جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

-ASARAIAH KAINE-9:00 a.m., my phone screen read.The morning light spilled over silver and glass, softening the long dining table that could have hosted a small kingdom. But it was just us: Malrik at the head, me at his right.He broke the silence first. “You handled yourself well last night.”I swallowed a bite of melon, pulse too quick. “I only wanted to see what my work looked like through someone else’s eyes. But when the bids kept rising, I realized it wasn’t about money. It was about… expression. A way to carve myself into the world.”His glass halted halfway to his lips. For the briefest moment, something sharp cracked across his expression, unguarded, almost raw. Gone in a blink.“You speak as though you’ve lived it,” he said, voice low.My fork clinked against porcelain. “I’ve read enough to feel it.”His gaze lingered, heavy, too long. Then—like shutters slamming closed—his chair scraped softly back. “I have business.”And he was gone. Just like that.I stared down at frui

-ASARAIAH KAINE-The second morning without Malrik was unbearable in its quiet.The Kaine mansion was not built for silence. It was too large, too intricate, too heavy with history to sit still. Without him, the house seemed to ache with absence, like every wall remembered the weight of his footsteps and now grieved them. His chair at the head of the table sat untouched, silverware aligned like soldiers waiting for a command that would never come.My plate was warm, but my appetite had vanished. I stirred the custard and fruit until it became something unrecognizable, pushing food in circles just to avoid thinking.Two months.That was what Asher had said—flat, efficient, as though the words hadn’t shifted the weight of the house onto my shoulders. Malrik Kaine would not return for two months.It had only been two days.I should have felt free. Relieved. I should have welcomed it, no more burning gold eyes across the table, no more silence heavy enough to choke me, no more chains disg

-ASARAIAH KAINE-The mansion was quieter than death.It was the kind of silence that pressed against my skin, that breathed down my neck, that reminded me with every echo of my steps that I was alone.It had been three weeks since he left.By now, I should have grown used to it, the empty chair at the dining table, the untouched glass at his place, the way the air no longer shifted when he entered a room. Instead, the absence had sharpened. It filled corners like smoke, heavier with each day that passed.I thought I would feel free. That was the cruelest part. No burning gaze across the table, no heavy silence that pinned me down, no storm bottled inside his chest threatening to break. But freedom was hollow when the chains had already carved their mark.I was restless.Painting should have been enough. But my canvases were frantic, bleeding storms I couldn’t bear to look at once they dried. Afsana worried. She begged me to rest. But what good was rest when the moment I closed my eyes

-ASARAIAH KAINE- “God, i missed you.” The words weren’t planned. They sounded ripped straight from his chest, dragged out against his will. His breath shuddered, his golden eyes burning into mine as though he couldn’t believe I was real. I trembled, my heart hammering, my body pressed to his. I should have pulled away. I should have said something, anything, to ground us before the storm devoured us both. But all I could do was cling to him, breathless, as the fire we’d been circling for months finally caught flame. His words scorched me. God, I missed you. They looped in my mind like a chant, and I felt it in the way his body pressed to mine, the tension in his grip, the hunger in every kiss. This wasn’t Malrik Kaine, the ruthless man who ruled with silence and steel. This was Malrik undone. “Malrik…” My voice cracked against his mouth, my fingers curling into his shirt. But he didn’t let me speak. His lips claimed mine again, rougher this time, desperate, as though silence

-ASARAIAH KAINE-“Asa,” he said, voice rough. Commanding. “Come here.”I hesitated, caught between them, but my body betrayed me. I slipped my hand free from Calla’s, heat flooding my cheeks, and crossed the space.The moment I was within reach, Malrik’s arm curled around my waist, pulling me flush against his side. His fingers splayed across my hip like a warning to anyone watching.His gaze locked on Calla’s. Cold. Lethal. “You won’t need to take her.” His voice was low, vibrating through me. “She already knows where she belongs.”Calla held his stare, unflinching, but I could see the calculation behind her smile. She knew she’d struck a nerve—and survived it.I swallowed hard, torn between mortification and a strange, secret thrill.Because even though Malrik’s possessiveness burned like fire… his arm around me was steady. Solid. Like he wasn’t letting go.Not anymore.Calla didn’t flinch. She looked at the arm Malrik had wrapped around me, then back into his eyes, unbothered by t