First date with Nolan

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• LOVE FOR SALE    Break apart

  NOLAN POVSleep wasn’t even an option. Not tonight.I sat at the kitchen counter, staring at the half-empty mug in front of me. The tea I made for her, the same rooibos blend my father used to brew, had gone cold. I hadn’t touched it. Maybe because some twisted part of me felt like I had no right to drink it. Like even now, even after everything, I was trespassing on something that wasn’t mine.It’s funny. You can share a roof with someone, breathe the same air, pass them the sugar over breakfast and still feel like a stranger in your own home.I ran a hand through my hair, pushing back the frustration, the ache, the… whatever this suffocating feeling was. Grief. Guilt. Love. It was all tangled up so tight I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.Her voice still echoed in my head.“It can’t, Nolan.”Those three words were a scalpel sharp, precise, unforgiving.She was right. Of course, she was right.This thing between us whatever it was had no future. Not here. Not now.N

• LOVE FOR SALE    Boundaries

  BEN POVI closed the door to my room and that’s when it happened.The dam broke.The tears I’d been holding back all evening came flooding out, falling faster than I could wipe them away. My chest felt tight, like someone was sitting on it, like breathing itself had become a battle I wasn’t sure I was ready for.God… Why did it hurt this much?I slid down against the door until I was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to my chest, hands trembling. I thought I was done crying. I thought… maybe I’d finally made peace with everything. But peace was a lie, wasn’t it? A pretty word people threw around when they were too exhausted to fight with themselves anymore.I didn’t understand Nolan.Why was he holding onto a love that broke him in the first place?I was the one who betrayed first. I was the one who walked away. I left him standing in the wreckage of something we both swore would never fall apart.And yet… his heart kept finding its way back to me.It was unfair. It was so damn u

• LOVE FOR SALE    Something blooming

  NOLAN POVI didn’t sleep that night either.Ben had gone quiet after we talked. Not the kind of quiet that begs for space—hers was the silence that came after a war. I’d seen it before, in myself. After the funeral. After the last fight with my father. After I realized I’d never really known the woman I was supposed to marry.But sitting next to her now, the city below us, her hands wrapped around a chipped mug of rooibos tea—I didn’t feel that same emptiness. I felt…raw. Awake. Like the earth had shifted beneath us and neither of us knew what to call this new terrain.She hadn’t cried. That scared me more than if she had.I wanted to say something, anything, but I knew better than to rush her grief. Ben had always carried pain like it was part of her bones—hidden, quiet, indestructible. She made suffering look graceful, which made it easy for people to forget she was still breaking beneath the surface.I hadn’t forgotten.Not this time.She fell asleep on the couch just before dawn,

• LOVE FOR SALE    Modern family

  BEN POVI told myself it would be quick.Sign the papers. Avoid eye contact. Leave.Nolan had arranged everything to minimize my presence—a quiet meeting room on the sixth floor, a private elevator, and a lawyer who barely looked up from her paperwork. It should've been easy. But the moment I stepped into New Way Group, the walls felt too high, the floors too polished, the air too judgmental.I hadn't been here since the fallout. Since my grandfather found out that I wasn't the innocent, obedient girl he'd raised, but the woman who had fallen in love with his son. Since he told me I was adopted, an outsider, a mistake. I told myself none of that mattered now. I was here for Ambrose. For our child.The pen felt heavier than it should've when I signed the documents. My hand trembled slightly, but I didn’t let anyone see. I was almost done when the door creaked open."Why wasn’t I told she was here?"That voice. That thunder wrapped in silk.I turned.There he was.Ernest Chiles. My gran

• LOVE FOR SALE    My personal hell

  BEN POV The hospital was colder than I remembered. The air smelled like antiseptic and quiet dread. Three months pregnant, and already everything felt heavier—my body, my mind, my heart. The checkup had gone fine, the baby was growing well, but the doctor had looked at Nolan like he was the father. He didn't correct him. I didn't either.When we got home, Nolan parked the car in silence. He gave me a nod and a half-smile before heading to the office. It was always like that with him—measured, polite, almost too careful, like he was afraid any wrong move might shatter me completely. Maybe it would. I wasn't even sure who I was without Ambrose. Living with Nolan felt like standing in the echo of a life I almost had.The house was too quiet. My phone was within reach, so I called Clay. If anyone could distract me, it was him."Finally! I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me," he answered after the first ring."You wish," I said, curling into the corner of the couch. "Had my ch

• LOVE FOR SALE    The check-up

  BEN POVThe morning light spilled softly through the kitchen window as I sat at the table, slowly chewing on a piece of toast. My stomach wasn’t queasy for once, but my nerves made up for it. Today was my first official prenatal checkup, and even though everything seemed fine on the outside, I couldn’t shake the fear that something might be wrong.“You ready?” Nolan’s voice was gentle as he entered the kitchen, car keys in hand.I looked up and gave a tight nod. “As I’ll ever be.”He studied me for a moment, then reached into the fridge for a bottle of water. “Want to take it with you?”“Yeah. Thanks.”He handed it over, and for a second our fingers brushed. I felt the warmth of his skin—steady, reassuring, like everything he did. It was strange, how easy he made things feel when nothing about our situation was easy.The drive to the hospital was quiet. Not the heavy, stifling kind of silence, but the thoughtful kind. The city passed by in a blur of movement and color while I tried