Chapter: Divorce agreementLiam’s POVRichard and Cynthia Sterling.All the oxygen rushed out of my lungs. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I just stared at the white lilies resting on the damp grass.Today’s date flashed in my mind right away. It was October 14th. The anniversary.Ten years ago today, a truck ran a red light and smashed into my car. I was trapped inside. Richard and Cynthia Sterling had been in the car behind me. They didn't waste time calling for help. They ran straight into the fire and pulled me out through a shattered window just seconds before the car exploded.I lived. They didn't.And ten years later, now, I was standing in front of their graves, yelling at their orphaned daughter. I called her a jealous stalker. I grabbed her arm and dragged her. I demanded she apologize to another woman while she was mourning the parents who burned to death so I could stand here today.A wave of nausea hit me so hard I stumbled backward."Liam?"Amily’s voice broke through the ringing in my ears.
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-05
Chapter: His first loveAlina"Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad." My voice trembled as I knelt on the damp grass of the cemetery.I placed a bouquet of white lilies on the two marble headstones in front of me.Richard and Cynthia Sterling.I traced the letters of their names with my fingers. I had so much to tell them. I wanted to tell them about the baby. I wanted to tell them that their little girl was going to be a mother.But the words stuck in my throat.How could I tell them that the man they saved, the man they died for, didn't love me? How could I tell them that the father of my child didn’t even want the child?I didn't know how much time had passed. But when I looked around, the sky was dark with heavy clouds, in the distance, thunders were blazing. I wiped a tear from my cheek and stood up. I didn't want to leave but I couldn't afford to get sick.I turned around to head back to the main path.As soon as I looked forward, my heart stopped.About fifty feet away, walking under the shadow of an old tree, was a tal
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-05
Chapter: For me, for herAlinaTick. Tock. Tick. Tock.It was the sound of my life passing by, waiting for a man who didn't want to come home.I still lay there, staring at the empty space where Liam had stood. My hand was still resting on my stomach. I couldn't sleep. It was long gone.My phone buzzed on the nightstand, making me jump. The screen lit up the dark room, blinding me for a moment.I reached for my phone, my heart doing a nervous flip. It was 2:00 AM. Who would be texting me now?[Message from: Chloe]Chloe was my best friend, the only person in the world who knew how lonely my "fairy tale" marriage actually was. She was out tonight at The Sapphire Lounge, the most exclusive club in the city.I slid the notification and tapped the message.[Chloe: Jules... I don't know if I should send this. But you deserve to know.]My stomach dropped. She never sent me messages this late unless it was important.[Chloe: Sent a photo]I tapped on the image. It took a second to load, and when it did, I felt like
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Two pink linesAlina [Pregnancy Test: Positive]The plastic stick shook in my hand. I stared at it until my eyes burned, hoping the result would change. It didn’t. Two pink lines. My heart stopped, then started beating again so fast I thought it might jump out of my chest. I was pregnant. In any other marriage, this would be a moment of pure joy. I would run downstairs, jump into my husband's arms and we would cry happy tears together. But this wasn’t a normal marriage. And Liam wasn’t a normal husband. As I felt a sick twist in my stomach, I sat on the cold edge of the bathtub. Liam didn’t marry me because he loved me. He married me because he had to. When my parents died saving his life, his grandmother felt she owed me a debt. Her way of paying for it was to make Liam marry the poor orphan girl. He called it a "duty." I called it a dream come true, at least at first. I had loved him since I was a little girl. But dreams turn into nightmares when you are the only one in love. Just th
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Gone againIreneHearing Romeo’s voice crack open on my name, my jaw tightened so hard the muscles ached. The raw, unfiltered desperation in his eyes was too much to look at, too heavy to carry in the bright afternoon sun. I immediately looked away, forcing my entire posture into a rigid, unyielding line.What the hell was he trying to do? Why was he apologizing now?I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. "There is nothing to apologize for, Dr. Galante," I said.It was a lie, of course. A desperate, exhausting lie to cover up the devastating heartbreak I could feel pooling in my own eyes. I couldn't let him see it. Not here. Not with Isabella sitting between us. "You are just doing your job." I added."You know that is not what I mean," Romeo pushed gently.He didn't back down. Instead, he took a half-step around the bed, ignoring the fact that his sister-in-law was sitting right there, watching us with wide, confused eyes. He was closing the distance I was risking everything to maintain."Do
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-16
Chapter: Too lateIreneSeven days can change the entire landscape of a house, but it hadn’t done a single thing to clear the exhaustion anchoring itself inside my bones.For a week, I had lived in a blurred loop of split-second naps, lukewarm coffee, and a rotating shift of keeping Isabella grounded. My hair was thrown up in a claw clip, my clothes were wrinkled.But today was a milestone.“Your vitals are exceptionally strong today, Isabella,” Romeo’s voice broke the quiet hum of the intensive medical suite. He unclipped her chart, his clinical tone perfectly practiced, though the dark circles under his eyes mirrored my own. “The internal bruising is healing beautifully, and your blood volume has finally stabilized.”I stood near the door, arms crossed, watching him slide his pen into the pocket of his navy scrubs.“Which means…” Romeo continued, offering Isabella a small, genuine smile. “You have officially graduated from the intensive medical suite. We are moving you to the south wing today. The ro
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-15
Chapter: Job to doIreneI woke before the sun had fully claimed the sky.Dawn had only just begun to press itself against the slatted blinds of the medical room, spilling a muted, gray light that softened the edges of everything it touched. My neck ached when I shifted, muscles stiff from having fallen asleep curled at the edge of the narrow mattress rather than properly lying down. For a few suspended seconds, I existed in that fragile space between awareness and forgetting, where nothing had meaning yet and the world had not quite decided what it was.Then the heart monitor beside the bed broke through that illusion with its steady, indifferent rhythm, and I remembered where I was.The medical room. Isabella. The night that had swallowed everything whole.I stretched my legs slowly, anticipating the bite of cold air against my skin, but it never came. Instead, there was warmth. I paused, unsettled by the sensation, and looked down.My heavy dark trench coat, which I clearly remembered loosening ar
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-14
Chapter: I am sorryRomeoThe medical wing was the quietest part of the estate. But tonight, the silence in the room felt almost suffocating.I pushed the door open without making a sound, stepping into the dim light. The steady, rhythmic hum of the monitors was the only proof that the world was still turning.I moved to the side of the bed, my eyes immediately scanning the screens. Habit. Duty. It was the only armor I had left that still fit perfectly. Isabella’s vitals were completely stable. Her breathing was even. In sleep, the terror and confusion that had haunted her for the last five days were gone. She looked exactly like the woman who had held our family together.I adjusted her IV line, making sure the drip was steady, before stepping back.It was only then that I looked toward the foot of the bed.Irene was there.She hadn’t gone back to her room. She was curled up on the edge of the mattress, her knees pulled toward her chest, deeply and completely asleep.For a long time, I just stood there
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-13
Chapter: Be that personIrene The Galante estate had survived bullets, betrayals, and rival syndicates. It had survived blood in the halls and fire in its foundations. But nothing had ever hollowed it out the way silence did now. Five days. Five days since Isabella opened her eyes in the sterile light of the medical wing and looked at us like we were strangers standing in the wrong version of her life. The emergency delivery had gone as planned, in the way nothing ever truly goes as planned in a house like this. The baby lived. Isabella lived. But when she finally regained consciousness, something inside her mind had closed like a door that refused to open again. Retrograde amnesia. Eight years of her life gone without warning, without explanation, without mercy. She did not remember the wedding. She did not remember Dante. She did not remember the wars that had turned this estate into a fortress or the compromises that had kept it standing. She did not remember the life she had built inside vio
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-12
Chapter: Tell her the truthRomeo“What is going on between you and Irene?”The question didn’t belong in the air between us. It shouldn’t have existed at all in a moment like this. And yet it did, hanging there in the narrow hallway like something sharp I had no safe way to touch.I looked at Camilla. The face I had searched for in strangers for years. The voice I had reconstructed in memory until it became something larger than reality. For so long she had been the center of everything I could not let go of.But right now, none of that mattered.All I could hear was Irene’s footsteps disappearing down the corridor.I didn’t answer immediately. I couldn’t. The words refused to form in any order that felt survivable.Instead, I reached for Camilla’s hand. Her skin was cold, almost shockingly so. I held it tightly, as if warmth alone could reset everything inside me.“Let’s go back inside,” I said quietly. My voice came out rougher than I intended. “You’re freezing. You need to sit down.”Camilla didn’t move.She
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-06-12
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