보관함
검색
홈 / Romance / One Year With Mr.Kingland / The Kiss

공유

The Kiss

작가: Ravenna
last update 게시일: 2026-06-03 17:17:17

The Aurelia Museum was exactly what Selena had expected—all white walls and careful lighting designed to make art look more important than it actually was. The architecture exhibition occupied the third floor, and the space itself was ironically uninspired. Too much emphasis on the work, not enough on how the space made you feel.

Alexander was already there when she arrived, standing in front of a model of a waterfront resort, studying it with the kind of focus that suggested he actually gave a
이 작품을 무료로 읽으실 수 있습니다
QR 코드를 스캔하여 앱을 다운로드하세요
이전 챕터 다음 챕터
잠긴 챕터

최신 챕터

  • One Year With Mr.Kingland   Accident

    The call came at 3:47 PM on a Wednesday.Matthew was in a meeting with the board of directors, reviewing quarterly projections, when his phone buzzed. He ignored it. Then it buzzed again. And again.Something in his chest registered: that wasn't normal.He excused himself and stepped into the hallway, looking at the screen.Richard Thompson, his attorney. Then Margaret. Then an unknown number. Then Richard again.His stomach dropped.Matthew answered before the phone finished ringing."Mr. Kingland, there's been an accident. Your wife—" Richard's voice was controlled but tight with something underneath. "She was hit by a car near the Riviera construction site. She's at St. Catherine's Hospital. You need to get there now."The world went very still."How bad?" Matthew heard his own voice from very far away."I don't know the details. They're running tests. But she was conscious when the ambulance arrived."Matthew didn't remember hanging up the phone. Didn't remember leaving the confer

  • One Year With Mr.Kingland   The Count Down

    Selena had a calendar hidden in her studio.Matthew found it by accident when looking for a pen—a small wall calendar tucked behind a design board, marked with careful X's through each day. He counted them automatically: seven months worth of X's, marking the days until freedom.210 days remaining.He'd stood there staring at those marks like they were personal indictments. She was counting. Actually counting down the moments until she could leave him.He shouldn't have looked. Shouldn't have invaded her space like that. But knowing made it worse than not knowing, because now he understood with absolute clarity: this wasn't just a rough patch. This wasn't something time would fix. She had already decided. Already planned. Already mentally left.---Matthew tried everything over the next week.He complimented her work: "The Riviera designs are genuinely brilliant."Selena: "Thank you." Nothing more. Polite distance.He attempted vulnerability: "I know I hurt you. I'm trying to understa

  • One Year With Mr.Kingland   One On One

    Matthew understood it while watching her work.She was in the studio late—past midnight—sketching preliminary designs for a residential project. The light from the desk lamp caught her face at an angle that made her look like someone he didn't know. Someone capable. Someone complete.And he realized: he was in love with her.Not the way he'd been in love with the idea of her when she'd first signed the contract. Not the possessive jealousy of watching her with Alexander. This was something else entirely. Something that wanted nothing from her except for her to keep becoming whoever she was becoming.He watched for maybe five minutes. She didn't notice him. She was too absorbed in the work—making tiny adjustments to a sight line, erasing something, redrawing it. Her fingers moved with confidence. Her expression was focused and peaceful.And Matthew felt something crack open inside his chest.This was what he'd destroyed. Not a person who needed him. A person who was extraordinary, and

  • One Year With Mr.Kingland   Unexpected

    For the next twenty minutes, they moved through the exhibition together, stopping occasionally in front of scale models, blueprints, and glossy renderings of buildings that would probably never look as perfect in reality as they did under museum lighting.Selena found herself watching Alexander almost as much as the displays.He paid attention.Not in the performative way people often did when they wanted to seem intelligent. He genuinely looked at things. Considered them. Asked questions.Most people only waited for their turn to speak.“What do you think?” he asked, nodding toward a sprawling model of a luxury hotel designed around a central courtyard.“It’s beautiful,” Selena said.Alexander raised an eyebrow.“Which means you hate it.”“I didn’t say that.”“You didn’t have to.”She smirked.“The courtyard is wrong.”“Wrong?”“It looks impressive from above. Great for photographs. Great for investors. But nobody thought about what it would feel like to actually spend time there.”A

  • One Year With Mr.Kingland   The Kiss

    The Aurelia Museum was exactly what Selena had expected—all white walls and careful lighting designed to make art look more important than it actually was. The architecture exhibition occupied the third floor, and the space itself was ironically uninspired. Too much emphasis on the work, not enough on how the space made you feel.Alexander was already there when she arrived, standing in front of a model of a waterfront resort, studying it with the kind of focus that suggested he actually gave a shit about what he was looking at.He turned when she approached, and his smile was genuine. Not performed. Just warm."You came," he said."You invited me," Selena replied. "And you didn't make it weird.""I try not to make things weird," Alexander said, falling into step beside her. "Life's complicated enough without adding unnecessary awkwardness."They spent the first hour actually looking at the designs. Alexander talked about structural innovation. Selena talked about human experience. Th

  • One Year With Mr.Kingland   Aftermath

    The penthouse felt different when you weren't pretending it was just a temporary place to avoid thinking.Matthew sat on the edge of the bed—Victoria's bed, still smelling like her perfume and his own failure—and stared at his phone. The screen was dark. He'd turned it off about an hour ago because Victoria kept calling, and he didn't have the energy to answer the same question in different ways.He had slept maybe two hours. The whiskey had worn off around 4 AM, which meant he'd spent the last four hours sober and aware of exactly what he'd done.The city sprawled beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows like an accusation. All those people living lives that didn't revolve around making mistakes and then paying for them.He finally turned his phone back on.Forty-three missed calls. Thirty-one from Victoria. Twelve from Richard Thompson (his attorney, probably panicking about something). Nothing from Selena. He hadn't actually expected anything from Selena, but the absence of her name sti

더보기

다른 추천

좋은 소설을 무료로 찾아 읽어보세요
GoodNovel 앱에서 수많은 인기 소설을 무료로 즐기세요! 마음에 드는 작품을 다운로드하고, 언제 어디서나 편하게 읽을 수 있습니다
앱에서 작품을 무료로 읽어보세요
앱에서 읽으려면 QR 코드를 스캔하세요.
DMCA.com Protection Status