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62 The Lines I Will Not Cross

Penulis: Karima Sa'ad Usman
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-11-28 20:21:02

Arden’s POV

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Silence settled between us like a curtain of iron, heavy, immovable, suffocating. The contract still hung in the air, not physically suspended but held in the King’s outstretched hand, hovering between us like bait on a hook. His posture didn’t waver. His arm didn’t tremble. His expectation didn’t falter.

He truly believed I would accept it.

He truly believed that the weight of Eldenwald, famine, trade, political alliances, stability, would crush me into submission.

That guilt would soften me.

That duty would quiet me.

That legacy would swallow me.

It almost would have been laughable, if not for the cold calculation behind his eyes.

He had forgotten who he raised.

Forgotten the boy he shaped through neglect.

Forgotten the man forged in the ruins of his indifference.

Forgotten the son he abandoned whenever convenience demanded it.

My father always assumed my loyalty was a guarantee, a birthright, a given, a constant he never neede
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Marlenny Fernandez
I hate that king so much
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    Arden’s POV“Yes, Your Majesty,” Abraham said, voice suddenly stripped of its earlier confidence. Now it held the rigid, spine-snapping deference only the King could command. “I’m with Prince Arden now.”I stood completely still as he repeated every word I’d said, every refusal, every threat, every calm, calculated rejection of the marriage they were trying to force on me. But he didn’t simply repeat them.He emphasized them. Sharpened them. Twisted them into daggers designed to provoke.Then he lowered the phone from his ear and hung up without another word, his expression tight with dread.Ten seconds later, my own phone rang.The sound sliced through the room like a blade. I didn’t move. I didn’t reach for it immediately. I simply stared as the screen lit up.FATHER.A name that once meant warmth, pride, and protection. A name that now felt like a chain around my throat.For one long, steady moment, I considered ignoring the call. For another, I considered throwing the phone ac

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   91 The Line I Refuse to Cross

    Arden’s POVThe moment the office door shut behind us, the carefully maintained air of civility I had forced myself to wear downstairs shattered like thin, brittle glass.Here, in my space, my sanctuary, there was no need for masks.No need for diplomacy. No need for measured breath. No need to tolerate anything or anyone.Lord Abraham Welsh barely had time to exhale before I stepped forward, closing the distance between us with deliberate, predatory calm. He hadn’t even fixed his robes or smoothed his expression yet, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t interested in giving him time to compose whatever court-friendly lies he intended to deliver.“What is the meaning of all this?” I demanded, my voice sharp enough to slice through the thick tension.He flinched, an involuntary, human reaction he tried and failed to hide. The movement was small but telling, and under different circumstances I might have enjoyed it. Ministers rarely feared anyone but the King.But today? Today I was not in th

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   90 The Things I Cannot Tolerate 2

    Arden’s POVI slipped out the same way I came, silent, shadow-like, keeping close to the stone walls of the quieter corridors, avoiding the guards who patrolled on predictable rotations. The palace’s lesser staircases were narrow and dim, meant for servants and forgotten royals, but I knew every creak in every step, every patch of worn marble, every place where the torchlight didn’t quite reach.By the time the night air hit my face, cool and sharp against my skin, I felt the tight coil inside my chest snap just a little. Not enough to ease anything. But enough to keep me from turning around to do something reckless.It took everything inside me not to march back into that cursed palace and drag Cassandra out with my bare hands.Not walk out, drag her out. Pull her away from the man who ruined her. Rip her from under my father’s control. Tear her out of the hands of a court that fed on her suffering like it was entertainment.But I couldn’t. Not yet.So I walked away.But my rag

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   89 The Things I Cannot Tolerate

    Arden’s POVThe room still smelled like her.Cassandra’s perfume lingered faintly, soft, floral, familiar, etched into the stale air of that abandoned chamber like a haunting. I stood there long after she slipped out with Diana, long after her footsteps faded into nothingness down the corridor, long after I ran out of excuses to remain in the place that had once tormented her.But I didn’t move.My hands were still shaking.Not from desire. Not from the ghost of her lips on mine. Not from the heat of her body pressed against me.From rage.Pure, undiluted fury.The kind that simmered under the skin, burning slow and vicious. The kind that made breathing feel like swallowing glass. The kind that made my vision blur at the edges and my heartbeat thrum with violence.I was furious at everything.At the king. At Richard. At Ivana. At the palace. At the suffocating politics of this country. At the damned, rotting court that fed on misery and pretended it was tradition.If I was bein

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   88 Everything I Never Said 2

    Cassandra’s POV“You didn’t hold me. Not once. You didn’t ask how I was doing. How I felt. What I wanted.”The words left me before I realised I’d spoken them. They came out raw, stripped of polish, stripped of diplomacy, stripped of the soft carefulness I had been trained to carry like a second skin in this palace.I shook my head slowly, the memories crashing back with the cold clarity of a blade.“It was always about you,” I continued. “Your title. Your court allies. Your heir. Your mother. Your reputation.”Richard’s lips parted, his breath catching as if some half-formed apology hovered behind his teeth. But before he could speak, I lifted my hand, a quiet command, a line he no longer had the right to cross.“I loved you,” I said quietly.His eyes flickered, wounded by the gentleness in my tone. Because it wasn’t tenderness. It was grief. The soft ache of all the illusions I once carried.“When I married you,” I went on, “I thought you’d love me unconditionally. Protect me. Put m

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   87 Everything I Never Said

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