LOGINChapter 2 - The Reunion I could’ve lived without
Nova
The persistent knock on the door was what woke me up, it sounded a lot like a persistent tax collector at 7 a.m.
“If you don’t stop knocking, you won’t know peace in this life and the next”
Katie cried out while covering her head with her pillow, she was still sleeping and definitely hungover.
“It’s Jay”
Said a familiar deep voice on the other side of the door.
‘Fuck’ Katie and I groaned at the same time.
Jay is Lena’s dad's bodyguard, and the same man who popped up at random to deliver gifts, check in. Pick Lena up like a VIP and reminded us just by existing that Lena dad is rich enough to have a glorified baby sitter on his payroll.
And if Jay was here that means the car conveying us to Lena’s house is parked downstairs; I shot up from my bed, the sleep leaving my body instantly as I took on the mess around me.
Lena and Katie were still snoring, spread out like dead angels on their beds and the floor was littered with empty bottles of the drinks they indulged in after we got him yesternight, heels and sparkling crop tops.
We were supposed to be ready before jay’s arrival and should have left hours ago.
“Lena”
I shook her shoulders softly, she rolled over changing position.
“Lena”
I shook her harder and with more urgency “wake up, your dad’s party is today!”
“What the fuck Nova”
she muttered, eyes barely open, I walked over to the curtain and opened it allowing the brightness to come in, and I yanked the covers off both of them.
“Bitch give it back”
Katie whined and hugged her knees to her chest in fetal position.
“I hate you” Lena added still sleeping comfortably.
“Jay is downstairs”
I snapped and that seemed to get in Katie’s head since she sat up slowly.
“And. Today. Is. Your. Dad’s. Birthday Lena!”
I raised my voice while shaking her.
“The party you planned for him”
I added through clenched teeth, because they were acting like we weren’t about to miss the one event we had zero excuses to be late for.
Lena sat up like someone has just plugged in her sanity charger.
“I’ll never drink again in my life”
she whispered dramatically while clutching her head.
Lies.
“Hey Jay, we’re almost done”
Lena switched to her fake sweet voice, I couldn’t resist the eye roll. “Give us like thirty more minutes”
I gave her the deadliest look I could manage while picking used facial wipes from the floor.
“Internship starts on monday, I need to make good impression”
“I know, I know”
she muttered and the rest of the morning blurred into a chaotic dressing scene full of last minute packing, shared hair straighteners, and one of Lena’s emergency black coffee shots.
All the pent up tension disappeared like the steam of a boiling water as I gaped at the looming mansion.. point of correction; The private palace.
The sleek BMW that conveyed us gilded into a garage that looked like a luxury dealership and my jaw almost dislocated at how wide it opened. Bentleys, McLaren’s and more than one fucking rolls Royce!
Katie didn’t blink, her expression remained the same, being a wealthy heiress herself I’m sure this is a normal sight to her. But I was stunned, there is nothing normal about this, I’m definitely out of my league.
A private elevator took us to the upper floor where gold lined walls and glass sculptures made the hallway look like an extravagant art museum.
Lena walked ahead greeting familiar staff in tailored uniforms while Katie was still immersed in her phone like she didn’t just walk in a scene into a scene out of crazy rich Asians.
“Your dad is waiting in the dining hall” Jay said, pausing at a set of double doors for us to walk in.
“Daddddyyy” Lena squealed and ran in, Katie on her heels and I was last to step into the doors.
Everything in my body went still immediately and it’s not because of the giant chandeliers that looked like floating glasses of clouds in the room or the twelve foot long golden table that took up almost half of the room, I didn’t care about any of that.
Because at the head of the table with my best friend still in his arms sat the man from last night.
The man whose dick was in my mouth a few hours ago, the man who made me choke, moan, drip and swallow every drop of his cum like I’ve been trained for it.
Katie gave him a brief side hug and it was my turn; I stepped forward, my heart pounding, my cheeks already burning as I extended my hand for a polite handshake hoping he wouldn't recognize me.
But of course… he did.
He looked up from my outstretched hand slowly, his icy gray gaze were sharp and hungry as the locked onto mine and he smirked.
Fuck.
He finally took my hand in his warm, firm grip; the same hand that held my head in place last night, his thumb discreetly traced a circle on the back of my hand.
“Daddy, this is Nova. My roommate and Bestgirl”
Lena said brightly and I smiled in agreement like I wasn’t seconds away from having a stroke.
I’m Nova hart, scholarship student, straight A Virgin and the first blowjob I gave a man was to my best friend’s billonaire father and this is just the beginning.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREENALA POVI stared at the screen until my eyes started burning.*If you want to know why Mom and Dad actually disappeared, send the money before midnight.*My hands were shaking slightly on the edge of the desk. Mom and Dad didn’t disappear. They died in a car crash when I was too young to remember much of anything besides blurry faces and the smell of vanilla perfume. At least, that was the story Ethan had fed me my entire life while he raised me in cramped apartments and diner booths.He was a liar. I knew he was a liar. He had sold me out twice without blinking, and yet here he was, dangling the one thing I had never been able to stop wondering about right in front of my face.“Damn you, Ethan,” I muttered under my breath.Before I could talk myself out of it, I opened my banking tab, clicked into the massive six-figure balance Ivin had been quietly feeding every month, and wired a thousand dollars straight to the routing details hidden in Ethan’s burner email
CHAPTER SEVENTY- TWONALA POV“Keep your elbow tucked in, carrot top. If you swing wide like that, anyone with half a brain will take your arm right off.”“I’m trying,” I huffed, wiping a bead of sweat off my forehead with the back of my wrist. “Maybe if you stopped moving like a brick wall, I could actually land a hit.”“A real attacker isn’t going to stand still and let you hit him.”I rolled my eyes, shifting my feet in the warm sand just like he had shown me twenty minutes ago. Four days on this island had done wonders for my body. The purple bruises on my wrists had faded down to faint yellow marks, and my ribs barely ached anymore when I twisted or took a deep breath.Life out here had settled into a strange, quiet routine. Ivin cooked most mornings, I spent afternoons reading or messing around on my new laptop, and at night we shared the same big bed doing loud spicy activities.Nobody brought up the locked keypad door at the end of the hall, and nobody talked about the past.
CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE NALA POV“All of that is bullshit, Ivin, and you know it,” I said, staring right at him even with my heart beating fast in my throat. “You don’t get to talk to me like I’m some dog you peed on to mark your territory. It’s disgusting.”He didn't move right away, he stood there over the bed, those mismatched eyes locked onto mine like he was deciding whether to argue with me or shut me up another way.“Watch your mouth,” he said quietly.“Or what?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest and ignoring the dull ache in my ribs. “You’ll lock me in another room? Buy me more shiny things until I stop asking questions? I’m not stupid, Ivin. I know what you’re doing.”“Enlighten me.”“This whole nice guy routine. Cooking, buying jewelry, acting like you care. You’re just trying to get me to drop my guard so you can turn around and hurt me when I least expect it.” I shook my head, looking away from him toward the window. “I don’t trust you. Honestly, I don’t trust anybody
CHAPTER SEVENTYIVIN POVHer hand was still resting on the handle of that door.One wrong push of the numbers, one glance inside, and every single thing I spent years burying would blow up in my face before I even got a chance to fix it.I stood there in the shadow of the hallway, watching the stubborn tilt of her chin, and felt the anger spike straight through my temples. The anger was not at her, but at the fact that she couldn't just sit still.This island was supposed to be a clean slate. A quiet place for her to heal, put some meat back on her ribs, sleep without screaming from warehouse nightmares, and give me room to figure out how to talk to her like a normal man without sounding forced. I went through all this stress just for her. I stocked the kitchen for her and I actually wanted to really give her a few damn days where nobody was pointing a gun at her head and she didn't have to look at me like I was her warden.Instead, she was digging. Always fucking digging.My back p
CHAPTER SIXTY NINE NALA POV I raised an eyebrow, letting him pull me along the stone path toward the house. “You cook?”“For you, Nalayna, I can do anything.”The casual confidence in his voice did dangerous things to my stomach. He kept his fingers laced tightly through mine as we walked back into the modern, open-concept kitchen. On the counter sat a skillet of creamy garlic pasta he had pulled together while I was showering.It wasn't Michelin-star dining, maybe a little heavy on the cream and slightly low on salt, but it was hot, rich, and made with hands that usually only held weapons. Eating it felt intimate in a way then afterward, he pulled me onto the wide leather couch facing the terrace, and his hands never really left me.First it was my shoulders, working out the residual stiffness from being tied up in that warehouse. Then his thumbs moved into the hollow of my throat, tracing the line of my jaw, before he shifted my legs into his lap. He began working on my calves,
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHTNALA POV“What do you mean by that?”The words came out harsher than I intended. A minute ago, we were tangled up in sheets, breathing each other’s air, but now the skin at the back of my neck prickled.It was starting to feel unnerving, maybe because I knew I was looking directly at a side of Ivin that rarely saw the light of day. A version of him stripped of armor, admitting things that didn't fit into the neat, brutal muscled bodyguard he presents himself as.He held my gaze for three seconds, his mismatched eyes completely unreadable, before the shutter snapped shut.“Nothing,” he said, his tone leveling out until it was smooth and impenetrable again. “I have a surprise waiting for you. Something you’ll like.”“Okay,” I dragged the word out slowly, not buying the retreat for a single second.He sat up, the muscles in his back bunching under his ink, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Freshen up and meet me outside.”“Alright.”Surprisingly, the fight







