The Affair Revenge My Bestfriend's Husband Offered Me のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 11 - チャプター 20

His gaze snapped back to mine. The confusion in his eyes cleared, replaced by a slow-dawning comprehension and something else. Something deeper. A crack in the ice, just for a second, showing not approval, but a raw, unsettling vulnerability. He hadn't planned this. He hadn't expected it. And for that one heartbeat, he was just a man with a woman's mark on him, trapped in an elevator, completely off-script.Then the CEO slammed back into place.He straightened, his jaw tightening. He didn't smile. He didn't nod. He simply turned away from me, facing the elevator doors, his posture rigid. But I could notice the slight redness crawled up his neck. I was not sure if it was from rage of humiliation or his embarrasment.The silence between us was no longer charged with strategy. It was charged with something else entirely—something neither of us knew how to name. It made me wonder if I'd miscalculated, if I'd crossed a line he hadn't agreed to. I cursed myself in silence and regretted it im

-Nerissa's POV-Vance's hand pressed against my back. A question. A warning."Does his presence here compromise our position?"I kept my eyes fixed on the Harringtons, my face a mask of perfect composure. But my knuckles, wrapped around the champagne flute, were bloodless white.The answer, whatever it was, would be whatever best served the alliance."No," I said, my voice steady. "It changes nothing.""Good."I felt his palm press slightly harder against my spine—grounding me. Or maybe grounding himself. In this current chaos we had to face, we were all we had.Across the room, Jovi began to move through the crowd. Zane was stiff beside her, his jaw tight. They were coming straight toward us.***-Zane's POV-"Is that… Nerissa?"Jovi's voice was barely a whisper, but I heard the tremor in it. I didn't answer. I couldn't. My eyes were locked on my wife. On Vance Blackwood standing beside her, his head tilted close to hers. They looked like a unit. A team.My chest tightened."They look

The morning after the party, I sat at the kitchen island in the quiet house. Zane had left early. The silence felt heavy now.At ten, the doorbell rang. A courier handed me an envelope. Inside was a keycard and an address written in strong, clear handwriting: The Aerie. PH 70. 7 AM.No note. No explanation. Just an order from Vance.I didn't want to go. But I had nothing else to do today. So I went right away.The Aerie was the top floor of the residential tower next to the Astera Spire offices. The elevator opened right into the apartment. The place was all windows and empty space. It didn't look like anyone lived there. It looked like a museum.Vance was waiting. He wasn't wearing a suit. He had on dark pants and a grey sweater. It made him look different. Casually handsome that it made me held my breath."Sit," he said."Harrington’s final amendments. Review the liability clauses.”I sat and looked at the documents, but the words blurred in my eyes. The memory of last night played o

The numbers on the screen bled together into a grey fog. I blinked once, hard, trying to force my eyes to focus. My desk clock read 9:17 PM. The executive floor was a tomb, so quiet and dark I could hear the faint whir of my own laptop fan.This office, my shiny new prize, felt like a glass box suspended over the city. I’d stopped answering my phone. Mom’s worried voicemails piled up. Zane’s pleading texts were little red notifications I swiped away without reading. The only thing that felt real was the Harrington project data. It was clean. It was logical. It didn’t lie or love someone else.A dull ache had been brewing in my lower back for hours. I’d tried to ignored it. I blamed the chair, the stress, the sheer exhaustion of holding myself upright in a world that had cracked open. I pushed back from the desk to stand and a wave of dizziness hit me so violently the floor seemed to tilt. I grabbed the edge of the desk, my fingers digging into the wood.You just need food, she told her

Vance hadn't left. He stood near the curtained entrance, his back to the fabric wall, a broad, dark silhouette blocking out the noise and light from the hallway. He wasn't looking at me. He was staring at a point on the opposite wall, his posture rigid.The wand pressed against me, cold and foreign. On the screen, a blurry, shifting landscape of greys and blacks appeared. I didn't know what I was looking at. I didn't know what any of it meant. My heart was a frantic bird trapped in my ribs, beating against the cage of my bones. *Please*, I thought, a wordless, desperate prayer to nothing and everything. *Please, please, please.*The tech moved the wand. Clicked a button on the keyboard. A still image froze on the screen. More grey shapes. She was too quiet. She measured something, her brow furrowed. The silence in the room grew thick and heavy, pressing down on my chest. The only sound was the low hum of the machine.She took more pictures. More clicking. More silence.Finally, the doc