There was a time when Selene Dae Navarro believed that if she did everything right— if she played the part, said the words, and helped build the empire brick by strategic brick— then maybe, just maybe, Cassian Roque Velarco would look at her the way she had always looked at him.
But he never did.
He looked through her sometimes. Not with malice, but with the distracted gaze of someone staring into a memory they couldn't name. His kindness was measured. His affection, rationed. His presence? Dutiful. Always there, yet never truly with her.
And still, she stayed.
Because love wasn't always a promise. Sometimes, it was a sacrifice.
Selene's love for Cassian was quiet. She never confessed it. Not out loud. Not even on their wedding day.
It wasn't the kind of love people wrote about in novels or cried over in cinemas. It was more practical than poetic. She loved him in the margins. In silent gestures. In the way she memorized his coffee preference, learned the rhythm of his moods, and adjusted her world to match the shape of his without ever asking for space of her own.
Their marriage was never romantic.
It was a merger before it was a union. A decision signed with ink and sealed with legacy. A choice made in a boardroom first, and a chapel second.
They had been partners long before they became husband and wife. Both of them knew that love was never discussed in those early negotiations.
Selene was a Navarro. Strategic. Calculated. She had learned early that emotions were best used as currency, not confession. And Cassian, with all his brilliance and brokenness, was the only man she ever met who understood that kind of silence.
Still, there were moments— quiet, fleeting ones— when she thought maybe he saw her. Truly saw her.
Like the time they closed their first international deal and stayed up past midnight reviewing projections, Cassian barefoot in his office, sleeves rolled up, exhaustion painting shadows under his eyes. He looked up, and for a brief second, there was something soft in the way he said her name.
Or the night after the shareholders gala, when it rained harder than it had all year. He had driven them home in silence, and when they got out of the car, she reached for his hand without thinking. He didn't pull away.
He didn't pull away.
But he never reached back either.
Selene could accept that. She had accepted it for years.
Because having Cassian— even just as a partner— was better than not having him at all.
What no one knew was that she didn't marry him to own him.
She married him to keep him.
To keep the man who could've chosen anyone— but chose to let her stay in his world.
And Selene, the strategist, the realist, knew better than to dream of more.
But sometimes, in the quiet— when he fell asleep first, or when he stared too long at a window— she allowed herself to wonder what it might feel like to be loved the way she loved him.
She remembered the proposal clearly. It wasn't romantic. No candlelight, no grand speeches. Just an evening in Cassian's office. Just the two of them, poring over numbers.
"We should marry," he said, as if he were suggesting a quarterly strategy. "It would ease the merger. Clean lines. Fewer questions."
Selene didn't ask why her. She knew.
Because she was smart. Because she was loyal. Because she never demanded what he could not give.
And because she never mentioned her name— that name— the one she only heard once, in passing, before Cassian went silent for three whole days.
Selene had buried that name deep. She never said it again.
She didn't need to know the whole story. The fragments were enough.
He had loved someone once.
And he hadn't stopped.
Their wedding was elegant, tasteful. Everything looked perfect.
Except for the absence in Cassian's eyes.
Selene had smiled through it. Held his hand during the vows. Posed for the photographs.
She told herself that love could grow. That maybe, in time, he would learn to see her differently. That maybe, if she just waited long enough, he would forget the past.
But now, years later, she knew better.
Cassian hadn't forgotten anything.
He had simply learned how to hide the wound.
And she, ever the strategist, had learned how to live beside it.
The rain fell again that night.
Cassian stood by the window, glass in hand, eyes tracking the drops like they held some kind of memory he couldn't let go of.
Selene stood in the doorway for a moment, watching him. He didn't notice.
He never noticed her in these moments.
But Selene noticed everything.
She noticed how he always looked more lost in the rain. How his jaw tensed when he was trying not to feel. How his silences deepened in ways that words could never reach.
She walked past him without a word, poured herself a drink, and sat on the far end of the couch.
Their marriage had become a routine of practiced silences and well-timed distance.
But despite everything, she didn't feel bitterness.
Only ache.
Because even now, even after all these years, Selene still loved him.
Not because he was perfect. Not because he was hers.
But because he never asked her to pretend. And maybe, in his own quiet way, he trusted her enough to let his walls down— just not far enough to let her in.
She knew something had shifted the last few days.
A new tension in him. A new distraction. His eyes had grown more distant. His thoughts more frayed.
Selene had felt it.
She didn't ask.
Because if she asked, and he answered with her name— the one Selene had buried years ago— she didn't know if she'd be able to keep pretending.
And Selene Navarro did not break.
Not for empires. Not for men.
Not even for the man she loved in silence.
Selene stared at the untouched wine in her glass, her fingers curled loosely around the stem. Across the room, Cassian remained by the window, back straight, gaze far.
They had been in the same house for hours now, yet it felt like they occupied different worlds.
It had always been like this. From the moment they said "I do" until now, their marriage had been one of alignment, not affection. They moved in parallel, never colliding, never breaking formation.
Once, she thought that was enough. But the silence had grown louder over the years.
And lately, it felt like it was about to collapse on her.
There had been a time, early on, when she tried to bridge the distance. Small things— suggesting dinner outside the city, booking a quiet weekend away. Once, she even surprised him with tickets to an exhibit he had casually mentioned during a meeting.
He appreciated the gestures. He said thank you. But that was all. There was no closeness, no moment where he reached for her hand just because he wanted to.
That night after the gallery visit, she waited by their bedroom window, watching the moonlight spill onto the floor, pretending she wasn't expecting him to come close. He came in late, tired, distracted, and went to bed without a word.
She sat there until sunrise.
That was when she began to shrink her world. To stop asking for more.
Selene was not the type to beg for love. She was raised to be composed, capable. Her mother once told her, "If you ever cry for a man, make sure you're doing it in silk, not shame."
But it wasn't shame she carried— it was weight.
The weight of loving someone who could never love her back in the way she needed.
Still, she found ways to endure.
She filled her days with strategy meetings, consulting clients, leading departments within Velarco Holdings. She became irreplaceable in the empire Cassian built, and somehow, that gave her comfort. Even if his heart wasn't hers, his trust, his loyalty— they were.
And that counted for something.
But at night, when she walked into their bedroom and he was already turned away, pretending to sleep, Selene would lie beside him and wonder what it would be like if he ever rolled toward her instead.
If he ever whispered her name not out of routine, but longing.
If she ever felt chosen— not for the role, but for herself.
Sometimes, she wondered what her life would have been like had she never said yes to his proposal.
Would she have built a name on her own? Would she have fallen in love with someone who could give her what she gave Cassian? Would she be happy?
But every time she imagined it, she saw the same truth:
She would've found success. But not Cassian.
And she wanted Cassian.
Even now, she did.
Even when he barely looked at her. Even when he sighed a little too long when he thought she wasn't listening. Even when he disappeared into thoughts that never included her.
There were nights he didn't come home.
Business, always business.
She never questioned him. Never accused.
Because that's what you do when you love someone without conditions— you let them go even when they're still beside you.
She heard the door close now.
He was leaving the room.
Not a single word exchanged.
Not even a glance.
Selene closed her eyes and swallowed the ache. Then she opened them, stood up slowly, and walked to the window he had left.
The rain had slowed.
But the storm inside her never had.
Tomorrow, she would wake early. Review contracts. Attend the board meeting. Smile at investors. She would be every bit the woman people expected her to be.
But tonight, she let herself feel the truth in full.
That she was married to a man who respected her mind, but never touched her heart.
That she loved him quietly, endlessly, tragically.
And that maybe she was more alone in this house than if she had never said yes at all.
She placed the wine glass down.
Walked to their bedroom.
And as she sat at her vanity, brushing her hair in practiced strokes, she looked at her own reflection— not for vanity's sake, but for the comfort of seeing someone still there.
Someone who loved without question. Without reciprocation.
Selene Navarro Velarco.
The woman who chose the man who would never choose her back.
And yet... she stayed.
Because there is strength in staying.
Even when no one sees you.
Especially then.
She remained in front of the mirror, watching the slow rise and fall of her own chest. There was something both strange and sobering in realizing how used she'd become to loving Cassian from a distance. Not with hope, but with habit. Not with anticipation— but surrender.
It wasn't always like this.
Back when they weren't yet married— back when she was merely one of the youngest strategic consultants at his firm— Selene remembered the way her pulse would race just seeing him walk into the room. He carried silence with him like it was armor, sharp and heavy, but she saw through it. Beneath his cold precision was a man who needed someone to understand the language he didn't speak out loud.
She thought she could be that person.
Maybe she still believed she could.
Maybe that was her downfall.
Selene rose from the vanity and padded barefoot across the room. The warmth of the floor met the chill of her skin. There were echoes in every corner of this house— unspoken arguments, silences that became permanent, glances that almost meant something.
She reached his side of the bed, where his cologne still lingered faintly on the pillow. She didn't cry. She had long run out of tears for a man who never saw her breaking.
Instead, she lay down, eyes fixed on the ceiling, arms wrapped tightly around herself.
The sheets were cold.
So was the space between them.
She wondered if Cassian noticed how their house, no matter how luxurious, never felt like home. Perhaps to him, it was just another place to rest, to regroup, to leave again.
But to Selene— it was the waiting room of a love that never arrived.
In the dark, she whispered his name. Not to call him. Not to ask for anything. Just to remember what it sounded like in her mouth. Just to hear how gentle it could be.
"Cassian…"
She didn't even realize her eyes had closed until the silence grew heavier, until she could almost hear her own heartbeat stretching the stillness.
If this was love, she thought, it was the kind that taught you patience.
And pain.
And how to live beside someone who forgot how to reach for you.
Yet she stayed.
Because Selene had always believed love meant staying— even when you were the only one left trying.
And until he told her to go, she would remain.
Because for all his silence, his distance, his ghosts— he was still the man she loved.
Still the man she chose.
And for some unfathomable reason, that still felt like enough.
Even if it never was.