로그인Evelyn POVThe sudden absence made me gasp, my hips lifting as I reached for contact that was no longer there. But before I could protest, his mouth was moving down my body. Not slowly this time. With purpose. His lips crossed my ribs, my stomach, the hollow of my hip bone, and then lower, his breath hot against the inside of my thigh.He settled between my legs, his hands pressing my thighs apart, and looked up at me. One last check. One last question in his eyes."Please," I whispered. It was the only word I had left.His mouth found me.The first stroke of his tongue was slow, a long, flat pressure that dragged through my folds from bottom to top, and the sensation ripped through me so sharply that my hand shot down and grabbed a fistful of his hair. He groaned against me and the vibration made my hips buck, but his hands held me steady, pinning my thighs open as he repeated the stroke. Again. And again. Each pass unhurried, tho
Evelyn POVThe night air hit me, and I gasped, the contrast sharp and sweet, cool air against overheated flesh. My nipples hardened instantly, and I felt myself fully exposed, bare from the waist up under the open sky, but the vulnerability didn't make me want to cover myself. It made me want him to look.And he was looking.His eyes moved over me with a slowness that felt like a touch, tracing the lines of my collarbones, the swell of my breasts, the peaks that had tightened in the cool air. He took me in as though he were committing every detail to a memory he never wanted to lose."You're beautiful," he said. His voice had gone hoarse, cracked at the edges. "Evelyn, you're so beautiful it hurts to look at you."He raised his hand. It hovered between us, close enough that I could feel the heat of his palm against my skin without contact."Can I touch you?" he asked.I nodded.His hand made contact with my lef
Evelyn POV"Is it just me, or is it suddenly very warm up here?"Adrian looked at me, and I noticed a sheen of perspiration along his hairline that hadn't been there five minutes ago. He tugged at the collar of his T-shirt and exhaled slowly."It's not just you," he said. "I feel it too."He leaned forward and fanned me with his hand, but the warmth was coming from inside, not outside. It spread from my chest outward through my limbs with a rhythm that matched my pulse, settling into my skin as though my body had decided to generate its own heat. The night air was cool against my bare arms and the damp ends of my hair, but underneath that coolness, something was burning.I shifted on the love seat. My clothes felt like thorns on my skin. Every thread of my t-shirt registered against my skin as though my nerve endings had been amplified. The cotton brushed across my collarbone, and I shivered, which made no sense because I was overh
Evelyn POV"And I believed her. Not because the evidence supported it, but because believing her was simpler than admitting that I was afraid. If you were scheming, I didn't have to feel guilty for treating you badly. If you were performing, I didn't have to acknowledge that my coldness was hurting a real person. Isabella gave me a story that let me off the hook, and I held onto that story because letting go of it meant looking at myself honestly, and I wasn't ready to do that."His thumb moved slowly across my knuckles."But I can't lay all of it on Isabella. That would be too easy, and you deserve better than easy answers. The truth is, the signs were there—every sign. You cooked meals I never tasted. You helped with company reports I never thanked you for. You took care of my mother with a devotion that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with who you are as a person. And I ignored all of it because I was comfortable in
Evelyn POVWe sat in silence for a while, looking at the stars. The sky was vast and dark and indifferent in the way that only the sky can be, and something was soothing about that indifference. Up there, nobody cared about Green Valley, investor withdrawals, fake portfolio managers, or golf club parking fines. Up there, it was just light, distance, and time."Tonight," I said, turning to Adrian, "I'm going to pretend that in another universe, we're lovers. No history, no baggage, no complicated past. Just two people sharing wine on a rooftop." I held his gaze. "Open the bottle."An appreciative glint moved through his eyes, and he nodded slowly before he reached for the corkscrew and opened the Château Rosaire with the flick of his wrist.The cork came out with a soft pop, and the scent of the wine drifted upward immediately, dark and rich and layered, blackberries and woodsmoke and something floral underneath, like roses pressed b
Evelyn POVMy mother loved this wine. It was the one indulgence she'd allowed herself, the one bottle she'd kept on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet for special occasions only. She'd open it on birthdays, anniversaries, the first day of spring. She'd pour herself a single glass, sit at the kitchen table, and close her eyes after the first sip as if the taste transported her somewhere private and sacred that nobody else was allowed to follow.After she died, I spent years trying to find it. Château Rosaire didn't export widely, and its distribution was limited to a handful of shops in Casavera and a few specialist wine merchants abroad. I'd finally tracked down a case through a dealer in Lisaro during my first year running Bennett Holdings, and I'd been rationing it ever since, one bottle at a time, opened only on nights when I needed to feel close to someone who wasn't there anymore.Margaret remembered. Out of everything about me that
Evelyn POVHe led me upstairs to a luxurious bedroom with a king-sized bed and windows overlooking the city."I'll let you get settled," Gabriel said, turning to leave.“Gabriel,” I called out quietly.He turned to look at me, his eyes flashing with impatience. “Evelyn, this is a bad idea. I know I
Evelyn POVIf Isabella wanted to humiliate me, she had chosen the wrong woman to do it quietly.Evelyn Bennett did not do quiet, humiliation anymore.I took a deep breath in the back of my car, looking at my reflection in the compact mirror one last time.Isabella wanted to humiliate me. She wanted
Evelyn POVThree days.It had been three days since I woke up in the hospital with no memory of how I got there. Three days since I learned about the video. Three days of damage control and media spin, and trying to piece together what had actually happened to Belle and me.Now I sat in my office w
Gabriel POVI parked at the hotel and led Evelyn inside. The restaurant was visible from the entrance, and I could see Rowan sitting at a table near the window, eating lunch alone.I guided Evelyn to a position where she could see him clearly without being obvious about it. I kept my hand on the sm







