Why him Eva?

“That’s your ring, sir. I hope it brings happiness to your life.”

The jeweler’s words echoed softly as a long, veiny hand, masculine yet refined picked up the velvet box. His fingers were strong, but the way they held the tiny treasure was almost delicate.

Inside lay the ring. A masterpiece. A band of platinum, so polished it mirrored every light around it. At its heart rested a flawless diamond, oval cut, clear as glass, glittering with a thousand colors when it caught the light. Around it, a halo of smaller stones shimmered like stars around a moon.

The design was simple, but its elegance carried a kind of royalty, exactly the kind of ring girls dreamed of wearing, the kind that whispered promises of forever.

“Do you like it, sir?” the jeweler asked carefully.

Grey pearls fixed on the jewel, he stared, his eyes as unreadable as ever. His mind held nothing beyond work, numbers, and duty. The ring, like everything else outside his world, meant little. Still, he looked up at the man in front of him, his gaze sharp, unblinking. “Yes. Thank you,”

He replied, his tinted pink lips parting only for the bare minimum of words. Under the soft glow of the shop lights, his face looked almost sculpted. Smooth pale skin, black hair falling slightly over his grey eyes, his sharp features carved with precision.

If only he ever smiled, he might have been the most breathtaking man alive but his face, though stunning, carried nothing. No joy. No warmth. Only silence.

Yet, there was something else that made him unforgettable, the beauty marks. One faint mole beneath his left eye, another near the corner of his lips. They weren’t dark, but close enough, they lured the eye, making people ache to touch them… to touch him.

“Okay then. I will pay,” He said calmly, closing the box with quiet finality and setting it back on the counter. His voice was rare. A deep, steady sound, yet soothing, like velvet over steel. Few words, fewer expressions, but still enough to pull anyone under their spell.

“Of course, Mr. Creed,” The jeweler bowed, almost dazed. Every detail about him his voice, his eyes, his silence was too rare. Too rare for this world.

______________

He leaved that place to get ready for his wedding. Yes, this was his wedding day.

The wedding of Mr. Xavier Creed. The most eligible bachelor in the city, a man in his mid twenties whose wealth and power made him untouchable and today, he was set to marry Miss Roselyn Devereaux, the daughter of Harold Devereaux, one of the most influential and powerful men alive.

A perfect match on paper. A union whispered about in high society not leaving the headlines and newspapers front from past months. It was a wedding built on legacy, not love.

For Xavier, there was no excitement, no anticipation, no spark. He had never even met Roselyn. Not once in his life and even not a desire that a groom has to be with his bride every second.

After the tragic accident that claimed the entire Creed family, Xavier was left alone at six years old. It was Harold Devereaux, his father’s closest friend who stepped forward, raising him as though he were his own blood.

Years later, when Harold proposed the marriage between Roselyn and Xavier, there was no reason to refuse. Why should he? Marriage was inevitable. If not now, then later and marrying the daughter of the man who had been a father figure to him seemed almost logical.

He knew nothing about Roselyn, what she loved, what she hated, the sound of her laughter, the warmth of her presence and yet, he had already bent his life around her.

On the basis of few guesses about her likes that he heard from Mr Devereaux. He tried to do such things to.

The house was repainted in shades of white, her favorite color. Roses bloomed in his garden, her favorite flower. He was teaching himself her favorite dishes, just so he could cook them if she ever asked. He cleared space in his wardrobe for her, stocked her room with every luxury imaginable, even prepared a separate suite in case she preferred distance.

Not because he loved her. Not because he wanted her but because, to him, that was duty. Duty of a husband toward his wife. Duty of a man that he has to fulfill for his lady and duty was all Xavier Creed had ever known.

He didn’t notice the door chime when he left the place; he noticed the weight. The velvet ring box sat in his palm like a small, square truth, too light for what it meant, too heavy for what he felt.

Chandeliers spilled their last shards of light onto the marble steps behind him; the city took over with its own glitter: glass, chrome, wet asphalt mirroring a white sky. Somewhere, traffic hummed. Somewhere, a bus exhaled. Somewhere, a life he was supposed to step into waited with flowers and cameras and a vow he didn’t believe in.

He adjusted the box once, twice, like a habit trying to become conviction. Then he looked up. At first, it was nothing, just a city frame he had seen a thousand times. Street vendors. A florist’s cart. A boy on a bicycle threading through the gaps. People moving in their individual weather and then the frame sharpened around one ordinary point, and everything else dulled to a blur.

She stood at the corner kiosk, half-turned toward the street, half-turned toward the sandwich in her hands. Dark brown hair scraped into a messy bun, loosened by wind into soft rebellions around her neck.

She wasn’t glowing, wasn’t dressed like some vision out of a dream. No. She was painfully simple. An oversized heather-gray hoodie swallowed her shoulders; black jeans hugged a life he didn’t know. No sequins. No heels. No deliberate shine. A paper napkin was trapped under her thumb; a corner of it fluttered with each bite. Her nails short, practical held the bread like it was the first real meal of the day.

There was nothing remarkable about her. No glitter. No feathers. No shine and yet, to Xavier Creed, she was everything.

She wasn’t performing for anyone. That was what hit him first. She wasn’t trying to be seen. He felt it before he understood it: a quiet tilt inside his chest, like a compass snapping toward a new north.

Move, some new voice in him said. Closer. He stepped from the shade of the place awning and the day opened over his head. The glass door swung shut behind him with a hush. One step than another and another.

He didn’t think about Roselyn, or duty, or photographs that would live on other people’s mantels. He didn’t think at all. For the first time in his life, Xavier Creed forgot himself. Forgot the boundaries he lived by. Forgot the weight of his name. Forgot the world. All he wanted was to reach her. To hold her. To make sure she was real.

And maybe that’s how tragedies happen quietly, in the shortest span of seconds we never see coming.

Because just as Xavier’s steps carried him forward, a truck barreled across the street, halting him so abruptly his chest almost collided with the air itself. His heart thundered, his body jolted back to reality, but his mind… his mind remained blinded.

And in that fragile moment, in that heartbeat he couldn’t claim. The girl’s dark brown eyes lifted but they didn’t land on him. They landed on someone else.

____________