Novel-novel oleh Ella

I kept following her.Everywhere Liana went, I went. Every step she took, I was there. At first, I was really curious about what this woman was planning. I hide myself and watched her day to day activities carefully.She lived quite a normal life. She had almost 3 jobs that it made me wonder if she every rest at all.In the morning she worked at the company. In the evening she goes to run errand and then at later work at her part time store.I wondered why she needed to work so hard.I followed her quietly as she walked down a lonely path on her way back him.Her pace quickened immediately, her shoulders tensed, her eyes darted nervously. Fear slowly crept in, painting her expression with panic.Finally, she stopped. Turned sharply. “Why are you following me?” Her voice was sharp, trembled slightly, but held a wall of defiance.Then she froze. “It’s you!” She looked confused.“I’m waiting,” I said simply, “for you to prove you’re not Amara.”Her shoulders dropped in frustration. “I al

I stood there, frozen.My mind was screaming a million questions, but my lips refused to move. My body felt heavy, as if I had been carved from stone. I could still feel the warmth of my hand on my face, the sting from the slap.That slap was something I didn’t see coming. The pain of getting hit by Amara was nothing compared to the hurt I felt as I saw the look in her eyes.She looked at me like a stranger. Cold. Empty.“Amara,” I whispered, my voice trembling, weak, almost broken. “It’s me… Adrian.” I took a hesitant step forward.She stepped back, a wall of distance forming between us.“I’m… sorry, sir,” she said slowly, carefully, her head bowed slightly. She trembled a little bit. “I don’t know who you are.”I lifted my head sharply to look at her.“And I’m not Amara,” she continued. “My name is Liana.”The words hit me harder than a punch.No. It couldn’t be. Though, I had stared at death, mourned her for year, suffered the pain of missing her and here she was standing before

I ran through the streets like a man possessed. My chest heaved, my legs ached, but I could not stop. I had to see her again. I had to make sure.I turned to a corner and froze. There she was. The same hair. The same curves. The same height, walking down the street without a care in the world.My heart jumped. She was alive. She had to be.I ran toward her, shouting her name. My hands reached out. My mind screamed with hope. But the moment I got close and spun her to face me… my heart sank.It wasn’t Amara. Not her.I stumbled back, unable to breathe. My mind reeled. Was the woman in my room an illusion too? Had I mistaken her for Amara in the darkness?Desperate, I sprinted back to the hotel. I demanded the CCTV footage. The receptionist frowned.“Why do you need it?” she asked, her tone teasing.I stared at her, my face squeezed and filled with disgust.I didn’t answer. I dropped money on the counter. Enough to silence any question.She blinked. Then, slowly, handed me the footage.

The journey back was quiet. Terrifyingly quiet. I could not stop thinking about her. About the way she had run. The way her hair had bounced in the sunlight. The way my heart had almost believed it.I knew my eyes hadn’t lied. I knew I would have recognized Amara even from thousands of miles away.“Was I… hallucinating?” I whispered softly.“What did you say?” Peter asked sharply.I shook my head quickly. “Nothing. Eyes on the road.”“Yes, sir.”When I arrived at my mansion, everything was exactly as I had left it. The house was spotless, but nothing had changed. Not a single thing.Amara was everywhere. In the cushions. In the curtains. In the faint scent of her perfume that still lingered in the air. It felt like a cruel joke.My chest heaved. I could feel the pain settle there.In the sitting room, our large portrait caught my eye. She was smiling. Beautiful. Peaceful. Alive.I breathed in slowly, as if I could inhale her essence. Three years had passed, and yet the ache was fresh.

My life had become a prison I could not escape. Every corner of the house reminded me of Amara. Her laughter, her soft voice, the way she would rest her hand on mine—it haunted me. But worse than the memories was what I had done. The guilt. The shame. The betrayal. It burned inside me like fire.I sat on the edge of my bed. The clock read past twelve. Sunlight fell weakly through the curtains, dust floating in the beams. I did not care. I did not care about breakfast, work, or life itself. Every breath felt heavy. My chest was tight. My stomach knotted.I could not drink. Not after that night. I had promised myself. Never again. The wine, the escape, the lies to myself—they were useless now.A soft knock came at the door. I did not move. My hands shook. My body felt numb.The door opened slightly. Seraphine stepped in. Her eyes widened when she saw me.I stood suddenly, fists clenched. “What are you doing here?” My voice was cold. Sharp. Full of anger.Her head dropped. Her voice trem

I stood in front of Amara’s picture for a very long time.The ceremonial house was quiet now. Most of the guests had left. Only a few remained outside, speaking in low voices.Her picture was large. Framed in gold. Surrounded by white roses.She was smiling in it.That smile.Soft. Deep. Peaceful.She looked alive.She looked like she would step out of the frame at any second and walk into my arms.My chest tightened.I reached out and touched the glass gently.Cold.Just like the metal table at the mortuary.My throat burned.“How could you do this?” I whispered to her picture.“What happened to the promises we made? How could you leave me like this?”My eyes were swollen. I had cried until there were no more tears left. Now it was just pain. Dry pain. A pain that sat inside my bones.People had come earlier.They praised her.They called her brave.Called her a hero.I hated it.They did not deserve to say her name.They did not deserve to stand in the same room as her picture.Most

GRACEThe first alert came in at 6:16pmAt first, I thought it was routine. We had firewall notifications often, flagged login attempts, suspicious IP addresses, automated probes from overseas servers fishing for vulnerabilities. Archer Group was too large not to attract attention.But this one didn’t clear.And then another came in.And another.By 7:26, my inbox was flooded with urgent messages from IT, all marked HIGH PRIORITY.Unauthorized access attempts.Encrypted data packets leaving the server.Administrative credentials being mirrored.I was on my feet before I fully processed the implications.“Conference room. Now,” I told my assistant.Within minutes, the head of IT and two security analysts were patching into the big screen. Lines of code streamed down in frantic motion. Red indicators blinked against the network map like open wounds.“Talk to me,” I demanded.“It’s not random,” Daniel, our lead analyst, said tightly. “They’re not just probing. They’re targeting specific

ANNAI didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until the sound of movement pulled me slowly back to consciousness.For a moment, I didn’t open my eyes. I just lay there, suspended between dream and memory, my body heavy in that delicious way that follows surrender. The sheets were cool against my skin now. The room was dim, lit only by the soft spill of light from the hallway.Carson wasn’t beside me.I heard the quiet rustle of fabric, the muted click of a drawer closing. When I finally opened my eyes, he was standing near the foot of the bed, already dressed in a pair of dark lounge pants, pulling a T-shirt over his head.The sight of him clothed felt strangely intimate after everything we had just shared.He glanced at me, catching my gaze. For a second, something unreadable crossed his face, something softer than his usual composure, but it vanished just as quickly.“Go back to sleep,” he said quietly.I pushed myself up onto my elbows. “Where are you going?”“Kitchen.”That was all.H

ANNAHe pressed me against the door, gaze holding mine for a second before he kissed me back. His pace increased, kissing me with no caution this time. His hands slid from my waist to my back, pulling me firmly against him.The kiss deepened fast and I felt it everywhere, the heat, the pressure, the way his fingers flexed against me like he was trying to memorize the shape of my body.I pressed closer, my hands moving down his chest. The fabric of his shirt was warm from his skin. Without thinking, I slipped my fingers to his buttons and started undoing them.His breath turned uneven against my mouth and before I could reach the next, he caught my wrist.For a moment, he just stared at me, breathing ragged, like he was standing on the edge of something irreversible.Then he moved.Before I could fully process it, he lifted me off the floor. My legs wrapped instinctively around his waist, my hands gripping his shoulders.He didn’t look away from me as he carried me down the hallway.W

ANNAI should have said no.The moment the words left his mouth, every rational part of my mind lined up with reasons to refuse. He was engaged. The office was watching. Emma was calculating. Eleanor’s warning still echoed in the back of my thoughts like a quiet alarm I was pretending not to hear.And yet, standing there with Carson’s hand braced against the door above my shoulder, his presence closing in around me, I felt the familiar fracture between logic and want.“Dinner,” he had said. “No offices. No boardrooms. Just you and me.”Just you and me.Nothing about that was simple.I should have said no.Instead, I heard myself say, “Fine.”His expression didn’t change much, Carson was too controlled for obvious satisfaction, but something in his eyes sharpened, as if a tension had been quietly resolved.“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said.It wasn’t a question.All afternoon, I told myself I would cancel.I drafted three different messages in my head. Each one sounded either overly

CARSONI noticed it before anyone else would have, because I was the only one watching her closely enough to detect the difference. Anna stopped looking at me. Not dramatically, not in a way that invited speculation or gossip.She still showed up to meetings, still delivered her reports with the same precision that had made the board trust her, still spoke when addressed with composed intelligence. But she stopped looking at me, and that absence was louder than confrontation would have been.It wasn't an obvious avoidance. She didn’t request a transfer. She didn’t refuse proximity. She didn’t bristle when I entered the room. She simply became neutral, professionally impeccable, emotionally inaccessible.The first time I felt it was during the Monday executive briefing. She sat two seats down from me, close enough that I could sense her presence without turning my head. Normally, she would have met my eyes at least once, briefly, cautiously, but with awareness. That morning, her attent

ANNAI saw her across the room before she even noticed me. The way she moved—careful, controlled, pretending the space belonged only to her—made my stomach twist. I had been in that position once, convinced I was the exception. Foolish. I knew better now.I stepped into her space, heels clicking softly, and she looked up, startled. I let the pause stretch, letting her register my presence.“Anna,” I said, my voice low but deliberate. “We need to talk.”Her brow lifted, cautious. There was that subtle wall in her posture, the same one I’d perfected years ago when he swept into my life like a storm. I didn’t flinch. I had to do this—had to tell her what I knew, even if it made me feel exposed again.We moved to a quiet corner, away from prying eyes and idle chatter. The hum of the office faded behind us, leaving only the sharp rhythm of my own pulse and the faint scent of her perfume. I could see the tension in her hands, the way her shoulders stiffened as if preparing for a fight. Good