All Chapters of Addicted To The Arranged Bride: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

***~~ZARA~~***The MC’s voice filled the entire hall like he’d been waiting all evening for this exact moment. “It’s right about time, ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome the CEO of Wright Holdings Company to give us the opening speech.”Immediately the room responded the way it does when the most important name in the building gets called. A specific stillness that only real power manages to produce without even requesting it.I watched Dante from where I stood.He adjusted his suit once, just one smooth pull at the lapel, then his expression settled into a composed, locked-in look he always wore whenever he was about to step in front of a crowd.Then without a single word or backward glance, he was already moving, cutting through the parting crowd with a long, unhurried stride that somehow managed to feel both relaxed and intentional at the same time.Every step landed with quiet authority, making people step back and watch without fully understanding why.He stepped up under the

***~~ZARA~~***I knew Dante was going to try his hardest to talk to me, but I wasn’t buying anything he was saying because I was still angry.I needed him to understand in a language impossible to misread, that this kind of thing should not keep happening: the silent treatment, the unilateral decisions, all of it.I needed it to register properly this time.So I sat with my drink, adjusted my shoulders, and kept my eyes forward.And then my head started spinning.Not dramatically, not in a way that anyone around me would have noticed, just a low, unsettling dizziness that moved through me in slow waves, the kind that makes you go still, wondering if it will pass or get worse.I could not explain it or trace it back to anything specific. I hadn’t had enough to drink for that, hadn’t skipped a meal, wasn’t particularly overheated.I just felt off.I was in the middle of trying to decide whether to say something about it when the sound of glass hitting the floor cut clean through the r

***~~DANTE~~***Both of them went silent the second they saw me, and I caught the look immediately, the kind of confused, cautious look two staff members give a man standing outside a women’s restroom when the men’s restroom sign is glowing in bold letters directly across the hall.Given the circumstances, I didn’t have the patience to care how strange I looked, or how ridiculous it was for me to be standing at the ladies’ side of the restroom.One of the women offered a slightly awkward smile. “Sir, do you need help with anything, or are you looking for someone?”“Yes, I need help,” I replied, keeping my voice as steady and polite as I could manage given how fast my mind was already racing. “I’m looking for my wife. She left our table about an hour ago to use the restroom, and she hasn’t come back yet. Have either of you seen her, or is she still inside?”The two women exchanged a quick glance, the kind that passes information faster than words ever could, and the second one finally

***~~DANTE~~***The first thing my eyes landed on the moment I stepped through that door was the usher, the same one who had offered Zara that drink at the gala only a few hours earlier, lying completely still on the floor with two officers crouched near him.For one terrible second, my whole body locked up because my mind hadn't caught up yet with what I was actually looking at. I hadn't separated the body on the ground from the fear I'd been carrying the entire drive over.Then my gaze moved past him, sweeping the rest of the room fast, searching, and that's when I found her.Zara.Sitting in a chair near the wall, wrapped in a blanket someone had clearly given her, her hair was messy and her makeup smudged in places, looking weak and visibly exhausted but breathing, sitting upright and alive.The relief that crashed through me in that exact moment was so overwhelming that my knees actually felt unsteady for a second, like my body needed a moment to process the fact that the worst

***~~DANTE~~***I cupped her face gently between my hands. My thumb brushed along her cheek, and I let everything I’d been holding back since that phone call finally spill out of me.“You look so beautiful even like this,” I murmured, my voice low and raw. “I should have followed you to that restroom. None of this would have happened if I had just trusted my own instincts instead of sitting there waiting like a coward. Please forgive me, Zara.” I pressed a slow, gentle kiss against her lips.She lifted her head slowly, her eyes heavy and tired, blinking up at me like she was fighting through layers of exhaustion to focus on my face.I gave her a soft smile, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her cheek, and tried to lighten the energy around us a little.“Do you still feel… horny?” I asked, half-teasing, half-checking on her. “You want to go another round?”“No, baby,” she murmured. “I don’t. I’m so tired, I want to sleep.”Before I could respond, her eyes slipped shut complet