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Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Rich Man's Proxy Marriage: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

152 Kabanata

Chapter 69

The emergency lights sputtered back to life with a reluctant hum, casting the underground ruins in a bruised, reddish glow. Elena flinched at the color—too close to the shade Silas had whispered about. The “red pathway.” The “rule.”The word Nora.Holden’s arm remained firmly around her shoulders as they moved slowly through the fractured hallway, each step echoing off the unstable metal beams above them. Dust hung in the air like snowfall suspended mid-fall.“Elena,” he whispered, guiding her over a fallen pipe. “We’re leaving. We’ve swept the area—no heat signatures, no movement. Silas is gone.”She didn’t answer.Her heart was still pounding against her ribs, wild and uneven.Gone. But not gone.His voice still crawled along the edges of her mind.Follow the red pathway.Good girl.Bound by design.She wrapped her arms around herself, as if her own body was foreign. Holden saw the movement and stopped, angling himself to face her. His eyes—sharp, icy, always in control—looked shak

Chapter 70

Holden didn’t remember grabbing Elena—only the tightening coil in his chest when her knees buckled, the way her fingers slipped from the scorched metal wall of the Memory Room, and the soft, broken sound she made when her breath hitched.All he remembered clearly was this:He refused to lose her. Not here. Not again.“Holden…” Elena’s voice was thin, raw, trembling near his collarbone as he lifted her with a strength that felt more like panic than muscle. “I can— I can walk.”“You are walking,” he muttered, tightening his arm around her waist as he pulled her out of the collapsing chamber. “Just not on your own.”The Memory Room hissed behind them—sparking wires, a half-collapsed ceiling, the acrid smell of burning insulation crawling through the air like smoke from a dying monster. The deeper they’d gone, the faster the fractures had spread along the walls, as if the entire research bunker had been rigged to decay the moment Elena stepped in.Silas’s instructions had been clear:Nora

Chapter 71

The storm arrived without warning.One hour ago, Holden and Elena had been descending the narrow mountain path, following the trail Silas’s smoke signal had hinted toward—a direction that made no logical sense, which made it all the more suspicious.Then the sky broke open.Rain slammed down like a curtain of glass, soaking them within seconds. Wind howled through the ravine, turning the trees into whips and the rivers into beasts. Thunder cracked close enough to rattle the bones in their chests.Holden grabbed Elena’s wrist immediately.“We need shelter. Now.”She didn’t argue—rare in itself. The wind was strong enough to knock her sideways, and for a split second her boot slipped on the mud. Holden yanked her against him before the ground could swallow her.“Careful,” he muttered.Her breath brushed his neck. “I didn’t fall.”“Yet.” His voice was tighter than he intended.They stumbled through the forest, visibility shrinking to mere meters. The storm was relentless, as if Silas hi

Chapter 72

Elena woke to the soft patter of rain against the cabin roof.For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. The room smelled faintly of pine, warm fabric, and the lingering smoke of last night’s half-burned fireplace. A blanket—too thick, too warm to be hers—was draped over her shoulders.Then she felt it.A quiet, steady heartbeat beneath her ear.A breath that wasn’t hers.A body beside her.Her lashes fluttered open.Holden.He was still in his day clothes—jacket unzipped, shirt wrinkled, boots abandoned somewhere near the bed. He sat half-propped against the headboard, head tilted slightly to one side, as if he’d only allowed himself to fall asleep once she had. His arm was around her, loose but undeniably there, like a barrier against the world.Her cheeks warmed instantly.Last night.The storm. The memory of the lightning strike. Her panic. The dark. His voice telling her to breathe, to look at him, to stay here. The closeness that kept creeping in even when they both tried

Chapter 73

The rain had softened to a distant whisper by the time Holden returned.Elena heard the door creak open before she saw him. He stepped inside with droplets clinging to his hair and coat, jaw tight, posture rigid in a way that told her he had walked half a kilometer too fast just to burn off whatever was tearing at him from the inside.“The road’s clearing,” he said without preamble.She nodded. “So we can leave soon.”Holden paused, as if he had expected her to ask something else—something about last night, about the way they had slept too close, breathed too close, felt too close.She didn’t ask.Not because she didn’t want to.But because he looked like he would break if she did.He hung his coat on the back of the chair, but the motion was too sharp, too controlled, and she could tell that the storm outside wasn’t the one he was fighting anymore.Holden moved around the room with restless purpose—closing windows, checking supplies, picking up things that didn’t need picking up. Ele

Chapter 74

The ride back to the mountain villa should have been easy—straight road, morning sun, nothing but the quiet aftermath of the storm. But nothing between Elena and Holden had been simple since last night.The silence in the car wasn’t peaceful. It buzzed like static trapped between them.Holden drove with one hand on the wheel, the other curled so tightly on his thigh that his knuckles were white. His jaw was locked the way it always was when he was two seconds away from losing control—except now, he wasn’t angry at Silas, or the Board, or the world.He was angry at himself.And Elena? She hadn’t looked at him once since they left the cabin.Not after waking up tangled in him. Not after she realized her fingers had been resting on his heartbeat. Not after he pulled away first—as if touching her had burned him.She stared out the window now, pretending the mountains were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen.But she felt him. Every breath. Every shift of muscle. Every stolen

Chapter 75

The morning began too quietly.Elena woke before sunrise, wrapped in blankets she didn’t remember pulling over herself. Her mind was heavy with fragments of dreams—Holden’s voice calling her name, the warmth of his hand brushing her hair back, the way the storm had softened him.But when she blinked awake, the room was empty. Cold. Silent.She closed her eyes again.Everything would have been easier if she could simply forget last night. If she could pretend the warmth between them was only the storm. If she could stop replaying the sound of his heartbeat under her cheek.But pretending was becoming impossible.She swung her legs out of bed, feet touching the cold floor. The villa felt unusually large this morning—like every open space between them had doubled in size.When she walked downstairs, the scent of freshly brewed coffee drifted from the kitchen. She followed it, pulse quickening against her will.Holden stood at the counter, sleeves rolled up, hair still slightly messy

Chapter 76

The storm had passed, but the electricity between them hadn’t.By the time Elena descended the stairs, Holden was already waiting near the base of the tower, speaking tersely with the security team. His posture was rigid—shoulders tense, jaw locked, every inch of him coiled tighter than the last time she saw him.He sensed her approaching before she spoke a word.His eyes lifted. Found her instantly. And something unguarded flickered across his face, gone just as quickly.“Stay close,” he said—not a command this time, but something like instinct.She nodded, falling into step beside him as the guards led them toward the main hall.But the tension from the observatory still clung to them like static. Every accidental brush of their arms. Every sideways glance. Every breath.It was too much. Too sharp. Too real.And it was only a matter of time before something snapped.The Engineer Who Stood Too CloseAt the front hall, a team of emergency engineers arrived to assess structural

Chapter 77

The storm had long passed, but its aftershocks lived on in the house—inside its walls, inside its occupants, and most of all, inside the charged, unspoken space between Holden and Elena.The night was quiet. Too quiet.The kind of quiet that made every thought louder.The Lu family villa at the foothills of the Verdant Range settled into sleep early; the lights were dimmed, the staff dismissed, and even the restless cicadas outside had grown tired of their own song.Holden, however, sat awake.The couch groaned softly as he leaned forward, elbows braced against his knees, staring at the dying embers in the fireplace. The golden orange glow painted shadows along his jaw and cheekbones—so sharp they looked carved by tension itself.He rubbed both hands over his face once, exhaling.He had avoided going upstairs for an hour.Not because he wasn’t tired. But because Elena was there.And because earlier—too earlier—their tension had exploded into something he still couldn’t name. That argu

Chapter 78

Elena woke slowly, like rising through layers of warm fog.Her lashes fluttered. Her breathing was soft, shallow. A faint scent—clean soap, cedar, and something deeper—wrapped around her before she was fully aware of where she was.Then she realized something was against her.No—someone.A chest. Hard, warm, and rising steadily beneath her cheek.Her fingers curled involuntarily into fabric. Her legs were tangled with another pair. An arm—heavy, strong, firm—was draped over her waist with a possessiveness that made her pulse stutter.Her eyes snapped open.The room was dim, early morning light barely creeping through the curtains. Rain still pattered faintly outside the cabin. The storm had calmed—but the memory of last night was still sharp, still electric.The power outage. The cold. Holden pulling her closer so she wouldn’t shiver. Their breath mingling in the dark. His hand on her back—steady, protective, trembling just slightly.And then—She must have fallen asleep.But she

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