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Chapter 12: The Game of Threats

Penulis: Winter
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-08-03 20:04:52

—Celeste—

I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Evelyn's face when she'd spotted Aria—the shock, the calculation, the vindictive satisfaction as the pieces fell into place. She knew. She knew everything now, and she had the power to destroy the life I'd spent five years building.

I sat at my kitchen table until three in the morning, staring at my cold coffee and running through scenarios in my head. Each one ended the same way—with Killian learning the truth, with lawyers and custody battles, with Aria's innocent world torn apart by adults who couldn't figure out how to love without causing damage.

Unless.

The idea came to me sometime around dawn, dark and desperate but potentially effective. Evelyn Sinclair had always been driven by one thing above all others—her obsession with Killian Hart. She'd waited fifteen years for him to notice her as more than a family friend, had positioned herself as the perfect wife material, had built her entire identity around becoming Mr
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  • The Deal in a Wedding Dress   Chapter 24: After the Night

    CelesteI woke up slowly, my body aching in ways I'd never felt before. Every muscle protested as I shifted, the soreness a vivid reminder of last night's intensity. For a moment, I kept my eyes closed, savoring the warmth of the bed, the expensive sheets against my skin, the lingering scent of him on the pillow beside me.Then I reached out.My hand met cold, empty sheets.My eyes snapped open. The space beside me was vacant, the pillow still dented from his head but long since abandoned. Morning light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing everything in harsh, unforgiving clarity.He was gone.I sat up slowly, clutching the navy sheet to my chest, and took in the evidence of what we'd done. My dress lay crumpled on the floor where he'd dropped it last night. Papers still littered the floor near the desk. The chair was overturned. My shoes lay in opposite corners of the room like they'd been flung there in desperation.Everything looked so stark in the morning light.

  • The Deal in a Wedding Dress   Chapter 23: A Night

    CelesteAs Killian pushed into me, the heat between us grew stronger. Our bodies moved together, and the room filled with the sounds of our breathing. His skin was hot and slick with sweat. I could feel his heart pounding like mine.He moved with intensity, his hips driving into me with each thrust. I could feel every inch of him, and I met his every move with equal hunger. Our bodies were slick and hot, the heat almost too much to bear.Killian's hands were everywhere—gripping, exploring, claiming. He kissed down my neck, his stubble rough against my skin. I gasped, my nails digging into his back. He groaned, a low sound that went through my whole body."Celeste," he breathed. "Fuck."I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him deeper. His thrusts became harder, faster, more desperate. The desk shook beneath us. Everything narrowed down to just this—his body, my body, the heat and the need.His hands found my breasts, teasing until my nipples were tight and aching. I arched into his to

  • The Deal in a Wedding Dress   Chapter 23: Explosion

    CelesteThe drive to the mansion was suffocating silence broken only by the engine's growl and my ragged breathing. Killian's hands gripped the steering wheel so tight I thought it might crack. Every muscle in his body radiated tension, coiled violence barely contained beneath expensive fabric.I stared out the window, my reflection ghostly in the glass, and tried to process what had just happened. The punch. The blood on Derek's mouth. The way people had stared and whispered and filmed everything with their phones raised like weapons.Tomorrow morning, we'd be everywhere. Every gossip site, every business page. "Hart Industries CEO Loses Control." "Billionaire's Marriage Already Crumbling." The headlines wrote themselves in my mind, each one more damaging than the last.The car screeched into the driveway. He was out before the engine fully stopped, slamming his door hard enough to make me flinch. I climbed out slowly, my legs unsteady, watching him stride toward the house with that

  • The Deal in a Wedding Dress   Chapter 21: Collision Course

    CelesteKillian moved through the crowd with predatory grace, each step deliberate and controlled. People shifted out of his path instinctively, sensing the danger radiating from him like heat off asphalt.Derek noticed the change in me first—the way my entire body had gone rigid, the smile draining from my face like water from a broken glass."Celeste? You okay?" His hand touched my shoulder, concerned.I couldn't answer. Couldn't look away from Killian's approach, from those storm-gray eyes locked on me like a missile finding its target. My throat closed up, my hands going cold despite the warmth of the bar.He reached us, and the air itself seemed to compress. Up close, I could see the tension in his jaw, the white-knuckle grip he had on his self-control. A muscle ticked beneath his eye—the only sign of the fury I knew was boiling beneath that perfectly tailored surface."Celeste." His voice was quiet, deadly calm. "We're leaving."Not a request. A command.Derek's confusion shifte

  • The Deal in a Wedding Dress   Chapter 20: The Night Out

    Celeste"You're married, not dead," Sarah said over the phone, her voice brooking no argument. "One drink. That's all I'm asking. You need to get out of that mansion before you turn into a ghost."I stared at my reflection in the bedroom mirror. She wasn't wrong—I looked hollow, like I was fading into the expensive wallpaper."I don't know—""Celeste Andrews Hart, I've been your best friend since freshman year. I know when you're drowning. One drink. Please."So I said yes.The lounge was upscale but not pretentious—soft lighting, good music, the kind of place where you could actually hear yourself think. Sarah was already there, waving from a corner booth, her smile bright and familiar and everything I'd been missing."There she is!" She pulled me into a hug that smelled like her signature perfume. "God, I've missed you. Tell me everything. And I mean everything."I slid into the booth, accepting the wine she'd already ordered. "There's nothing to tell.""Liar. You married a billiona

  • The Deal in a Wedding Dress   Chapter 19: Where were you?

    CelesteThe gallery studio became my sanctuary. Every afternoon, I'd slip away while Killian worked, climbing the stairs to Rosa's second-floor space where the light was good and no one asked questions I couldn't answer.I painted like my life depended on it.Watercolors at first, because they flowed easily. Then oils when watercolors couldn't contain what was clawing its way out of me. Storm clouds in grays and blacks. Turbulent waters that seemed to churn right off the canvas. And birds—always birds—trapped in cages with doors standing wide open."You're painting a lot of storms lately," Rosa observed one afternoon, setting tea beside my easel. "Turbulent waters. Caged birds."My brush stilled. "I guess I am.""Want to talk about why?"The question hung there, gentle and non-judgmental. I kept painting, adding darker shadows to the water. But something inside me cracked."It's complicated.""Most things worth talking about are." Rosa settled into her chair by the window, waiting.Th

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