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Chapter 90: The professor
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2025-07-24 23:43:53
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Winning Her Back Chapter 92: The Hollow Man
Ethan's POVEight months. Two hundred and forty three days of breathing ash. That’s what this place is now, Blackwell Industries, my empire, my meticulously constructed fortress of steel and ambition. It feels less like a throne room and more like a tomb I built for myself. The view from the penthouse window, the sprawling cityscape I once surveyed with cold satisfaction, now just reflects the vast, echoing emptiness inside me.I miss her.The admission, even in the silence of my own skull, is a raw, scraping thing. It claws at me constantly. I miss the quiet rustle of her turning pages in the library, a sound I used to find irritating background noise. I miss the tentative way she’d smile at me across the breakfast table, a smile I met with indifference or worse. I miss the scent of vanilla and something clean, uniquely hers, that used to linger in the halls, now obliterated by sterile air and the cloying ghosts of my own failures. I miss the curve of her hip beneath my hand, the s
Winning Her Back Chapter 91: The Archaeology of Intention
The studio, usually a sanctuary of glorious, productive chaos, felt like a crime scene I was desperately trying to clean before the detectives arrived. Specifically, one detective in a tweed jacket with eyes like a calm sea."Honestly, Lila, if he’s half the art historian he seems, he’ll appreciate the authentic ambiance," Sandra declared, perched precariously on a rickety stool, waving a dust rag like a surrender flag. She hadn’t actually dusted anything. "This," she gestured grandly at the explosion of half-squeezed paint tubes, stacked canvases leaning precariously, brushes soaking in murky jars, and the ever-present scent of linseed oil and turpentine, "is the sacred ground where magic happens. Tidying it is practically sacrilege."I yanked a paint-splattered drop cloth off the floor, sending a small cascade of dried pigment flakes onto my boots. "It’s not sacrilege, it’s basic human decency! He’s not coming to witness the 'magic,' he’s coming to see the space. And right now, the
Winning Her Back Chapter 90: The professor
"Drink," she commands, her eyes scanning the crowd like a hawk. "Smile. Breathe. And for the love of all things sacred, try not to vomit on the serious collectors. They have very expensive shoes." She positions herself slightly in front of me, a vibrant, talkative human shield against the onslaught of attention. "Just point and nod if they ask about technique. I’ll handle the existential angst."The reactions are a kaleidoscope. Stoic Finns in impeccably tailored suits and minimalist dresses linger longest before my paintings. Their faces give little away, but their stillness speaks volumes. One silver-haired man, his gaze fixed on the central gold gash, murmurs to his companion, just loud enough for me to catch: "This is beautiful.”A woman with hair like spun moonlight, draped in flowing silvery linen, approaches the gallery owner, Anu, near "Aino’s Crown". She points, they speak briefly, and one of the gallery attendant beams, placing a discreet red dot beside the title card. The
Winning Her Back Chapter 89: Where the Light Lives
The smell of turpentine and linseed oil is a comforting shroud around me, thick and familiar. I’m lost in the veins of ultramarine bleeding into viridian on the canvas, a new forest emerging, darker, deeper than the Midnight Sun. Then, the studio door explodes inwards. Sandra. Of course. She’s a force of nature wrapped in vintage velvet, her cheeks flushed, eyes blazing. In her hand, she doesn’t just hold a piece of paper; she brandishes it like a conquering banner snatched from the jaws of doubt. "Lila! Kulta! Look!" She thrusts it under my nose, almost smudging the wet paint on my brush, frozen mid-air. "Gallery Aurora! They want you! Your ‘Midnight Sun Forest’ for the summer show! Three pieces! Pack your panic, darling, we’re going public!" My heart stutters, then slams against my ribs like a frantic bird. A real gallery. Not the cozy chaos of the corner café with its lingering scent of cinnamon buns. Not the pixelated anonymity of an online portfolio. This is Light. Solid, cura
Winning Her Back Chapter 88: Midnight Sun
Six months. Half a year painted in the stark, beautiful contrasts of Finnish light and shadow. Six months since I walked out of Ethan Blackwell’s gilded cage and learned to breathe air that didn’t taste like judgment and disappointment. Standing in my sun-drenched studio, the scent of turpentine and linseed oil thick and comforting in the air, I finally felt it: the deep, unburdened expansion of my lungs. Freedom wasn’t just a location; it was the absence of constantly bracing for impact, of feeling perpetually less than.The large canvas before me was alive with colour, bold strokes of cerulean and emerald capturing the wild spirit of a Lapland forest under the summer’s midnight sun. This was my lifeblood now. My art. The passion I’d carefully packed away, like fragile china, when I became Mrs. Ethan Blackwell, because serious wives of serious men didn't dabble in such frivolities. Or so the unspoken rule, reinforced by Ethan’s dismissive glances and the subtle pressure to conform, h
Winning Her Back Chapter 87: The Reckoning
Ethan's POVTwo months. Sixty days. A lifetime measured in the suffocating silence of this mausoleum I used to call home. The divorce papers still sit on my desk, a perpetual accusation gathering dust beside Lila’s abandoned wedding ring. I haven’t signed them. I can’t. The finality of it feels like signing my own death warrant.I thought I craved this silence. I told myself I didn’t need her, that the constant, low hum of her presence was an irritant, a distraction from the cold efficiency of my world. I convinced myself I didn’t love her. That the sharp, unfamiliar feelings she provoked were weakness, not affection. That I could function perfectly well, better even, without the complication of Lila Blackwell.God, I was a fool. A blind, arrogant fool.Her absence isn't just silence, it's a void. A sucking vacuum where the air itself feels thin and lifeless. The meticulously ordered house is now a testament to my unraveling. Dust gathers on surfaces Lila would never have allowed. E
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