เข้าสู่ระบบI could have cut this in two but then I would have needed to flesh out the smaller piece which would end up with redundant words which I never think highly of soooo... See you in the next chapter!
Mrs Payers had been standing in her kitchen when the phone began to ring.The phone lay on the counter beside a bowl of half cut vegetables, the screen lighting up insistently, her daughter’s name pulsing there like a living thing. For a moment, Mrs Payers did nothing. She simply stood with her hands resting on the edge of the counter, her shoulders tight, her breath shallow and mind torn.She had told herself she would not pick up.Not yet. Not until she was ready. Not until she could hear Belinda’s voice without anger rising to choke her. Not until she could trust herself not to say something she would regret.The phone kept ringing.Mrs Payers closed her eyes.She thought of the last time she had spoken to her daughter properly. The shouting. The disbelief. The shame that had settled heavy in her chest when she had learned the truth. A married man. A scandal. Their family name whispered about with raised brows and lowered voices. She had felt betrayed and humiliated and furious all
William Smith first saw the headline by accident.He had not been searching for it. He had not been doom scrolling or following the usual financial feeds where corporate scandals bubbled quietly before breaking. He had been checking currency fluctuations, half distracted, coffee cooling beside his keyboard, when a notification banner slid across the top of his screen.LAWSUIT FILED: ZERVAS FAMILY SUES FELIX NIKOLAIDIS FOR DEFAMATIONHis fingers froze.For a moment, his mind refused to process the words. He stared at them as though they were written in a foreign language, his brain snagging on the name Zervas and then on Felix Nikolaidis, trying to reconcile them with the calm, controlled day he had been having only minutes earlier.Slowly, deliberately, with heart drumming against the root of his tongue, he clicked the link.The article opened with a photo from the press conference. Sofia Zervas, composed and elegant, standing beside her brother Aris, both of them framed by glass and
It was a good enough day for Felix. He had finished discussing a deal and was reading over the details of the contract before he sent it to Rafael’s office for approval. He was thinking that everything was in order and just needed to look over a few points first when there was a knock on his door.It was a measured knock. Polite. Controlled.“Come in,” he said without looking up.The door opened, and his secretary stepped inside, tablet hugged to her chest. Her expression was neutral, but there was a tightness around her mouth that immediately caught his attention.“There’s a policeman here to see you,” she said.That made Felix look up.“A policeman?” he repeated lightly.“Yes. He says it’s official business.”Felix leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, curiosity stirring but no fear following it. He ran through possibilities quickly and dismissed most of them just as fast. He had done nothing illegal. Nothing that could be proven, at least. And certainly nothing that would war
Belinda lay back against the hospital pillows, fingers brushing over the thin blanket as the quiet of the private room wrapped around her. Irene had slipped out only minutes ago to finalise her discharge papers, fussing with that blend of concern and authority she wore effortlessly. Rafael had been sent to pull the car around. Belinda was alone.Alone with her thoughts. Alone with the echo of Rafael’s voice telling her— painfully—that he did not want to marry her.She closed her eyes. For a moment she let herself feel the sting of it. The sharpness. The humiliation. The unwanted truth.Then she opened them again and shifted her hand to her belly.There.Her expression softened.A small life growing quietly inside her. A perfect possibility shaped from her and Rafael together. A perfect blending of them. Proof that fate had intertwined them in ways neither could undo. A child born out of something they had once shared—something warm, passionate, reckless. Something that had mattered. L
Adrea had not meant to spend the entire afternoon sorting through her inheritance, yet when her lawyer had the papers delivered to her, she had found herself going through what her father had left her. The hours drifted quietly, almost tenderly, as she sat on the rug in Aris’s living room with heaps of files, envelopes, and scanned documents scattered around her. It felt strange to look at her father’s life in pieces like this. Bank statements, bonds, property titles, company shares, insurance letters. Andreas had been thorough, meticulous, a man who prepared for storms that others pretended not to see. And now all of it belonged to her.It should have felt empowering. Instead, it felt like opening a wound that ought to have healed by now.She took a breath and placed another document into the appropriate pile. She had labelled them: Property. Liquidity. Legal. Personal. The neatness helped her breathe. It grounded her. Life had been chaotic these past weeks, almost violently so. The
Rafael was back at his desk with the empty thumb drive box lying on the surface when his phone buzzed. He expected it to be Mary about the meeting schedule. Instead, the caller ID read: Mother.He frowned and answered immediately.“Rafael. You need to come to the hospital,” Irene said without greeting, her voice brisk but trembling underneath.His stomach tightened.Had something happened?“Why? What happened?” he asked quickly.“It is Belinda. She collapsed at work. They brought her to the staff ward. Come quickly.”A pulse of annoyance then guilt, and dread locked together in his chest. “Is she alright?”“She is awake now, but you should come,” she said. “Please.”“I am on my way.”He hung up before she could say anything else.His first thought was that this day truly could not get any worse. From Adrea’s gentle but firm rejection, to the thumb drive, to the dawning realisation of how deeply Felix had been poisoning every part of his life, including his marriage… now this.Belinda







