Truth Untold (Eligible Bachelors #1)

Chapter Four

Days passed after the argument and neither had said a word to the other. They went about their lives co-existing like two strangers rather than husband and wife. But, for all intents and purposes, they were strangers.

Alexander knew not how to approach his wife. Her words had made him think and he refused to make the mistake of bringing up the tweet again. He had Sarah handle the issue with the paparazzi, letting it be known that the topic was not up for discussion and there would be no issuance of a comment or statement from either party involved.

The press left it alone after a few thousands had been shelled out to silence the debacle. It seemed mostly forgotten by Twitter users, and Alexander spent the majority of those few days at the Stein mansion. He did not fear his wife, but things had been made terribly awkward between them. The silence that suffocated them at breakfast the morning after had Alexander practically inhaling his food and running away from the tension.

It was all good, though. The Steins were more than accommodating, and Daphne was happy to spend all the time in the world with him. But much to his dismay, Vanessa crossed his mind frequently, particularly, during the dinners he would have with Daphne and her parents.

He wondered what Vanessa was doing. Was she having dinner all alone in his mansion, or did she go out with friends? But he pondered on it for a few heartbeats, his wife nothing more than a mere fleeting thought as he had watched Daphne converse and laugh with Patrick and Eloisa.

He noticed something quite off-putting one evening. Patrick and Eloisa never smiled at Vanessa the way they did with Daphne. But as quickly as those thoughts came to him, they were overshadowed by what he knew all along.

How could they laugh so easily with Vanessa when she was the one who drove Daphne to attempt suicide? How could they love the daughter who ruined the happiness of her sister for a selfish gain?

Still, she crossed his mind and he carried on – somewhat – with his life living a temporary reality where Vanessa did not exist. He pretended he was not married to her, and every night, he came home to the woman he loved, forcibly keeping Vanessa out of mind. And while he pretended – at least he tried to – that his legally wedded wife did not exist, she did the same to him. She carried about with her life as if Alexander Roche never appeared in it. She kept busy, seeking, and finding comfort in what was familiar.

Because of the controversy the tweet had created, Vanessa worked around the clock with Lyn doing damage control for her new novel's marketing campaign to go over smoothly with minor hitches at best. The novel was currently in the editing and review phase, and then, it would be printed in paperback.

In order to tackle the crisis, Lyn had organized events to boost Vanessa's ratings and paint her, once more, in a favourable light. She had attended a group reading at an old folks' home and read to them. Two days after, it was another group reading event at a day-care centre and reading to some children. Vanessa had pitched an idea of her own after the visit to the day-care and spending most of the day with the kids.

Outside of writing her stories and gaining revenue from that, she forwarded a significant chunk of her income to a charity she had founded two years prior. It was called the Children's Hope Foundation and it specialized in aiding children's hospitals, orphanages and the foster-care system, and special-education schools. She loved children and had worked with a number of experts in creating a literacy programme to help special-needs children with the fundamentals of reading and writing comprehension. At the hospitals and orphanages, the foundation would carry hampers and gifts consisting of clothing, snacks, books, and writing material.

To Vanessa's credit, her charity work had gained much recognition and raised awareness of the existence of the Children's Hope Foundation and the work it aimed to do. She, and all she had been doing trended to number one on Twitter, her popularity outgrowing Daphne's to the point where her name graced the cover of several tabloid magazines.