet sofa behind me, pretending to read his financial reports, acting like he didn't notice my struggle.

But the next morning, I would wake up to a perfectly folded outfit sitting on my nightstand. From the base layers to the coat, right down to the matching necklace and handbag. It was immaculately styled.

From that day on, it was like a switch flipped inside him. He tirelessly prepared my outfits every single morning, mixing up the styles day after day, acting like a stressed-out father dressing his toddler.