Chapter: 096Mia POVRyder actually bought the notebook.He set it on the table before breakfast, brand new, spine still stiff, next to the folded grocery receipt like a promotion ceremony. My mother clapped once, delighted, and immediately claimed the first page for herself."Six weeks," she said, writing the date across the top in careful letters. "Now it's official. No more bananas.""The receipt served us well," Ryder said. "We should frame it.""We are not framing a grocery receipt.""We're framing the grocery receipt."I let them argue about it while I poured coffee, and by the time I sat down they'd compromised on tucking it inside the back cover of the notebook instead, which satisfied nobody completely and therefore counted as a fair deal.The morning moved quickly after that. A dress shop two towns over had a Tuesday opening, and my mother had already called ahead. Ryder drove us, dropped us at the door, and told us to take however long we needed, that he had errands of his own, which I
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-08-16
Chapter: 096Mia POVRyder actually bought the notebook.He set it on the table before breakfast, brand new, spine still stiff, next to the folded grocery receipt like a promotion ceremony. My mother clapped once, delighted, and immediately claimed the first page for herself."Six weeks," she said, writing the date across the top in careful letters. "Now it's official. No more bananas.""The receipt served us well," Ryder said. "We should frame it.""We are not framing a grocery receipt.""We're framing the grocery receipt."I let them argue about it while I poured coffee, and by the time I sat down they'd compromised on tucking it inside the back cover of the notebook instead, which satisfied nobody completely and therefore counted as a fair deal.The morning moved quickly after that. A dress shop two towns over had a Tuesday opening, and my mother had already called ahead. Ryder drove us, dropped us at the door, and told us to take however long we needed, that he had errands of his own, which I
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-08-16
Chapter: 096Mia POVRyder actually bought the notebook.He set it on the table before breakfast, brand new, spine still stiff, next to the folded grocery receipt like a promotion ceremony. My mother clapped once, delighted, and immediately claimed the first page for herself."Six weeks," she said, writing the date across the top in careful letters. "Now it's official. No more bananas.""The receipt served us well," Ryder said. "We should frame it.""We are not framing a grocery receipt.""We're framing the grocery receipt."I let them argue about it while I poured coffee, and by the time I sat down they'd compromised on tucking it inside the back cover of the notebook instead, which satisfied nobody completely and therefore counted as a fair deal.The morning moved quickly after that. A dress shop two towns over had a Tuesday opening, and my mother had already called ahead. Ryder drove us, dropped us at the door, and told us to take however long we needed, that he had errands of his own, which I
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-08-16
Chapter: 095Mia POVThe guest list started on the back of an old grocery receipt, because none of us wanted to touch the real notebook this early in the week.We sat at the kitchen table after breakfast, my mother between us. Ryder had a pen in one hand and his coffee in the other. He wrote his own name first, as a joke, then crossed it out and wrote it again under a heading he labeled family."That's not funny," I said."It's a little funny." He slid the receipt toward me so I could add mine.I wrote my mother's name first. After that the list got harder, not because there weren't people who mattered, but because most of the people who had mattered most this past year weren't the kind you'd find in an old address book."What about the team," I said.Ryder looked up. "Which part of it.""The part that's still here." I nodded toward the window, where the morning rotation was making its slow loop past the roses. "The two who stayed the longest. They ate dinner with us more nights this year than mos
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-08-16
Chapter: 094Mia POVThe first real decision about the wedding arrived without ceremony.I came downstairs on a clear midweek morning and found my mother already at the table with the notebook open and a second, smaller list begun beside it. Ryder stood at the counter pouring coffee. He glanced at me over his shoulder and gave a small, rueful smile.“She’s been very restrained,” he said. “Only three new lines.”My mother tapped the page with the pen. “Possible dates. Nothing locked. Just the next few weekends when the garden will still have light in the late afternoon and the weather is usually steady. I checked the old almanac. That’s all.”I sat down and read the short list. Three Saturdays, spaced two weeks apart. No pressure in the handwriting. No extra details. Just the quiet possibility of choosing one.Ryder set a mug in front of me and took the chair beside mine. “We don’t have to pick today. Or this week. But if one of them feels right, we can hold it.”I looked at the dates again. The mi
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-08-14
Chapter: 093Mia POVThe notebook stayed closed for another two days before any of us felt the need to open it again.On the morning of the third day I came downstairs and found Ryder already at the table with it open in front of him, pen resting beside the page. My mother stood at the counter pouring coffee. She glanced over her shoulder and gave me a small smile that said she had noticed the same thing.“He’s been staring at it for ten minutes,” she said. “I told him not to add anything without you.”Ryder looked up, a little caught. “I wasn’t adding. I was just… looking at the shape of it. Making sure it still feels right.”I sat beside him and read the short list again. *Garden. Small. People who matter. Coast after.* The words were still enough. They hadn’t grown heavier or more complicated overnight.“They still feel right,” I said.He nodded and closed the notebook. “Then we leave it there until something needs to be decided.”Breakfast was unhurried. The conversation stayed light—weather,
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-08-13
His Grades. Her Rules: Our Ruin
Professor Zira Voss has spent years building a reputation for control. At Hawthorne College she is known for her sharp intellect, strict standards, and the cool authority that keeps students firmly in their place.
But Zira has a secret.
Late at night, behind a locked door and the glow of her laptop screen, she becomes Obsidian Queen—the anonymous patron of a mysterious livestream performer known only as Shadowed Knight. What began as a private escape from pressure and loneliness was never meant to follow her into the real world.
Until the day a new transfer student walks into her lecture hall.
Tristan Vale is confident, observant, and far too perceptive for comfort. When Zira notices the sleek black card that links him to the identity she knows online, a dangerous realization takes hold.
The secret they share could destroy them both.
Zira risks her hard-earned career and reputation. Tristan risks the scholarship that brought him to Hawthorne. What begins as a tense battle for control soon spirals into a rivalry neither of them can easily escape.
And just when Zira thinks the situation cannot become more complicated, Damian—the man from her past who refuses to let her go—returns, determined to reclaim his place in her life.
With secrets closing in and tensions rising, the lines between control, obsession, and vulnerability begin to blur.
อ่าน
Chapter: ~023ZIRA POVThe monitors beeped in a steady, mocking rhythm.I lay on the narrow hospital bed, the thin blanket pulled up to my chin, my curvy body still aching from the collapse that had taken me down three days earlier. My green eyes stared at the ceiling tiles, counting the holes like they could hold answers. Five years of running. Five years of hiding in the woods, then the motel, then this quiet hospital room where no one could reach me. And still, Tristan had found me.He had found me.The thought burned like acid in my chest. That cold smirk. The way he had looked at me like I was nothing but a broken toy he had finally discarded. “You’re nothing but a desperate, curvy slut who got wet for her own student.” The words echoed every time I closed my eyes. Every time I touched the faint scars on my thighs from the miscarriage that had taken our baby. The stress had been unbearable. The pressure of the scandal, of his betrayal, of watching him walk away with that smug look on his fa
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-17
Chapter: ~022ZIRA POVThe motel room felt smaller every hour.I hadn’t slept since Tristan left. Three days of pacing, of staring at the door, of jumping at every sound. My green eyes were bloodshot, my curvy body heavy with exhaustion and the ghost of the child I had lost five years ago. The miscarriage had taken more than a life — it had taken the last fragile piece of hope I had clung to after his betrayal.I couldn’t stay here. Not with him circling like a predator.I packed my few belongings in the middle of the night, hands shaking as I zipped the bag. The crescent moon scar on his neck haunted me. The wolf in the woods. The way his eyes had glowed with the same intelligence. It couldn’t be coincidence. Nothing in my life had been coincidence since the day I bumped into him.The drive back to the cabin was a blur of dark roads and racing thoughts. When I pulled up, the woods were silent. Too silent. I locked every window and door, then sat on the couch with a kitchen knife on my lap, staring
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-15
Chapter: ~021Zira POVThe small wooden cabin on the edge of the woods outside Hawthorne had become my prison and my sanctuary.Five years.Five long, brutal years since that day in the parking lot when Tristan shattered what was left of my heart. The stress had taken everything. The miscarriage in the hospital weeks later — our baby, lost before I even knew I was carrying — had broken the last piece of me. I moved out of my apartment the same week, sold everything, and disappeared into these woods. No social media. No contact with the old life. Just silence, therapy sessions, and the endless ache of betrayal.I was thirty-four now. The curvy body that once drew whispers was still full and soft, but it carried new scars — stretch marks from the pregnancy I lost, faint lines around my green eyes from too many sleepless nights. My long wavy black hair was usually tied back in a simple braid. I taught online literature courses under a different name. Quiet. Hidden. Surviving.Tonight the woods were
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-13
Chapter: ~020ZIRA POV The world went black after Tristan walked away.I don’t remember falling. One moment I was on the ground in the parking lot, the next I was floating in darkness. Voices blurred around me — nurses shouting, machines screaming, my father’s weak cry from somewhere far away. Then nothing.They told me later it was a stress-induced collapse. My body had simply given up after weeks of fighting. Heart palpitations, exhaustion, a minor stroke from the emotional trauma. I slipped into a coma for nine days.Nine days of silence.Nine days where the only sound was the steady beep of machines and the occasional whisper of visitors.On the tenth day, I woke up.My eyelids felt like lead. The hospital room was dim, the curtains drawn. My body ached everywhere. Tubes were in my arm, monitors attached to my chest. My father was asleep in the bed next to mine — they had moved him into the same room so I wouldn’t be alone when I woke.A shadow moved near the door.Tristan.He stepped into the
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-13
Chapter: ~019ZIRA POV The hospital corridor felt colder than usual that evening.I had just left my father’s room, his condition stable but fragile, when my phone buzzed with a message from Tristan.**Tristan:** Meet me in the parking lot. Now. We need to talk.My heart lifted despite everything. After the long days of fighting Marcus, the leaks, and the board, his presence had become my anchor. I walked quickly, my curvy figure moving with purpose in the simple black dress I wore. My long wavy black hair was loose, swaying with each step. The emerald ring from my father felt heavy on my finger — a symbol of strength.Tristan was waiting by his car, leaning against it with his arms crossed. The late afternoon light cast shadows across his sharp jaw and dark eyes. He looked... different. Colder.“Tristan,” I said, stepping closer, a small smile on my lips. “Is everything okay? The board—”He cut me off with a single, icy look.“Everything is perfect,” he said. His voice was flat. Mean. Completely
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-08
Chapter: ~018ZIRA POV The calm after the storm never lasted long.Three weeks later, the campus had mostly moved on. Whispers still followed me in the hallways, but the viral storm had died down to a manageable drizzle. My father was home, recovering slowly but steadily. Tristan’s scholarship was secure. My suspension had been lifted with a formal warning.We were supposed to be safe.But safety was an illusion.I was in my office grading papers when the knock came. Sharp. Confident. I knew it was him before he even entered.Tristan stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He looked every bit the dangerous student who had upended my world — dark hair tousled, sharp jaw clenched, those intense eyes locked on me like I was prey.“Professor,” he said, voice low and rough. “We have a problem.”He dropped a folder on my desk. Photos. Screenshots. Messages.Marcus wasn’t finished. He had gone underground but was still feeding anonymous accounts new clips — edited, twisted versions
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-07-08
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