LOGINEthan’s POVFor one terrifying second, I could not see her.The explosion shook the entire street.Glass burst outward in every direction.People screamed.Firefighters shouted over each other.The ground beneath my feet trembled.My heart stopped.“Bella!”I searched the crowd desperately.Nothing.No answer.No familiar face.Only smoke.Only chaos.Only fear.I pushed forward without thinking.A firefighter grabbed my arm.“Sir, you can’t go in there!”“My wife is inside!”His grip tightened.“The building is unstable.”“I don’t care!”“You will if the roof collapses.”“I said let me go!”I shoved against him.Another firefighter stepped in front of me.“Listen to me.”“I’m not listening to anybody!”James appeared out of nowhere.“Ethan!”“Move.”“No.”“James.”“No.”His voice stayed calm.“You are not helping her by dying.”“You don’t know she’s alive.”“I don’t.”He swallowed hard.“But you don’t know she’s dead either.”That single sentence knocked the air from my lungs.Then,
Bella’s POVThe kiss should have made everything better.It should have fixed something.Healed something.Given us a fresh start.Instead, twenty-four hours later, everything exploded.Literally.The bookstore alarm started screaming at 2:17 a.m.The sound ripped me out of sleep.For one terrifying second, I had no idea where I was.Then I heard shouting downstairs.Footsteps.Glass breaking.My heart stopped.I jumped out of bed immediately.“Ethan!”The bedroom door flew open.Ethan rushed inside.His face had gone completely pale.“Get dressed. Now.”Fear crashed through me instantly.“What happened?”“We need to leave.”The urgency in his voice terrified me.Downstairs, more shouting echoed.Then came the smell.Smoke.My stomach dropped.Smoke.“Oh my God.”The realization hit instantly.The bookstore.Someone had set the bookstore on fire.The world suddenly became chaos.Ethan grabbed my hand.“We have to go.”We ran downstairs.The first floor looked like a nightmare.Smoke f
Chapter 108 – FinallyBella’s POVThe next few days felt strangely peaceful.Not perfect.Definitely not normal.But peaceful enough to notice.Nobody disappeared unexpectedly.Nobody uncovered shocking family secrets.Nobody showed up with mysterious evidence.Honestly, it felt suspicious.Life had trained me well.Whenever things became quiet,something dramatic usually followed.Still, I tried enjoying it.The bookstore remained busy every day.Customers came and went constantly.Maya continued creating unnecessary chaos.James remained permanently stressed.Sarah practically lived inside investigation files.And Ethan…Well.Ethan stayed close.Not in an overwhelming way.Not in a controlling way.Just close enough to remind methat he was still here.That he wasn’t leaving again.The realization warmed something inside me.More than I wanted to admit.Late Thursday afternoon,I found myself reorganizing books.A task I normally enjoyed.Today, however, somebody kept distracting m
Chapter 108 – FinallyBella’s POVThe next few days felt strangely peaceful.Not perfect.Definitely not normal.But peaceful enough to notice.Nobody disappeared unexpectedly.Nobody uncovered shocking family secrets.Nobody showed up with mysterious evidence.Honestly, it felt suspicious.Life had trained me well.Whenever things became quiet,something dramatic usually followed.Still, I tried enjoying it.The bookstore remained busy every day.Customers came and went constantly.Maya continued creating unnecessary chaos.James remained permanently stressed.Sarah practically lived inside investigation files.And Ethan…Well.Ethan stayed close.Not in an overwhelming way.Not in a controlling way.Just close enough to remind methat he was still here.That he wasn’t leaving again.The realization warmed something inside me.More than I wanted to admit.Late Thursday afternoon,I found myself reorganizing books.A task I normally enjoyed.Today, however, somebody kept distracting m
Bella’s POVThe next few days felt strangely peaceful.Not perfect.Definitely not normal.But peaceful enough to notice.Nobody disappeared unexpectedly.Nobody uncovered shocking family secrets.Nobody showed up with mysterious evidence.Honestly, it felt suspicious.Life had trained me well.Whenever things became quiet,something dramatic usually followed.Still, I tried enjoying it.The bookstore remained busy every day.Customers came and went constantly.Maya continued creating unnecessary chaos.James remained permanently stressed.Sarah practically lived inside investigation files.And Ethan…Well.Ethan stayed close.Not in an overwhelming way.Not in a controlling way.Just close enough to remind methat he was still here.That he wasn’t leaving again.The realization warmed something inside me.More than I wanted to admit.Late Thursday afternoon,I found myself reorganizing books.A task I normally enjoyed.Today, however, somebody kept distracting me.His name started wi
Bella’s POVThe next few days felt strangely peaceful.Not perfect.Definitely not normal.But peaceful enough to notice.Nobody disappeared unexpectedly.Nobody uncovered shocking family secrets.Nobody showed up with mysterious evidence.Honestly, it felt suspicious.Life had trained me well.Whenever things became quiet,something dramatic usually followed.Still, I tried enjoying it.The bookstore remained busy every day.Customers came and went constantly.Maya continued creating unnecessary chaos.James remained permanently stressed.Sarah practically lived inside investigation files.And Ethan…Well.Ethan stayed close.Not in an overwhelming way.Not in a controlling way.Just close enough to remind methat he was still here.That he wasn’t leaving again.The realization warmed something inside me.More than I wanted to admit.Late Thursday afternoon,I found myself reorganizing books.A task I normally enjoyed.Today, however, somebody kept distracting me.His name started wi
Bella POVThe moment Clara stepped into the celebration grounds, it felt like the entire atmosphere shifted in a way that was impossible to ignore, because the warm laughter and cheerful conversations that had been filling the air just moments ago suddenly quieted into soft whispers and curious gla
Bella POVThe next two weeks passed in a way that felt strange to me.For the first time in three years of marriage, Ethan was actually living in the house with me.Sometimes when I woke up in the morning, I would see his shoes by the door or his jacket hanging on the chair in the living room, and
Bella POVI had just finished arranging the jars of herbs in the small medicine cabinet in my room when my phone suddenly rang on the table beside me.For a moment I simply stared at the screen without moving, because Ethan’s name was flashing across it.My heart immediately started beating faster.
Bella POVAt that exact moment, his phone suddenly rang.The sound broke the heavy silence in the room.Ethan glanced at the screen and immediately answered the call.His voice softened slightly when he spoke.“Hello?”A familiar female voice echoed faintly from the phone speaker.“Ethan,” Clara sa







