Chapter: Chapter 166 GwenThe next few days were more peaceful than I could bargain. The rumors cleared and my ownership was proven with a few visits to the court.I had no one else but Elias to thank for it. I would have thanked Alex as well, but ever since our last conversation, the last thing I wanted to do is see him.I do not know if it was denial or simply guilt. But then, guilt for what? Elias had packed only a few things from his room the last time he came here and he was finally taking everything out. His room had always been under lock and key and I had never found my way inside it except it was absolutely necessary. I decided to make everything easier for him and fill the boot before his arrival. I still had a spare key for the room.I let myself in, opening the door a little, the apartment was dim and half-emptied, most of his furniture already gone, boxes stacked against the walls in various states of taped-shut and forgotten-about. It smelled like him still, that clean cedar and citrus sc
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-26
Chapter: Chapter 165GwenThe house was quiet by the time I finally climbed the stairs, the kind of quiet that presses against your ears after a night too loud to process. I carried Emris to his room. I didn't bother with my dress. I peeled it off somewhere between the bathroom and the bed, left it pooled on the floor like something I was shedding rather than undressing from, and pulled on the first soft thing my hands found in the drawer.I checked on Emris immediately after. He was curled on his side, one arm flung over his stuffed fox, breathing slow and even in the dim glow of his nightlight. I stood in his doorway longer than I needed to, just watching the rise and fall of his small chest, letting it anchor me the way it always did. Whatever else had come apart tonight, this hadn't. This was still mine, still safe, still untouched by my personal chaos.I pressed a kiss to his forehead so light it wouldn't wake him, and made myself walk away.My own bed felt too big when I finally lay down in it, the
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-25
Chapter: Chapter 164AlexThe laugh that came out of her wasn't really a laugh. It was something thinner than that, something with edges, and it filled the car in a way that made my hands tighten on the wheel."Wow." She said it to the windshield, not to me, shaking her head slowly. "Wow, okay. So I've been deceiving myself this whole time. That's– " Another humorless huff of breath. "That's actually funny, when you think about it. Five years rebuilding a name, a face, a whole life, and the one person sitting three feet away from me every single day already knew it was a costume.""Gwen–""Don't." She said it without heat, which somehow landed harder than if she'd shouted. "Just don't."I glanced at her, then back at the road, guilt sitting heavy and useless in my chest. "I found out recently," I said carefully. "I swear to you, not from the start.""It doesn't matter.""It matters to me.""It doesn't matter, Alex." Her voice cracked on my name, just slightly, and she turned her face toward the window s
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-24
Chapter: Chapter 163 GwenI opened my mouth to speak, but words eluded me, and a perplexed silence followed.“Oh are you going to pretend to be deaf and dumb too?” His brows raised in mock surprise and he doubled over in laughter, slapping his thigh repeatedly, as if he could not believe what was happening. My body went still. Very still, as I watched him. His laughter stopped as abruptly as it started and he looked at me with an unmistakable glare in his eyes. He wiped at his eyes with a handkerchief as he continued carefully. Almost quietly.“Did you think you could fool everyone with that cheek surgery you had done? I had known from the moment you stepped foot in the city, who you were. I just decided to leave you to enjoy your delusions for a while.”“What?”My throat pinched in terror as I listened to him. He had known who I was all this time? Even when I met him at the party? Even when he had seen me with Emris at school? Oh my God.My mind scrambled to catch up with what he was saying, piecing t
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-23
Chapter: Chapter 162GwenI stood at the edge of the ballroom entrance and let myself have one full breath before I walked in.The chandeliers above the Whitmore Grand's main hall threw soft gold light over round tables dressed in ivory linen, each one crowned with a small brass placard bearing the names of donors, faculty, and press. A banner stretched across the far wall in deep navy and silver: ‘THE HALVERSON INSTITUTE ANNUAL RESEARCH RECOGNITION’. Beneath it, on an easel taller than I was, sat a blown-up photograph of my own face beside the title of the paper that had consumed the last three years of my life.This event, this room, this particular chandelier light falling across my shoulders, was what I had rebuilt myself toward. Not fame. Not vindication, even, though I wouldn't have minded a little of that. I had wanted, more than anything, to prove that a second chance could be spent on something that mattered to someone other than me.I smoothed the front of my dress, feeling the small tremor in m
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-22
Chapter: Chapter 161 AlexMy heart was hammering so loud I was fairly certain she could hear it too, close enough that the space between us had shrunk down to almost nothing, her waist warm under my palm, her breath catching every time I so much as shifted my weight.I pulled her closer.She didn't fight it. That single fact undid something in me faster than anything else could have. No flinch, no careful step back, no deflecting joke to break the tension the way she usually managed whenever things between us got dangerously close to honest. Her hand had come up at some point to rest lightly against my chest, and I could feel her pulse there too, quick and unsteady, matching mine.I leaned in, slow enough to give her every chance to stop me, some part of my brain still functioning well enough to insist on that much even as the rest of me had gone completely, helplessly single-minded."Mum! Come look at this, it's so cool!"Emris's voice cut through the boutique, loud and delighted, entirely oblivious to
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-21
Masuk
