Chapter 28: Domestic Bliss? Nah… It’s Got To Be A Hallucination

Catherine’s palm went cold. Seeing him, the one who ruined her in her past life and was suspiciously clinging to her this life, casual, composed, and…domestic, felt like a slap she hadn’t braced for.

Even if he didn’t remember the past… didn’t he confess to her just this afternoon with that maddening sincerity, and that dangerous softness in his voice?

And this… a whole baby… somehow never came up?

“It didn’t seem relevant,” Maximilian said, blinking.

Catherine laughed. Once. Short. Sharp. Almost hysterical.

“Of course… Of course, it didn’t,” she muttered.

Because to Maximilian, this was just life. Perhaps because she hadn’t agreed to date him, or whatever ridiculous category he’d mentally filed her under, he hadn’t felt the need to disclose minor details. Like, say. A baby.

But to her…

It was everything she’d lost, wrapped in a soft blanket and held effortlessly in his arms.

Her fingers clenched around the bracelet. She twisted her wrist, tugged at it, nails digging in as if sheer will could pry it loose. Then she turned and walked away.

If the bracelet would let her. If she could just get far enough from this… agony…

“Um… Catherine? This way…”

His voice reached her from behind.

Her steps slowed.

God, she wanted to keep walking. To keep going until the city blurred and the pain stopped, and he became nothing more than a bad dream.

But the burn… It came swiftly and merciless. Everything in her locked up.

Her pride.

Her will.

Her dignity.

Her heart.

She was trapped; bound by something invisible, cruel, and unyielding, to the man she hated with everything she had left.

Her hands curled into fists so tightly her nails broke skin. She welcomed the sting. It grounded her. Her chest felt heavy, breath coming shallow and uneven.

She refused to cry.

She turned.

Maximilian stood there, watching. Waiting.

She forced herself back toward him.

“It hurts,” he said as she drew closer, his voice strained. “I can’t— I can’t breathe when you get close to me.”

She stopped in front of him.

Watched as his shoulders hunched, his jaw clenched like he was bracing against something invisible and sharp.

How bad could it be?

Was he hurting the way she was?

“Careful—!” Catherine lunged forward instinctively as his arms faltered.

The baby slipped.

She caught the bundle before it could fall. Only afterward did it register what she’d done. She didn’t even want to look at the child, the living proof of a life he was allowed to have, but her body had moved on instinct alone. She couldn’t let an innocent fall. Even if its father was a despicable man.

She had done this before. Once. Long ago. And it had cost her everything. Her lips curled in exasperation.

He didn’t spare the same grace for my son!

Maximilian tried to take the baby back, but he couldn’t. His hands shook. His breath came ragged.

In the end, Catherine held the baby against her chest.

“Maybe…” he said hoarsely, sinking lower. “Maybe you’re hurting… deep inside?”

She almost laughed.

Almost screamed.

Instead, she asked quietly, her voice turning vicious. “Have you ever held someone who was butchered, knowing you could’ve saved them if you’d been there?”

Her voice trembled, but she didn’t stop. “Knowing they died alone and terrified… simply because… they shared your blood?”

She looked straight at him.

“Have you?”

Something in Maximilian shattered.

He couldn’t meet her gaze. His knees hit the ground. “Go away…” he muttered.

Catherine scoffed.

She turned and walked away, still holding the baby. Then the bundle shifted. A tiny sound. Without meaning to, she looked down.

A girl.

Big blue eyes blinked up at her, curious, unafraid. And just like that…

The pain eased.

Not vanished. Not forgiven.

But softened, like a storm paused, not ended.

Behind her, Maximilian sucked in a sharp breath as if a thorny rope around his heart had finally loosened. Air rushed into his lungs, desperate and relieving.

Her question echoed in his mind.

“I have,” he whispered, voice breaking.

His eyes burned, tears threatening, but he swallowed them back, as he always did.

He stood quickly and followed her, careful to stay close enough… So she wouldn’t burn.

***

Back in Maximilian’s home, Catherine watched him move about with practiced ease as he bathed the baby, fed her formula, and coaxed her into sleep with a patience that felt almost obscene.

He wasn’t clumsy. He wasn’t hesitant. He was… good at it, as if he had done it all his life. Maybe fatherhood did suit him.

There was a temporary bassinet tucked into the bedroom that was lightweight and portable, clearly not meant to stay; its cheap practicality clashed violently with the rest of the house. It didn’t belong among antique furniture and old-money restraint. And yet, neither did the tenderness in his hands.

After settling the baby, he closed the bedroom door, leaving it open by an inch. A habit. A careful one.

Then he turned to Catherine and smiled. “What do you want for dinner?” he asked, like this was normal. Like they were normal. As if she had lived there forever.

“Not hungry,” Catherine replied, looking away.

The longer she watched him, the hotter her blood ran. Everything he had denied her in her last life… peace, safety, comfort… everything he had in abundance now.

He had a home, a child, and a future.

He went into the kitchen without comment.

Catherine sank onto the couch and rubbed her forehead, counting silently, trying to calm the storm inside her chest, trying to make sense of everything that happened that day.

“Here.”

She looked up.

Maximilian stood in front of her wearing an apron. Not just any apron. He was wearing a teddy-bear-print apron, the ones with cute little teddy bear couple looking cute and… cuddly.

Her soul left her body.

This must be a nightmare, Catherine decided calmly. A medically induced hallucination.

Perhaps, she was in a coma somewhere, and this was what her brain had chosen as its final act of cruelty. Perhaps, she was still passed out in that restaurant where she was drugged.

There is no other explanation, she muttered.

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