LOGINAria Pov I was not expecting the reply so fast.The message lit the screen while I was still staring at the sentence I had sent—*I want to leave this country*—as if the words might rearrange themselves into something less absolute if I gave them enough time. They did not. They remained exactly what they were: the first clean decision I had made in weeks. Then her reply arrived beneath it, quick enough to startle me in the quiet of the locked bedroom.Where do you want to go?Four ordinary words, and somehow they made the intention real in a way my own message had not. Wanting to leave was one thing. Being asked for a destination turned the want into a plan that required answers, logistics, and the kind of practical courage I was not certain I still possessed. I sat up against the headboard, phone balanced in both hands, and for a moment the weight of the apartment around me—the closed doors, the secrets, the seven-day countdown still ticking somewhere beyond these walls—pressed in fr
Aria Pov I moved before thought could catch up.Victoria’s voice was still traveling through the front of the apartment when I lifted myself off Alexander, the sudden emptiness of him leaving me sharp and exposed. There was no time for softness, no time for the aftermath still trembling through my legs. I reached for my clothes in a frantic scatter—underwear, trousers, blouse still half-open from his hands—and pulled them on with shaking fingers while he rose beside me in equal silence. The living room still held the heat of what we had done. The carpet still held the imprint of our bodies. None of it could remain visible by the time she turned the corner into the main space.Alexander disappeared down the side hallway toward the study without a word.I forced my breathing into something closer to normal, smoothed my hair with both hands, and walked toward the entrance on legs that still felt unsteady. The residual ache between my thighs was a private,. The faint scent of him on my s
Aria Pov I rode him.At first the movement was careful, almost tentative, as my body adjusted around the thick stretch of him. He filled me completely—every inch seated deep while my thighs framed his hips and my palms stayed braced against the hard plane of his chest. The carpet pressed into my knees. The low light from the terrace doors washed over his face and the open hunger he made no effort to hide as he looked up at me. His hands rested at my waist, warm and steady, following the rhythm I set rather than forcing a different one.I lifted and sank again.The slow drag of him inside me pulled a soft, broken sound from my throat. Pleasure gathered low and heavy, building with each downward motion as I took him to the hilt and rose until only the head remained before sinking once more. Alexander’s breath deepened beneath me. His fingers tightened slightly at my hips, not to control the pace, only to hold on as I found an angle that made my spine arch and my mouth fall open.“Aria…
AriaThe kiss did not stay careful for long.What began slowly on the terrace deepened until my fingers were curled in the front of his shirt and his hand had slid from my thigh to the curve of my waist, holding me as if the evening itself might try to take me back. The possibility of windows, of footsteps, of Victoria appearing at the edge of the light—all of it existed somewhere beyond the heat of his mouth and the steady pressure of his body angled toward mine. When we finally broke apart, the air between us felt thinner than before.Neither of us spoke at once.Alexander rested his forehead briefly against mine, breath uneven, the controlled version of him visibly strained around the edges. My pulse beat hard in my throat. The frustration I had carried home had transformed into something sharper and more focused, aimed entirely at the dwindling space between us. I did not want promises about the future in that moment. I wanted the solid fact of him, the relief of being chosen in a
Aria Pov I went home feeling weak and tired and so deeply frustrated that even the familiar route through the evening traffic felt longer than it should have.The day had pressed itself into my body in heavy, successive layers that refused to separate cleanly from one another. The closed-door confrontation in Marcus’s office still sat behind my eyes, followed by Jones’s clinical seven-day ultimatum and Victoria’s insistence, delivered with the calm certainty of someone arranging furniture, that I would marry a man I barely knew for my own good. Alexander’s silence during all of it remained the most unsettling piece. He had smiled, sat down, and allowed the room to declare positions around him without offering the refusal I had almost expected, and that unanswered quiet had followed me out of the building like a second shadow. By the time I reached the entrance of the apartment, the nausea and the exhaustion had tangled together into a single dull weight, and I wanted only a door I co
Aria Pov The meeting ended the way unstable things often ended—without true resolution, only a temporary scattering of the people inside it.Chairs shifted. Jones gathered his composure first, already turning the ultimatum into something that did not require further debate in that room. Albert’s gaze lingered on me for a second longer than necessary, the intensity in it unchanged by my refusal. Marcus remained behind the desk like a man who had not yet finished using the space. Victoria’s expression was carefully sealed. And Alexander—Alexander simply stood, adjusted the line of his jacket, and left without offering anyone a closing remark. The smile he had worn while sitting through the threat was gone. What replaced it was unreadable. He passed me on the way to the door without stopping, without looking down, and the absence of contact after everything that had already passed between us landed harder than another argument would have.I remained seated until the room had thinned.Vi







