MasukIris's POVThe book on my lap was nothing more than a prop, and it had been a prop for four days now. I kept it open to the same page, my eyes fixed on the same paragraph, while Victor's footsteps traced their familiar path back and forth across the study floor. He had been on the phone for nearly an hour, his voice muffled by the heavy oak door but still audible enough for me to catch the rhythm of it. Business calls had a certain cadence, clipped and efficient like he was swatting flies. Personal calls were softer, more dangerous, the way his voice had sounded when he leaned close to my ear on the island and told me I belonged to him.This call was different. It started cold and ended shaken, and somewhere in the middle I heard a name that made my heart stop.Kovac.I had been trying to remember that name for days, ever since the night I woke up with a dull ache in my lower belly and a spot of blood on the sheets and the thick, syrupy feeling of someone who had been drugged without
Victor's POVShe had stopped fighting me, and I didn't know whether to be grateful or terrified.Three days had passed since the incident on the side of the road, since she had called me a disgusting old man and tried to run for the tree line while strangers watched from their car. I had carried her back to the vehicle with her body limp and her pulse weak and her words still ringing in my ears like a bell that wouldn't stop tolling. She slept for nearly twelve hours after that, her body finally surrendering to the exhaustion she had been fighting off for weeks, and when she woke up something behind her eyes had shifted in a way I couldn't quite name.She smiled at me over breakfast the next morning. It was nyot the tight, forced grimace she had been offering since she arrived, but something softer and more pliable. She thanked me for the fresh peonies I had left on her nightstand and asked if she could take a walk in the garden later. She didn't scream at me or throw her plate at my
Iris's POV The past few days has taught me that to conserve my energy and keep my thoughts to myself. So, I’ve stopped fighting Victor. I smiled at Victor over breakfast and told him the eggs were perfect, and while I smiled I counted the steps from the dining room to the front door and calculated how fast I could run with a baby pressing against my bladder. "More coffee?" I asked, already reaching for the pot before he could answer. My voice came out warm and solicitous as though I was finally settling into my new life. "Thank you." He watched me pour with that quiet intensity he brought to everything, his eyes tracking my movements like I was a puzzle he was still trying to solve. "You seem different this morning. You’re a lot calmer." "I've been thinking about what you said. About how you were only trying to protect me from Adrian." I set the coffee pot down and met his eyes, holding his gaze for exactly three seconds before looking away. Not too long, not too short. Just lon
Victor's POVIris had been pacing the house for days like a caged animal, her hand pressed against her growing stomach and her eyes darting toward every window and door. She complained that the walls were closing in on her and the silence made her skin crawl and she felt like she was slowly suffocating in the beautiful prison I had built for her. I had ignored her complaints for as long as I could, but the doctor said stress was bad for the baby, and she was carrying my child. Or possibly my grandchild. The test results were still days away, and the uncertainty was gnawing at me from the inside.So I agreed to take her for a drive. A short one, just to get her out of the house and let her feel the sun on her face. I chose a route that avoided main roads and traffic cameras, a winding path through the countryside where no one would recognize her or ask questions. She sat quietly in the passenger seat with her forehead pressed against the window and her eyes fixed on the passing trees,
Victor's POVNothing was going the way I had planned, and I was beginning to understand that it never would.Iris had been in my house for three days, and she had spent every waking moment making it clear that she would rather be anywhere else. She didn't eat the meals I prepared for her. She didn't wear the clothes I had bought for her, choosing instead to wrap herself in a robe she had found in the closet and refuse everything else. She didn't look at me when I entered the room, and when she did look at me, her eyes were filled with hatred.This was not how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to wake up in the beautiful room I had prepared for her and realize that I was the only man who had ever truly loved her. She was supposed to see the silk sheets and the peonies and the first edition books and understand that I had done all of this for her, that I had sacrificed everything for her, that I was the one who had been there all along while other men tried to take her from me. Sh
Iris's POVVictor didn't move from the doorway, and his calm was the most infuriating thing about him. He stood there with his arms crossed and his expression unreadable, like he was waiting for me to tire myself out, like my anger was just a storm that would pass if he weathered it long enough. I had seen that look before. I had seen it a dozen times, in boardrooms and coffee shops and that terrible night on the island when he told me he would never let me go. He thought he could outlast me. He thought my fury was a temporary inconvenience rather than a permanent state of being."You can glare at me all you want," I said, my voice shaking with the effort of keeping it steady. "But I'm not going to calm down. I'm not going to realize you were right all along. I'm not going to fall into your arms and thank you for rescuing me from a situation you helped create.""I didn't create this situation. Adrian Cross created it when he decided to kidnap you.""Adrian Cross is a symptom. You're t
Iris’s POV We ate slowly, trading bites back and forth while our conversation drifted over nothing particularly important, the kind of lazy morning talk that felt like an extension of sleep itself. Every so often he leaned across the small space between us and kissed the corner of my mouth, his to
Iris’s POV I woke up with a jolt. The dream had been hazy but vivid enough to leave me throbbing. There were dark eyes watching me, a low magnetic voice murmuring praise against my throat and strong hands sliding up my thighs with slow deliberate purpose. I had arched into the touch in the dream d
Iris’s POV The drive home felt longer than it should have. Marcus had the radio tuned to that low jazz station he likes, humming off-key while he scrolled emails at red lights. I stared out the passenger window, watching streetlights smear past, but my brain was still stuck on the terrace. I cou
Iris’s POV I should have known from the day I met my fiancé’s father that I would end up sleeping with him. The attraction was so fierce and it was obvious it went both ways. I didn’t go out of my way to seek him out and I even avoided him, but there was no escaping this. I write romance for







