MasukShare
Chapter 3
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-04-26 02:22:30She arrived at 8:58 am.
Zachary's PA, a composed woman named Diana who had worked for him for seven years and prided herself on being unshockable, did a very subtle double take when Isla Simmons stepped out of the elevator — portfolio under one arm, slightly windswept from the New York morning, looking around the fortieth floor with the particular expression of someone trying very hard to appear less intimidated than they were. "Isla Simmons," Isla said. "I have a nine o'clock appointment with Mr. Cole." Diana checked her screen. Looked up. "He's expecting you. I'll let him know you're here." Isla nodded and stood by the window and looked out at the city below and told herself to breathe. Diana's phone buzzed almost immediately. "You can go in." His office was exactly what she expected and nothing like what she expected simultaneously. The space was vast — floor to ceiling windows on two sides, the whole city spread out below like something he'd ordered specifically. Clean lines. Dark furniture. Nothing unnecessary, nothing decorative, nothing that didn't serve a purpose. Except for one thing. On the far wall, behind his desk, hung a single painting. An Irish coastal landscape — grey sea, pale sky, the kind of light that only existed in one part of the world. She was staring at it when he spoke. "You're looking at the painting." She was startled. He was already watching her from behind his desk with his jacket off, sleeves rolled to the forearm, pen in hand. More human than yesterday somehow. "Sorry." She moved toward the chair across from his desk. "It's just — that's County Clare. I grew up near there." He looked at the painting briefly. "I know." She sat down. "You know County Clare?" "I know where you're from." He set the pen down. "I do research before meetings, Ms. Simmons." She held his gaze. "Most people research portfolios. Not hometowns." Something shifted in his expression. "Your portfolio was already on file from the original tender." He opened a folder on his desk. "The expanded installation will cover the twenty second and thirty first floors. I want the same designer. Same concept. Consistent with what you've already established on fourteen." "Okay." She nodded. "Timeline?" "Three months." "Budget?" He named a figure. She kept her face completely neutral even though the number was three times what Hartwell Creative had billed for the original project. "That works," she said evenly. The corner of his mouth moved. "Good." He closed the folder. "I'll have Diana send the amended contract to your firm today." She nodded and reached for her portfolio while getting up from the seat. "Ms. Simmons." She stilled. "The painting." He didn't look at it. He looked at her. "Does it look accurate? To what you remember?" She glanced at it again. At the grey water and the pale light and the particular quality of sky that had been the backdrop of her entire childhood. "Yes," she said quietly. "Almost exactly." He nodded once. Like that answer mattered. She left. In the elevator going down she pressed her back against the wall and closed her eyes and thought — very clearly and very deliberately — Do not do that. Whatever that was. Do not do that. The elevator opened on fourteenth floor. She stepped out and got back to work. On the fortieth floor Zachary picked up his phone and called Reid. "She noticed the painting." Reid was quiet for a moment. "You hung a painting of her hometown in your office." "I've had it for years." "Zachary." Reid's voice was careful. "You hung a painting of her hometown in your office and made sure she saw it." Silence. "Reid—" "I know." A long exhale. "I know. I'll stay out of it." A pause. "Just — be careful. With her. She's not—" He stopped. "She's not what?" "She's not someone who'll walk away clean from this. You can see it in thirty seconds of looking at her." His voice dropped. "So just — be careful." Zachary looked at the painting. "I'm always careful," he said. He ended the call. Across town in a building neither of them had ever been in, a man named Theo Winslow was accepting an invitation to Reid Calloway's dinner party the following Friday and asking — casually, genuinely — if Reid needed him to bring anything. He had no idea his life was about to change. Neither did she.
Bab terbaru
Cursed To Love You Paris
The apartment sat above a bookshop on a narrow street in the 11th, nothing grand about it, nothing designed for tourists, which was exactly right for both of them."There are twenty-two stairs," Isla announced, halfway up on the first evening, one hand braced against the wall. "I counted.""You could have told me that before I let the movers unload the crib on the fourth floor.""It was a discovery in progress."Paris in February wasn't performing for anyone — grey sky, cold air, the city just being itself in winter light, and Isla loved it immediately, standing at the kitchen window that first morning looking down at the street below."There's a bookshop right underneath us," she said. "I didn't even plan that.""You picked the apartment.""I picked it for the light. The bookshop's a bonus."The gallery team had been cautious at first — Céleste had warned her, gently, before they arrived. "They have strong opinions." But within the first week, the French curators had shifted from pro
Cursed To Love You All The Way Forward
Isla woke early, the room still grey, Zachary asleep beside her, and lay there for a while just thinking.Her father, choosing to go out anyway. Not recklessly. Deliberately.She thought about the elevator, the door frame, the second she'd almost said no to Hartwell's contract entirely, back when the timing had felt wrong and she'd talked herself into yes anyway.She thought about standing outside Connor's hotel room years ago, hand raised to knock, and turning around instead and walking home in the cold.She thought about the first time she'd asked Zachary directly if he was sick — the way her voice had shaken asking it, the way everything good that came after had depended entirely on her asking that terrifying question instead of staying quiet and safe.She'd been living all the way forward this whole time. She just hadn't known her father had a name for it.Over breakfast, she told Zachary the whole thing again, slower this time, the fisherman, the feeling, her father's choice.He
Cursed To Love You Paris Preparation
The apartment had turned into a kind of organized chaos three weeks out — commission boards stacked against the studio wall, fabric samples pinned to a corkboard that hadn't existed a month ago, and baby things arriving in waves that seemed to have no schedule of their own."Another box," Zachary said, carrying one in from the hallway. "This one's from Caden.""We didn't order anything from Caden.""I'm aware."He opened it on the kitchen counter. Inside was a mobile shaped like tiny hot air balloons, a stack of onesies in three different sizes, and a card that read *saw these and thought of you both, no occasion needed, love C.*"That's actually sweet," Isla said."It's also the fourth unrequested delivery this week.""I know. I've stopped questioning it."Sloane's package arrived the next day — no card, no explanation, just a single item wrapped in plain brown paper that neither of them could immediately identify."What is this," Isla said, turning it over in her hands."I have no i
Cursed To Love You What Wren Is Afraid Of
They met most Tuesdays now, when schedules allowed, a small standing lunch that neither of them had officially named but both quietly protected.Wren was settling into the booth carefully, one hand braced on the table, ten weeks behind Isla now, just starting to show, still wearing the faintly astonished expression of someone who kept forgetting and then remembering."You okay," Isla asked, watching her lower herself down."Fine. Everything just takes longer than it used to. Sitting. Standing. Deciding what to eat.""Welcome to the second half."Wren ordered tea instead of her usual coffee, and for a while they talked about nothing important — the Paris trip, Reid's schedule, a mutual friend's baby shower neither of them had strong opinions about.Then Wren went quiet, turning her cup slowly on the table, and Isla recognized the shift immediately."What," Isla said."I'm afraid of becoming my mother," Wren said. No preamble. That was how Wren said things now, when it mattered.Isla se
Cursed To Love You February
She waited until dinner, plates between them, before she said it plainly, the way she'd learned to say difficult things now — no cushioning, no managing his reaction before he'd had a chance to have one."Paris pushed to February," she said. "They need me there four weeks minimum. Final installation oversight."He set his fork down. "February.""I'll be eight months."He didn't say anything right away. She watched his face carefully, the way he went still — not the alarmed kind of still, the thinking kind, the kind she'd learned to read correctly over two years of watching him process instead of suppress."What do you want to do," he asked finally."I want to go," she said. "I know how that sounds. I know the timing is—""What does your doctor say.""I haven't asked yet. I wanted to tell you first."He nodded slowly, turning that over."Ask her," he said. "If she says it's safe, we go.""We?""Obviously we."She studied him across the table. "You'd come to Paris for a month. In the mi
Cursed To Love You The Name
Morning came grey and soft through the curtains, and Isla was already awake, one hand resting on the curve of her stomach, listening to the city start up outside.Seven months now. The pregnancy had stopped being an event and become the texture of every day instead — the way she shifted her weight getting out of bed, the way she'd started sleeping propped on three pillows instead of two, the way the apartment's temperature had become a subject with exactly one acceptable answer."It's cold in here," she said, when Zachary came in from the kitchen with two mugs."It's seventy-one degrees.""It's cold."He adjusted the thermostat without argument, which had become his standard response weeks ago, and set her coffee — decaf, always decaf now — down beside her sketches.She was already bent over the table, pencil moving across a lighting plan, and she said, without looking up, "I keep thinking about Niamh."He turned around from the counter. "What?""For a girl. Niamh. It's Irish. It mean
Cursed To Love You Chapter 4
Reid's dinner parties were never actually dinner parties.Isla figured that out within the first ten minutes.The food was real — properly cooked, properly served, the kind of meal that required actual effort — but the people were too carefully chosen for it to be casual. Everyone in the room knew
Cursed To Love You Chapter 2
Isla was on her knees on the fourteenth floor, unpacking the last crate of framed prints, when her phone rang.She almost didn't answer. Her hands were full and her hair was in her face and she had seventeen things left to do before the afternoon walkthrough with the building's events coordinator.
Cursed To Love You Chapter 1
The call came at 8:47 a.m. Zachary was already moving through the corridor of Cole Global's fortieth floor when he answered, phone pressed to his ear, free hand in his pocket. "Mr. Cole." His doctor's voice was carefully measured. "The final results are in. I'm afraid the progression is faster t
Cursed To Love You The Meeting
They met Dorian at a private members club that didn't have a sign outside and probably didn't have a public phone number. Neutral ground, his choice, which meant it wasn't neutral at all. It meant every advantage belonged to him because he'd selected the location and the timing and the rules of e
Anda juga akan menyukai
Your Uncle’s My Husband Now—Back Off, Ex!
June2.0M DibacaMadam Winters’s Fight For Her Children
Summer Wine1.2M DibacaSIN
MercyCrown1.1M DibacaPop My Cherry Daddy!
Xee write693.0K DibacaBound by His Ruthless Vow
Ayana Stories53 DibacaThe Billionaire's Frozen Heart
M.Serein102 DibacaTwo Can Play
Rosa Kane80.8K DibacaThe Hockey Billionaire Who Erased Me
Angel45 Dibaca
