LOGINLauren’s POV It started on Tuesday.Julian didn’t say a fucking word about it, of course. He just started appearing out of nowhere. He didn't announce his presence, and he damn sure didn't acknowledge the fact that he was doing it on purpose. The first time happened right outside the security office. I was standing by the filing cabinets, stuffing a stack of recent incident reports into the metal drawers. My hands were stiff, my mind fried from trying to act like a low-level security analyst while carrying his goddamn baby inside me.I closed the drawer, turned around, and there he was.Julian was leaning against the concrete wall of the corridor, his hands shoved into his suit pockets. His dark eyes were fixed right on me, they were sharp and unblinking. He didn't say anything. He just watched the way I moved, his jaw set in that tight, aggressive line I knew all too well."Mr. Cross," I said, forcing my voice to stay level, keeping the fake professional distance Marcus had warned
Marcus’s POVThe progress bar on my monitor flickered at twelve percent before I hit the kill switch.Julian’s order to run a full background check on Lauren Vance had been sitting in my queue for exactly twenty minutes, and every second it sat there felt like holding a live grenade with the pin pulled. If the system finished that deep-dive trace, it wouldn't just pull up her fake security credentials, it would unravel everything. It would show her ties to the underground gambling rings, her real identity, and the massive, tangled web Julian himself had wiped from his own skull thanks to Vivian Moreau’s neurochemical poison.I rubbed the bridge of my nose, staring at the glowing screen. I’d been walking a fucking razor’s edge since the penthouse attack. On one hand, I owed my life and my complete loyalty to Julian Cross. On the other, I knew exactly what Lauren meant to him before he lost his goddamn mind. He had fallen for her. Violently. And right now, my job was to do private dama
Julian’s POV The air in the study felt heavy and stale. It was that suffocating kind of silence that usually meant something was about to go wrong. I paced the room, the sharp click of my shoes against the wood matching the throbbing in my head. My mind felt like a locked room I couldn't open, and this damn acquisition report on my desk was doing nothing to help.The legal team had cleared the deal, but my gut was screaming that something was wrong. My memory of the last sixteen months was a blank, but my instincts? They were still razor-sharp.The door creaked open. I didn't look up, expecting Serena. I was already bracing myself for her fake, sugary voice and the way she liked to touch my arm like she actually owned me."You’re going to burn yourself out, Julian."That voice wasn't hers. It was thinner, sharper, and completely honest. I looked up. It was the twin–Lauren. She was standing by my desk, looking at one of my files like it was a casual magazine."Get out," I said, my voi
Lauren’s POVThe low sound of the industrial refrigerator was the only thing keeping me sane. I wiped the counter for the tenth time, the rag moving in mindless circles."You’re trembling, Lo," Mica said, dropping a stack of clean plates on the stainless steel. "If you spill one more drink, the manager is going to shave your hair."I stopped, leaning against the counter. My hand automatically went to my stomach, a protective instinct that had become my permanent state of being. "He doesn’t know who I am, Mica. He looks at me like I’m some kind of ghost he’s trying to exorcise."Mica sighed, shaking her head as she tied her apron tighter. "So? You’re carrying his kid. You’re not a ghost. You’re his reality, whether his brain knows it or not.""He let her back in," I whispered, the words tasting so bitter in my mouth. "He looks at her, and he sees a wife. He looks at me, and he sees... I don’t even know what he sees. An employee. A nuisance. Or whatever."Mica leaned in, her voice dropp
Julian’s POV The penthouse felt empty. It was a huge, expensive box that I had spent years turning into a fortress, but it felt like a shell. I walked through the front hall, my shoes clicking against the marble floor. Usually, this sound calmed me. Today, it just felt hollow.I had been dealing with a break-in—someone had tried to mess with our building’s systems. My security chief, Marcus, had been running around, talking about “experts” and new people he’d hired to fix the holes in our security. I barely listened. I just wanted the problem fixed. I didn’t care who was doing it. I didn't care about their names or their backgrounds. As long as they did their jobs, they were ghosts to me.I caught a glimpse of someone standing near the service hallway—a woman, someone from the new security team. I didn't even really look at her face. My mind was on work, thinking about my business and the threats to my money. She was just another face in the crowd. I walked past her without a glance.
Lauren’s POV The Julian Cross who existed before I ever stepped foot into this penthouse wasn’t a man I had ever directly faced.I’d come into his world weeks after Serena vanished. By then, he was already changing, shifting under the friction of my defiance, his coldness mixing with a dangerous, unspoken possessiveness that eventually turned into something like love. I knew his cruelty, yeah, but it had always been wrapped in an obsession that belonged entirely to me.This version? This version was different. This was the cold, calculating bastard who had terrified my twin sister so thoroughly that she’d started plotting his murder before the ink on their marriage certificate was even dry.He was methodical. Contemptuous. Completely stripped of the fierce protectiveness that had slowly, dangerously softened him over our months together. Looking at him now felt like staring at a stranger who happened to have my lover's face.Within hours of the attack, the penthouse was turned into a
CHAPTER SEVENTEENLAUREN’S POVBy the time Julian brought me to a lunch meeting, I already knew one thing.Being his wife was not just exhausting.It was dangerous.The building was all glass, steel, and expensive silence. Men in suits moved too carefully. Women in polished smiles watched too much.
CHAPTER FIFTEENLAUREN’S POVI stopped breathing.Julian stood at the entrance of Dante Rossi’s private dining room like he had walked in just to make the whole ship remember who mattered more.His eyes found mine first.And just like that, every stupid choice that had brought me here climbed up my
CHAPTER ELEVENLAUREN’S POVJulian did not rush me.That was the first thing that made it worse.He just stood there for a second, looking down at me like he had all the time in the world, like he was deciding which part of me to cut open first. Then he dragged another chair across the floor and sa
CHAPTER SIXLAUREN’S POV “Shock,” I shot back immediately. “It's called shock, Julian. Have you heard of it?”His eyes narrowed. “Shock doesn't stop basic human reflexes. You stood there like a stone.”“Maybe I'm just used to the pain of being around you,” I spat.He opened his mouth to reply, his







