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One hundred and seventy six

Author: Ese Gwede
last update Huling Na-update: 2025-05-28 19:16:33

~Fallon~

The door slammed behind him.

Hard.

Like he wanted to shut something out.

Or maybe, shut me out.

I didn’t flinch.

I was past flinching.

Too tired.

Too angry.

Too full of words that had been building like pressure behind my ribs for weeks.

Reid stood just inside the foyer, his coat still on, the weight of tension clinging to him like a second skin. His jaw was sharp, his hands still clenched at his sides. He looked like a man ready to fight — but not the kind of fight that ends in understanding.

The kind that ends in damage.

He looked up.

Our eyes locked.

And then it snapped - my patience.

“You’re late,” I said. Flat. Unbothered. Lethal.

He blinked once. His mouth curved into something that wasn’t a smile. “I wasn’t aware I needed a hall pass to come home.”

I laughed, dry and mean. “Home. You remember what that is?”

He stepped out of his shoes and tossed his keys onto the table with more force than necessary. The sound echoed off the walls. “Don’t start.”

“Too late,” I said. “
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  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and eighty

    ~Fallon~I wish I could say I didn’t see it coming.But when you grow up in a family like mine — with names that belong to buildings, with smiles that cost more than most people’s mortgages — you learn early what happens when control is lost.People strike first.And they always aim to humiliate.The first thing I noticed was the silence.Not the peaceful kind. The unnatural kind.The kind that comes just before the world opens its mouth and devours you.I stood in the foyer, the mansion suddenly too big, too quiet. My phone buzzed against my palm. Another message. Another notification. Another bomb.By the time I stepped into the drawing room, I already knew.It wasn’t just a leak.It was a campaign.I opened the first article.And then another.Each one worse than the last.Photos of me and Reid at our wedding, overlaid with headlines like:“It Was Never Real: Inside the Callahan-Prescott Deception”“Billion Dollar Lie: Fallon Prescott Played the Long Game”“Callahan’s Bride or Busi

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and seventy nine

    ~Reid~The news didn’t break.It detonated.By the time I saw the headline, it was already everywhere — splashed across every major outlet, picked apart by analysts, dissected by influencers who had no clue what they were talking about.Prescott–Callahan: The Marriage Contract That Rocked Two Empires.I didn’t need to read past the second paragraph to know exactly where it came from.The leak was clean. Precise. Weaponized.Someone with intimate knowledge of the arrangement. Someone who understood optics. Someone who knew that timing mattered — that this kind of betrayal would land hardest in the wake of softness.After mornings in bed.After confessions whispered into collarbones.After Fallon had started to believe I was hers.Charles Callahan.My father didn’t believe in confrontation. He believed in control. And when control slipped from his hands, he reacted the only way he knew how — by tearing everything down and pretending it was strategy.He hadn’t just burned my name.He’d m

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and seventy eight

    ~Fallon~I didn’t sleep.Not really.Even with Reid there — even with his arm draped low over my waist like it belonged there, like I belonged there — my eyes stayed wide open in the dark.I felt the steady rise and fall of his chest behind me. The warmth of his breath on the back of my neck. The weight of his hand, resting with such reverence it broke my heart.He stayed.He chose to stay.And somehow, that was the scariest part.Because this time, it wasn’t performance. It wasn’t damage control. It wasn’t sex or obligation or routine.It was him, holding me.Just because he wanted to.And that… I didn’t know how to protect myself from that.The sun started bleeding into the room hours later, soft and pale through the curtains. Morning always feels honest — too honest. And for once, I didn’t want honesty. I wanted to pretend the world outside the walls of this bedroom didn’t exist.But time never asks for permission.It just keeps moving.And eventually, I did too.I slipped out from

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and seventy seven

    ~Reid~I stood there long after she was gone.The room felt too big. The silence too loud.Her voice still echoed in my head — that last line like a bullet through bone.“I’ve spent this entire year trying not to love you again. But I do. I always have. And if you can’t give me even a fraction of that back—then what the hell are we even doing?”I could still see the look in her eyes.Wrecked. Tired. Raw.And for once, it wasn’t anger behind her words — it was heartbreak. Disappointment. That quiet, shattering kind that comes when someone you trusted chooses fear instead of you.And I had.I had chosen fear.Every time I held back. Every time I kissed her but said nothing. Every time I gave her a piece of me just to pull the rest away.I told myself I was protecting her. Protecting us.But really?I was just trying to protect myself from what loving her meant.Because loving Fallon had never been soft.It was wildfire. Earthquake. Tidal shift.And I knew — the second I let it all in, I

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and seventy six

    ~Fallon~The door slammed behind him.Hard.Like he wanted to shut something out.Or maybe, shut me out.I didn’t flinch.I was past flinching.Too tired.Too angry.Too full of words that had been building like pressure behind my ribs for weeks.Reid stood just inside the foyer, his coat still on, the weight of tension clinging to him like a second skin. His jaw was sharp, his hands still clenched at his sides. He looked like a man ready to fight — but not the kind of fight that ends in understanding.The kind that ends in damage.He looked up.Our eyes locked.And then it snapped - my patience. “You’re late,” I said. Flat. Unbothered. Lethal.He blinked once. His mouth curved into something that wasn’t a smile. “I wasn’t aware I needed a hall pass to come home.”I laughed, dry and mean. “Home. You remember what that is?”He stepped out of his shoes and tossed his keys onto the table with more force than necessary. The sound echoed off the walls. “Don’t start.”“Too late,” I said. “

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and seventy five

    ~Fallon~It was close to three in the morning when I heard him.The soft creak of the bedroom door.The muted scrape of his shoes being kicked off.The metallic clink of his watch as he set it on the nightstand.I kept my eyes closed, willing my body to stay still, my breathing even.Listening.Waiting.Wishing the ache in my chest didn’t feel so raw.The bed dipped under his weight a moment later. The sheets shifted. His scent — warm skin, expensive soap, a hint of stress and exhaustion — wrapped around me almost immediately.Part of me wanted to turn into him, to pretend nothing had changed.To pretend we hadn’t already crossed a line we couldn’t uncross.But the part that hurt—the part that was scared—kept me still.Kept me silent.Until I couldn’t anymore.“What’s going on, Reid?”My voice was barely a whisper in the dark.But it still shattered the fragile quiet between us.He didn’t answer right away.I felt him shift closer behind me, one hand hesitating before resting lightly

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