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Chapter Five
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2025-04-19 19:56:29Elias was not the type to be impressed easily, as a lot of things didn’t pique his interest. Until today. He couldn’t deny that he was very interested in the young woman standing before him, clad in his large jacket. Everything about her was interesting to look at. With the way she tilted her head at him expectantly to how small she looked in his jacket.
“Elias?” She repeated, calling him by his name. He liked how his name sounded on her lips.
“What kind of proposition would that be?” He couldn't help asking.
She glanced around like she wanted to reveal a secret. “We can’t talk here. Let’s meet up in a quiet place. Say, tomorrow?” She suggested.
He wondered what was going on in her head. She had looked so pale and shaken up earlier. Right now, there was a hardness about her that he didn’t quite understand. He wasn’t sure he liked it.
“Why don’t we meet up at a restaurant? I’ll text you the time of the reservation. My driver will come pick you up tomorrow.” He added.
Dakota shifted uncomfortably. “How are you going to do that? You don’t even have my number.”
He smiled lopsidedly. “What makes you think I don’t?”
She rolled her eyes. “I never gave it to you.”
He chuckled at her response. She was adorable.
“I have my ways, love.” He said, vaguely.
She shot daggers at him, clearly irritated. “Of course you do. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Elias suddenly realized they were having a silly banter and to his surprise, he was enjoying it. He wasn’t looking for an excuse to end the conversation or retire for the night, which was strange.
He felt her tense up beside him and caught sight of the reason for her stillness. Her mother and sister were approaching them with questioning looks. For some reason, he felt the urge to wrap his arms around her protectively.
“Mr Persson! How nice of you to honor our invitation. It’s a pleasure to see you again!” Her mother expressed cheerfully. She cast Dakota a quick look, while Diana bored holes at the jacket on her.
He nodded curtly. “Thank you for the invitation.”
Dakota remained quiet. A faraway look in her eyes.
“Diana will show you to the men’s section. The spring set is absolutely divine.” She appraised. Diana gazed at him with a huge smile, clearly happy that she was going to be by his side.
“Dakota has some other things to attend to in my office.” Her mother added as she pulled her away from him, leaving him alone with Diana. Dakota didn’t stop her mother as she was pulled away.
Diana’s enthusiasm irked him. It made him uncomfortable when people tried too hard to please him. He had to let her down quickly before she took his silence as a sign he was interested.
“Look, Diana—” He began.
“Come Elias, let me show you around.” She slipped her arm around his elbow, breaking him off.
He sighed wearily. “You don’t have to. I can find my own way.”
She didn’t take the hint. “Of course I have to. It’s my job to show our guests around.”
He cursed under his breath at her insistence. It was like the more he resisted, the harder she tried.
***
Her dress fitting was today.
It was supposed to be a joyous occasion for her but all she felt was rage and disgust. She was angry at herself mostly for being so stupid and placing her trust in a man that took her heart in his hands and crushed it into tiny pieces.
She was going to give Ryan a taste of his own medicine, with a sweet smile on her face. He had called earlier to confirm the time for the fitting, while she fought the urge to tell him to go to hell.
He really took her for a fool. Well, she wasn’t going to be taken for granted anymore.
When they got to the dress shop, two attendants took her into a large room to change into the first wedding dress. It was a strapless white ivory mermaid dress, with lace fitting. It fit her perfectly. A bouquet of Calla lilies was handed to her. The curtains slowly opened to reveal Ryan seated right in front of her. He gave her an unsteady smile. She felt her skin crawl.
“You look good, babe. I like the dress.” He gave a casual nod and shifted his focus back to his phone.
Dakota scoffed. He couldn’t even give her a proper compliment to make up for his disgusting ways. Sickened, she threw her bouquet of flowers at him.
The stunned look on his face was so satisfying to see. “What did you do that for?!”
Walking up to him, she grabbed a pen from his shirt pocket and made a slit on the wedding dress from her thigh down to her feet. The attendants gasped loudly.
“Much better.” She smiled at her gown’s new look. The long slit showed off the lower part of her thigh.
“I can wear this outside, right?” She asked the horrified attendants. They nodded slowly, unable to speak.
“Great. Thank you.” She smiled brightly.
Ryan stood up, stupefied. “Babe. What's-what's going on? You’ve ruined your dress!”
Dakota rolled her eyes. “In case it wasn’t clear to you Ryan, I’m breaking off our engagement.” She announced.
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Bound by Deception Chapter Eighty Nine
EPILOGUE THREE YEARS LATER Dakota sometimes stood still in the middle of her living room and wondered how life could change so completely and yet feel so right. The house was filled with sound. Not noise exactly, but life. The soft thud of little feet racing across polished floors. A high, breathless laugh that always made Dakota smile before she even realized she was smiling. The faint hum of music playing somewhere in the background because Elias believed silence was meant to be filled with warmth. Dakota stood by the wide living room window, one hand pressed to the small of her aching back, the other resting protectively on her swollen belly. The late afternoon sun streamed in, warm and golden, casting long shadows across the space. Outside, the garden Elias had insisted on planting was in full bloom. He had said he wanted their children to grow up knowing what it meant to nurture something and watch it thrive. Behind her, Wren was in constant motion. At three years old, Wre
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Life did not pause after the gavel struck wood in the courtroom. Dakota had expected something dramatic after the sentencing, some sharp shift in the air, some undeniable sense of finality. She thought she would wake up one morning and feel lighter, as if the weight of everything that had happened would simply lift because justice had finally been served. Instead, life continued in its quiet, relentless way. Mornings still came too early. Nights still felt too long. And grief, she learned, did not vanish just because the people who caused it were finally paying for their crimes. The house felt fuller now. Not louder exactly, but fuller in a way that settled into her bones. Wren’s presence had changed everything. The tiny sounds she made in her sleep, the soft breaths that rose and fell from her chest, the way her fingers curled instinctively around Dakota’s finger as if she already understood what safety meant. Dakota had not expected to love her the way she did. She had told h
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The day of the trial arrived quietly, without ceremony, without warning bells, without the kind of drama Dakota had once imagined justice would come wrapped in. There were no thunderstorms, no sudden downpour, no ominous signs in the sky. The morning was ordinary, almost cruelly so. The sun rose like it always did. Traffic moved. People went to work. Somewhere, someone passing by laughed. Somewhere else, someone complained about the weather.She stood in front of the bathroom mirror longer than usual, adjusting the collar of her blouse even though it already sat neatly on her shoulders. Her hands trembled slightly as she reached for her bag. She told herself that she wanted to see justice served today. She told herself that this was necessary. That everything that had happened had led to this moment.Still, there was a knot in her stomach that refused to loosen.Elias watched her quietly from the doorway. He did not rush her. He had learned that some moments needed patience. When she
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The decision did not come all at once. It came in fragments, in the quiet moments Dakota did not expect to be heavy. It came while she was rocking Wren at dawn, when the baby’s cries softened into sleepy whimpers and her tiny fingers curled instinctively around Dakota’s thumb. It came while she watched Elias sleep on the couch because neither of them had the energy to argue about who deserved the bed more. It came when she folded impossibly small clothes and wondered how a life could be so fragile and yet demand so much responsibility. And it came, most of all, in the silence. Dakota had learned that silence was dangerous. Silence allowed lies to grow roots. Silence allowed people like Helen to rewrite reality and convince everyone else to live inside it. She had lived too much of her life inside someone else’s silence. She was not going to do that again. Telling Diana the truth terrified her, even though she told herself she had no reason to be afraid. Diana had hurt her in wa
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Sleep became a luxury Dakota learned to stop expecting. It came in fragments now. Short, shallow pockets that dissolved the moment Wren whimpered or stirred or simply shifted in her crib. Nights no longer belonged to silence or rest. They belonged to soft cries, warm bottles, pacing footsteps, and the quiet hum of the house staying awake with them. Sometimes Dakota wasn’t even sure if she had truly slept at all or if she had simply closed her eyes long enough to pretend. Wren was small. Smaller than Dakota had imagined newborns to be. Fragile in a way that made Dakota’s chest tighten every time she held her, like one wrong movement could break something sacred. Her tiny fingers curled instinctively around Dakota’s thumb, her grip weak but determined, as though even in sleep she was afraid of being left behind. The first night home, Dakota sat on the edge of the bed with Wren pressed to her chest, afraid to put her down. Elias had watched her quietly, leaning against the doorframe,
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Dakota didn’t expect preparing for someone else’s baby to feel this heavy.The next three days moved in a strange blur. Equal parts quiet panic, tenderness, hesitation, and a silent kind of bravery she didn’t even know she possessed. She had spent her whole life fighting to prove that she deserved love… but now she was preparing to give love to a child who wasn’t hers. A child whose mother had caused her more pain than half the world combined. And yet, whenever she pictured that tiny baby, the fear always softened into something warm… something she didn’t have a name for yet.Elias was the steady center of everything.He didn’t complain when she paced the living room at midnight reading long articles about newborn sleep cycles. He didn’t tease her when she ordered too many onesies because she was terrified of “not having enough.” He didn’t even roll his eyes when she stress-cried in the aisle of an upscale baby store because diapers apparently had too many confusing size options.Ins
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