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Chapter 43

Author: Melody
last update publish date: 2026-04-25 11:53:57

The footsteps were too measured to be accidental.

Serena didn't look up from her sketchbook. She'd learned, in the years she'd spent in this studio, that the kind of person who climbed three flights of stairs to find someone wasn't the kind of person who got deterred by being ignored. So she kept her pencil moving, kept her eyes on the page, and waited.

Owen appeared in the doorway like he'd been placed there by a director with a flair for timing.

He was dressed down today, no cologne she could
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  • The Billionaire's Unexpected Soulmate.   Chapter 44

    The coffee Zara made was the kind that required no apology, dark, strong, poured into mismatched ceramic mugs that had survived three studio moves and one minor flood. Her gallery occupied the first floor of a converted warehouse in the arts district, the kind of space that looked accidental but was actually the result of years of careful cultivation. Exposed brick. Industrial lighting softened by carefully placed lamps. The smell of good coffee and linseed oil and something that might have been ambition.Serena had always loved it here.She sat on a paint-splattered stool at Zara's worktable and told her everything. Not in the careful, edited way she'd been speaking to everyone else, not the managed version she'd given Godwin, or the controlled version she'd given Damian. All of it. The hospital. Owen's visit. The eviction notice. The document. The two men in her studio are treating her crisis like a chessboard.Zara listened without interrupting, which was one of the things Serena v

  • The Billionaire's Unexpected Soulmate.   Chapter 43

    The footsteps were too measured to be accidental.Serena didn't look up from her sketchbook. She'd learned, in the years she'd spent in this studio, that the kind of person who climbed three flights of stairs to find someone wasn't the kind of person who got deterred by being ignored. So she kept her pencil moving, kept her eyes on the page, and waited.Owen appeared in the doorway like he'd been placed there by a director with a flair for timing.He was dressed down today, no cologne she could detect from this distance, no carefully pressed blazer. Dark trousers, a simple shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow. It was a costume, too, she recognized that. The casual version of Owen was just as constructed as the polished one. Today, he wanted to look approachable. Unthreatening.She wondered what he wanted."Your building manager told me you were here," he said, stepping inside without being invited. His eyes moved across the studio, the canvases stacked against the wall, the worktables t

  • The Billionaire's Unexpected Soulmate.   Chapter 42

    The morning came in gray and unannounced, the way bad news always does.Serena had slept in fragments, an hour here, forty minutes there, her mind refusing to surrender to unconsciousness fully. The sketchbook sat on the table beside her, closed, but she was aware of it the way you're always aware of things you've revealed too much of yourself in.She was trying to decide whether to open it again when Godwin walked through the door.She recognized him from before, the kind of man who took up space without apology, broad-shouldered and careful-eyed. He'd visited twice already, always brief, always watching the door like he expected company. Damian's man. She'd never said it aloud, but she'd always known."Morning," he said, his voice low, respectful. He set a takeaway coffee on her table, the good kind, from the place near her studio. "How are you feeling?""Like someone's been keeping things from me." She looked at him directly. "Like everyone in my life has decided I'm too fragile to

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    Serena couldn't sleep. She'd tried, counted backwards from one hundred, focused on her breathing, practiced every relaxation technique the hospital's therapist had mentioned, but her mind wouldn't settle. It kept circling back to Damian's kiss on her forehead. The tenderness of it. The desperation underneath.And Owen's warning.She was still awake when Owen appeared in her doorway at nearly midnight, looking disheveled in a way that seemed calculated to appear genuine."I know it's late," he said quietly, slipping into the room and closing the door behind him. "But I needed to see you. To make sure you were safe.""The nurses probably wouldn't approve of visitors at this hour," Serena said, but she didn't call for help. Part of her was curious. Part of her was exhausted enough not to care.Owen pulled the chair close, closer than Damian had kept it, and sat down. "I've been thinking about what I told you earlier. About Mara. And I realized I wasn't being fair to you. I was giving you

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  • The Billionaire's Unexpected Soulmate.   Chapter 39

    The hospital room smelled like antiseptic and dying flowers. Serena lay in the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling tiles and counting the specks of dust that had somehow infiltrated this supposedly sterile environment. She'd been counting things a lot lately, heartbeats, breaths, the number of times nurses checked on her without actually looking at her.The doctors said she was physically fine. The blackout had been stress-induced, they explained gently, as if stress was something quaint and manageable, like a bad habit she could kick. They didn't understand that her body had simply decided it couldn't process any more information. So it had shut down. Mercy, disguised as unconsciousness.She heard footsteps before the knock came, expensive shoes on linoleum, the kind of walk that announced confidence before the person even entered the room.Owen.He stood in the doorway holding a bouquet of white roses, looking like he'd stepped out of a luxury catalogue. Expensive cologne preceded hi

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    "Oh, your hair grew back” was the first thing that left Marah's mouth after being silent for a minute or two. poor thinking I thought to himself, Is there a brain in that head of hers at all? How could that be the only thing that came out of her mouth? Dad was there and Mom had just stepped out of t

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