Chapter: chapter SevenThere are two kinds of silence. There is the silence of a man who has nothing to say to you, and there is the silence of a man who has too much, and Peter Stargard had given me both in the space of one weekend. I had spent two whole days replaying that gala, his flat voice, the words about my father, the way he had turned his chair away from me like I was a stain he wanted to forget. So when Monday morning came, I walked into Northgate with my chin up and my heart in my shoes, and I told myself the same thing I had told myself a hundred times: the truth, I need to know what truly happened. But I still had a job to do, and I was going to do it well. "Morning, Miss Miller!" Mary was already at her desk, bright and cheerful, a cup of coffee in each hand. She handed me one. "How was your weekend? Long one, huh?""You have no idea," I said."Ooh, I bet." She followed me into my office, lowering her voice like we were sharing a secret. "So. Everyone's been talking. Is it true? You and the
Last Updated: 2026-11-13
Chapter: chapter SevenClaire's POVI didn't go back to my apartment; the moment those doors closed behind Peter, I was already walking to my car, heels in my hand, cold pavement biting my feet, my whole body moving on one single thought. “My father. I have to see my father.”The whole drive, my head spun with memories. My father, standing in the kitchen, telling me that a lie was the one thing he could never forgive. My father, grounding me for a whole week when I was nine because I said I'd finished my homework when I hadn't. The quiet, careful, honest man who made me give back a pen I'd borrowed from a classmate without asking, who sat me down and said, “Claire, your word is the only thing you truly own.” He was my hero, the whole reason I became the woman I am. And now Peter's voice kept cutting through all of it. “ Your father. The great reporter, he wrote a story, and it caused my mother’s death.”I pressed my foot harder on the gas. I needed to see his face, I needed him to look me in the eyes a
Last Updated: 2026-11-13
Chapter: Chapter SixLiam's POVClaire Miller, after three years of saying her name only in my own head and telling myself I would never see her face again, was back in my life, now working in my company. I never saw myself attending the reunion gala this year, when somebody mentioned in the group chat that Claire would be there. I made my decision days ago, not this year. Then Bernard called. "Don't tell me you're skipping it," he said. "Peter, you skip everything, you skip dinners, birthdays, and now the one night a year our old classmates remember we exist.""I'm busy," I said, the only excuse that came to my mind at that moment."You're hiding." He said it kindly, which somehow made it worse. "I've been your doctor since that night. I know all your excuses by heart. Come to the gala one night. Get a life outside your office and that empty house.""And if she's there?" I paused and asked."Then you'll finally get to face it instead of running," Bernard whispered. I told him no three times, then I let
Last Updated: 2026-11-13
Chapter: chapter fiveFive years of a love I kept alive all by myself, in a room no one else could see, because I was so sure that one day he'd come back to me. And he had come back to announce he belonged to someone else.Beside me, Angelina found my hand under the table and held it tight. "Breathe," she whispered. "Claire. Breathe." Just as I was about to look away, Peter finally turned his head. For one single second, across all those laughing people, his eyes found mine and held them; then he looked away and smiled at the crowdThe music grew softer as the night wore down. Plates were cleared, goodbyes were said, and the grand hall slowly emptied, people drifting toward the doors in little clusters of laughter and perfume. I watched Peter the whole time, through every toast, every handshake, every photo someone pulled him into. His engagement sat in my chest like a swallowed stone, heavy and sharp, and underneath it burned a single, desperate need. Answers. I had waited five years in the dark. I would
Last Updated: 2026-11-11
Chapter: Chapter fourThe morning of the reunion gala, my bed screamed from the mess I had created just to get the perfect outfit."You look perfect, stop it," Angelina said, swatting my hands away from the mirror. She was already in deep blue, glowing, while I stood there in soft gold, my heart beating somewhere up in my throat."What if he's there?" I whispered."That's the whole point, isn't it?" She fixed a loose curl by my face and met my eyes in the mirror. “You want to talk it, no office, just the two of you and ten years of history." She smiled. "Breathe, Claire. Tonight you find out what happened." That was all I wanted. I held onto those words the whole way there.***The gala was beautiful, held in a grand old hall with chandeliers and soft music and round tables dressed in white. The moment we walked in, familiar faces turned and lit up. "Claire Miller! No way!""Angelina, you haven't aged a day!"We were swallowed into hugs and laughter, old classmates pulling us into stories half remembered.
Last Updated: 2026-11-11
Chapter: Chapter three{claire’s POV}"Peter." His name left me before I could stop it, soft and trembling, full of three years of silence. It was really him. After all this time, after the unanswered messages, after the ocean between us, he was right there, close enough to touch. My eyes dropped to the wheelchair, to the blanket over his legs, and for half a second my heart cracked. Then it didn't matter. It honestly didn't matter. Wheelchair or not, standing or sitting, he was still the boy who held my hand under the bleachers, still the face I'd loved since I was fifteen. My whole body moved before my brain did."Oh my God, Peter, it's you, it's really you." I rushed around the desk, arms already open, ready to throw myself at him, to feel him again, to laugh and cry and ask where he'd been all this time. He lifted his hand, not to hug me but to stop me."Miss Miller." His voice was flat and cold, a stranger's voice. He held out that raised hand, stiff and formal, waiting. "Welcome to Northgate Logistic
Last Updated: 2026-11-11
Bound To The Billionaire For Five years
When Evelyn Georgewill’s younger brother, Ethan, falls critically ill and needs an urgent transplant overseas, the only person she can turn to for help is Liam Marlon, the man whose company has grown on the strength of Evelyn’s stolen ideas.
Evelyn has loved Liam since she was a teenager, but the cold billionaire has eyes only for Cherry Stegman. Desperate to save her brother, Evelyn barges into a meeting with Liam and his father, exposing Liam’s. In response, Mr. Marlon offers her a five-year marriage contract. She must become Liam’s wife, serve as the creative mind behind his company, and help secure major business deals. In exchange, Ethan will receive the treatment he desperately needs. But the contract comes with strict rules: no intimacy and no children.
Living under the same roof as the man she’s always loved becomes Evelyn’s greatest punishment. Liam gives his heart to Cherry, the woman he believes saved his life years ago, while treating his own wife as if she means nothing.
Then Evelyn discovers she is pregnant.
For the first time, she dares to hope that the baby might change everything. But Cherry is determined to protect her place in Liam’s life, and she will do anything to destroy the woman standing in her way.
Betrayed by the man she loves, Evelyn suffers a loss that changes her forever.
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Chapter: Chapter sevenEvelyn's POVI heard the door click, his feet on the stairs, and then nothing. The house went silent; I lay there on Cherry's floor with my hand pressed to my stomach and my blood warm under my back, and I waited for the door to open again.I counted. I did not mean to, but I counted, the way you count when your mind cannot hold anything bigger. One, two, three. My forehead was cold, and my arm would not lift properly, so I counted with my breath instead."Liam," I said, out loud, to the ceiling; the word came out thin and cracked. I pinched the skin on the back of my hand, hard, until it hurt, hard enough that a small red mark came up. I wanted it to be a dream; I wanted to wake up in my cold bed in that big house with the sun on the wall and the space beside me, and be angry about it, and be alive. I pinched again. The pain was real, the blood under my back was real, and it was spreading. My husband had carried another woman out of this room in his arms and left me here. That was
Last Updated: 2026-11-13
Chapter: Chapter sixLiam's POV The sun was up, and the bed felt strange under me; Evelyn's face kept coming back. Those photos, a man's hand on her waist. I sat up and rubbed my face hard. I had not slept much, and I did not want to. Cherry walked in with coffee, and she smiled at me like nothing in the world was wrong. "You look terrible," she said. "Did you sleep at all?""Not really." I took the cup. "I need to go home and get ready for work." She sat on the bed beside me. "You don't have to go back there, not after what she did." I honestly wished I did not have to go, but i had a company to run. "I have a board meeting at noon." I stood up and set the cup down. "I need my files and a change of clothes . I won't be long."Cherry walked me to the car in her robe and kissed my cheek. "Come back tonight," she said. "I'll cook." I almost smiled, but the anger was still there, sitting in my chest like a stone. I drove home with the windows down and the radio off. The house was quiet when I walked in;
Last Updated: 2026-11-13
Chapter: chapter FiveIt spread beneath me onto Cherry's white floor. We both stared at it. Neither of us moved. For one long second, the fight was gone, and there was only fear, hers and mine, hanging in the air between us. Then Cherry broke. "Oh God," she screamed.She scrambled back on her hands, away from me, her eyes wide and wild. She grabbed her phone off the floor. Her fingers were shaking so hard she almost dropped it. I tried to get up. My arm would not hold me. I slid back down onto the cold marble, and the room tilted around me.“Get up, Evelyn,” I told myself. For the baby. But I could not. I lay there on the floor of that beautiful white room, bleeding, weak, one hand pressed to my stomach, and the fear swallowed me whole. Not fear for me. Fear for the small life inside me. The only thing in this world that was truly mine.“Why did I come here?” The thought cut deeper than the glass. I should have stayed at my desk. I should have let them whisper. I should have gone home and locked the door a
Last Updated: 2026-11-06
Chapter: chapter fourHe just needed time, I told myself. He would calm down, and then we would talk, like husband and wife should. I sat alone at the back of the cafeteria with my lunch untouched in front of me, staring at the glass of water on the table. I watched the small ring of wetness it left behind and turned it slowly in my hand without drinking. A glass of water. My fingers went still. “Cherry.” Then the memory came. The one I had pushed away for days because it did not make sense. A week ago. Here, at this very office. Cherry had come to see me. She had smiled her soft smile and said she wanted to make peace."I feel terrible about everything," she had said. "You and Liam, the way things are. I want to fix it. I want to step back and let the two of you be a real family." She had touched my arm. "Can we talk? Somewhere quiet. Just us women."And a fool that I was, I wanted to believe her; I wanted peace so badly. We went to a restaurant. A nice one, soft lights, a private corner. She poured me w
Last Updated: 2026-11-06
Chapter: Chapter ThreeI could not stand it one more second; I turned and ran through the kitchen, out the back door, into the dark garden behind the house. The music and the voices faded behind me. Out here, there was only the night air and the smell of smoke from the barbecue the servers had used earlier.I stopped by the low brick fire pit, its coals still glowing orange, and I let it all out. I screamed, pressing my hand over my own mouth to keep it quiet, but it came anyway, shaking my whole body. Three years of holding everything in, and it all broke loose in the dark. I cried for Ethan. For the baby. And the stupid, hopeful girl who had wrapped a lily on a box and thought love might grow where there was only ice.***I did not sleep, nor did I know when everyone left. The next morning, I lay in the big cold bed and watched the ceiling turn from black to gray to pale morning white. Liam's side was empty. It had been empty all night. A soft knock came at the door."Mrs. Evelyn?" The door opened, and M
Last Updated: 2026-11-06
Chapter: chapter TwoEvelyn's POV"Liam…" I called out to him, wondering what might be in those photos to make him so furious. How did those pictures even get in there? I couldn't help but wonder what was going on.The room went so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat. Liam crossed the floor in three long steps and grabbed my wrist. His fingers were hard. He pulled me toward him, the photos still crushed in his other hand. "You," he said. His voice shook. "You couldn't even be decent.""You couldn't keep your legs closed." He held the pictures up in my face. That was when I saw it; it was me in those photos in a hotel with a man. My head on his chest. One stare at it and I froze, grabbed the pictures from his hands to really confirm it was me. “But…how…?” "Of all days, you had to do this today? On my birthday. And you rub it in front of everyone?" If I was sure of one thing in this world, it was that I had loved Liam since we were teenagers back in high school. Back then, he was soft and gentle. When the
Last Updated: 2026-11-06
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