ANMELDEN**Nadia**I stood in the soft morning light of the penthouse, my fingers still tingling from where they'd traced Dominic's jaw the night before. The air between us felt charged, heavy with everything we'd rebuilt after my day of deliberate distance. He watched me now, his dark eyes locked on mine as I pulled the gray sweater over my head, letting it drop to the floor. No barriers today. Just us."We married drunk in Vegas for revenge," I said, my voice steady even as my heart hammered against my ribs. The words hung there, simple and raw. I wanted him to feel the weight of them, the way they had shaped everything between us from the start. "I want a real wedding. For us."Dominic froze. His hand, which had been reaching for my waist, stilled mid-air. Those sharp features that usually commanded every room softened in shock, his brows drawing together as if he couldn't quite process what I'd just said. He sat up straighter on the edge of the bed, the sheet pooling around his hips, exp
**Nadia**I waited until the morning light had fully claimed the penthouse before I began.I dressed in silence, choosing a soft gray sweater and black trousers that covered every inch of skin Dominic usually demanded access to. No silk robe left teasingly open at the thigh. No bare shoulder brushing his chest as I passed. I moved through the kitchen like a woman who had simply woken up alone: pouring coffee, checking my tablet, answering a single work email with the calm precision of someone whose world had not tilted on its axis.He felt the absence immediately.At first it was subtle. The way I stepped just out of reach when he entered the kitchen. The way my fingers didn’t graze his wrist when I set his coffee down. I watched him tell himself it was coincidence. He was still half-asleep, still adjusting to the new rhythm we had found after the contract reset.By midday the absence had teeth.He found me in the living room, curled on the wide sectional with my laptop. When he sat
**Nadia**I stared at Dominic across the dim hotel room, my heart hammering so hard it felt like it might crack my ribs. No more hiding. No more careful words. The research papers sat heavy in my lap, printed out and folded like a weapon I didn't want to use but had to."I know you can't feel anything," I said, my voice steady even though my hands shook. "Except me."His jaw tightened. Those dark eyes flicked away for a second, then locked back on mine. "Nadia, don't."He tried to stand, but I moved faster, stepping right into his space. My fingers brushed his chest, right over his shirt, and I felt the sharp inhale he couldn't hide."Don't what?" I asked. "Don't say it out loud? I read the files. The accident. The nerves. The doctors who said you'd never feel touch again. But you feel me. Every time."Dominic's hands came up like he might push me away, but they just hovered there, trembling. "You're wrong.""I'm not." I picked the papers and held them up between us. Calm. Like I prom
**Nadia**"They're staring.""They're always staring," Dominic said, his hand at my lower back, steering me through the entrance with the unhurried certainty of a man who had never once considered that a room might not make space for him."It's different tonight," I said.He glanced at me. "How."I thought about how to say it. "Before, they were staring because they were trying to figure out what I was. Trophy. Scheme. Scandal waiting to happen." I looked at the room, at the faces that were tracking us with the specific attention of people who had been following a story and were now seeing a new chapter of it. "Tonight they're staring because they've decided.""Decided what," he said."That we're real," I said.He was quiet for a moment. Then his hand pressed fractionally firmer at my back, the specific pressure I had learned to read, and we moved further into the room.The gala was the Harlow Foundation's annual event, the same circuit we had been moving through since Vegas, the same
**Lisette**"Stay behind me."Raffael said it without looking back, already moving toward the stairwell door, his hand at his side in the specific position of a man who was assessing and acting simultaneously.I stayed behind him.Not because he told me to. Because I had spent enough time around him in the last two months to understand that when Raffael moved with that particular quality of focus, the correct thing was to let him move and stay out of the radius.The security incident had started twenty minutes ago.Someone had accessed the building's east entrance using a cloned key card. Not Garrett, the profile was wrong, too methodical, too patient. Probably someone hired to gather information, to map the building's rhythms, to find the gaps. Dominic was with Nadia on the other side of the building. Raffael had come to find me because I had been in the gym on the east side and the east side was where the access had occurred.He had found me in the corridor.He had put himself betwe
**Nadia**I stood outside the locked room with my heart beating fast. The door was open this time. Just a crack. Dominic had left it unlocked. I did not know if he did it on purpose or if he simply forgot. Either way, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.The room looked the same as before. Shelves full of medical files. A desk covered with papers. A computer screen that glowed softly in the low light. I closed the door behind me quietly. My hands felt cold. I walked to the desk and sat down.I picked up the first folder. My fingers shook a little as I opened it. The diagnosis was right there in black and white. Congenital insensitivity to pain. A rare genetic condition. Dominic had been born with it. His body could not feel pain. Could not feel temperature. Could not feel touch the way normal people did.I turned the page slowly. The doctors had written pages about it. Tests from when he was a child. Notes about how he burned himself as a baby because he could not feel the heat.
**Nadia** Dominic took my hand and pulled me into a luxury boutique without saying a single word. My heart already raced faster than it should. After the mess with Priya’s post, he had decided I needed a reward. Now I stood in the middle of soft lighting and expensive racks while his eyes stayed
**Nadia**I sat on the couch with my phone in my lap. The news about Garrett’s interview still lingered in my mind. But Dominic had already moved. He unleashed his PR team the moment the flowers arrived. No hesitation. No mercy.The first stories dropped within hours. Leaked DMs between Priya and G
**Nadia** My phone lit up with a notification while I sat alone on the couch. I tapped the screen without thinking twice. Priya’s new post filled the entire feed. The caption hit me first and hard. “Some friends smile to your face and stab you in the back the moment you turn around. Careful who yo
**Nadia** The door opened and Lisette walked straight in like she owned the place. She took one look at me standing in the living room with my untouched coffee and her face tightened with worry. "Nadia, what the hell is happening to you?" she asked, voice sharp but full of real concern. I set the







