LOGINLIORAÉ“Is it your ex?”I wanted to say something, anything, to make Soren stop looking at me as though I had cheated on him. I hadn't known it would be Evan when I answered the call.He stared at the screen before slowly turning to me. I saw something in his eyes that I had never noticed before. His jaw tightened as he pressed the phone to his ear.His voice was low and deliberate, as though he were doing his best to intimidate the man on the other end.“You have a lot of nerve calling my woman first thing in the morning.”Evan, who had been smug and throwing his weight around, hadn't expected Soren to be standing next to me. His voice was low, but he was still delusional.“I can call her. She's my fiancée.”“Fiancée?” Soren laughed.That laugh didn't sound as though he found the situation funny. It felt more like he was mocking Evan.“Ex-fiancée,” Soren corrected. “You lost the right to call her that when you treated her like trash.”“She still belongs to me.” Evan's voice grew stro
LIORAÉ“Evan? What the hell do you want?”“Are you okay?” he asked in a concerned voice. He couldn't hide the fakeness in it, though. I blinked rapidly and let out a long sigh.“What is it to you? I have no business with you, so why should you be asking me such personal questions?” I asked, shuffling on my feet.He hummed and then paused. The line was buzzing with the electric static noise from both ends.“That's no way to talk to your fiancé,” he said.“My fiancé?” I repeated, and he grunted.Was this man living in some kind of fever dream? I had clearly ended things with him, and every one of my family's attempts to get us back together had failed.“We already broke off the engagement. How dare you…”“Lioraé, I never agreed to breaking off the engagement,” he cut me off in a calm voice.He was calm, and that made it worse. Evan was never a level-headed kind of man. All he ever did was try to have his way every time something happened.I wondered how I had been so blind to everything
LIORAÉSoren’s warm, solid body was pressed against my back, his arm wrapped securely around my waist.My eyes fluttered open, slowly at first, and then his scent filled my nose, sending my brain into panic mode.Memories from last night flooded in, one after the other. His hand holding mine, him confessing to me like he meant every word he said, and the way he made the night feel special.I had always seen the romantic side of things in movies but never gotten them myself, even when I convinced myself that I was a hopeless romantic.I was just realizing now that everything that didn’t directly inflate Evan’s ego was a waste of time to him and indirectly to me in the end.I had seen the signs but tried to avoid them, and then, in the end, it turned out to be him cheating on me so shamelessly.Soren’s grip tightened, and he pulled me closer to him. His nose nuzzled into my hair, and he took deep breaths.“You’re awake,” he declared in a half-asleep voice.I tried to act like I wasn’t,
LIORAÉ“You just need to be Lioraé.”“What?” I barely registered what he meant. He had turned to my side and placed my hand in his as he led us through the hotel lobby to the top floor.The top floor was a small rooftop inner garden. It looked more like a greenhouse. I turned to him with my brows arched in confusion.He snapped his fingers, and the light came on. Everything in the room was twinkling just like I had seen in the movies.I had always hoped I’d stand in those shoes one day and maybe feel the sincerity coming from the man. I never imagined I’d live a life straight out of a romance novel.“You prepared all of this?” I asked him.He shrugged like he had done nothing and nodded. He took my hand and led me in. “I wanted to do more, but you only gave me a few hours.”“A few hours?” I repeated, and then realized that he had managed to do this just from when we had spoken in the morning to now.“Don’t tell me you didn’t actually do any work all day and just focused on planning th
LIORAÉSoren had sent me home to freshen up. He had a meeting and insisted I needed a little rest before the dinner tonight.“I will pick you up,” he said, pushing me into the car and strapping the seatbelt over me. He kissed the side of my head.I sat at the back of the car watching him stand in the parking lot basement as we drove away.When I got home, Avery was eating chips in the living room. She rushed up to me and grabbed my hand, leading me slowly to the couch like I had not been walking around fine.“I am fine.”“I know, but you are pregnant with my niece or nephew.” She paused, pressed her lips together, tilted her head, and her eyes swirled like she was thinking.“I meant you are pregnant with my niece. I am going to spoil her, so naturally, I should spoil you too.”“You don’t have to…”“You don’t have to refuse,” she cut me off and sighed. “Just enjoy it.”She smiled, patting my stomach gently.If everyone in the Vale family was like her, then maybe the idea of being Soren
LIORAÉI knew that standing beside Soren was not as easy as words.I didn’t even know when I had decided it was what I wanted. It just felt like the only option I had as of now.“What does that mean?” I asked.Adrian cracked a smile and tilted his head. The usual jovial smile that made me seem less intimidated by Soren came up on.“I guess you’ll get to know the longer you stand by him.”Soren’s hand sank through my waist before I could respond. I looked up at him. He had a frown on his face, his brows knitted together and his lips pressed into a thin line.“It’s been years, Adrian, yet you still haven’t learned the proper way to speak,” Soren said.Adrian didn’t react. It was almost as if he was expecting Soren to go at him like that.“Dear brother,. I am just doing the Lord’s work. It would be a shame if Lioraé gets into this without knowing fully what she is going into.”Soren took a step forward, blocking him from my path. “If you have something to say, then say it. Stop hiding be







