CHASING HIS BARREN EX WIFE のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 51 - チャプター 60

CHAPTER 049MESSY DIARESPOV (FREYA)Just a few minutes before we were supposed to leave, I found Eliza sitting cross legged on the floor, hunched over a thick, battered looking bundle of notebooks bound together by string. Her pen was moving in slow, deliberate strokes. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, eyes low, hair falling messily over one shoulder.“Hey,” I said softly, crouching beside her. “What’s that?”She looked up, startled, then quickly closed it. “Nothing. Just something I write in.”“A diary?”Eliza wrinkled her nose. “No. God, no. I wouldn’t call it that. Diaries sound… organized. Pretty. This is just messy. Pages of spilled guts and moments I didn’t know where else to put. I guess it’s more like… a long, angry draft of my brain.”I tilted my head. “Do you write about everything that’s happened to you?”“I’ve had it since I was eight,” she said simply.I blinked. “You’ve been writing in it for twenty three years?”She smirked. “Makes me sound ancient, doesn’t it?”

CHAPTER 051TWO LITTLE WOMEN If someone told me yesterday that I'd be standing in front of an estate that looked like something out of a royal wedding magazine, I would've laughed and said, "Wrong girl."But here I was. Mouth slightly open. Fingers frozen stiff. Staring at a house so big, I didn’t know if it was supposed to intimidate me or bow.Eliza's childhood home looked nothing like the chaos she carried with her. It was quiet, cold, elegant, ilike it had been plucked out of a Russian folktale and set down in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow-covered trees and the kind of silence that makes you hear your own heartbeat.“Wow,” I whispered before I could stop myself.Beside me, Eliza smirked. “Don’t get lost.”We hadn’t even made it through the front doors yet, and I was already overwhelmed. There were lanterns glowing softly along the stone path, casting gold reflections in the snow. The building itself stretched on forever. The windows were tall, carved balconies, and w

CHAPTER 053IF HEALING HAD ANOTHER NAMEPOV(FREYA)I excused myself from the table, mumbling something about the restroom. As I walked off, I could feel Alan’s eyes on me. I didn’t expect him to follow.But the moment I turned into the hallway, I felt him behind me, close. Too close.“Alan?” I turned, startled. “What are you...?”Before I could finish, he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the shadowy corner beside the pantry. The warmth from breakfast was gone, replaced with a suffocating tension in the narrow space between us.“Don’t get too close to her,” he said, low and urgent.I blinked. “What?”“Eliza,” he said again, voice harder now. “She’s not… safe.”I stepped back, yanking my arm free. “Are you serious right now?”He didn’t answer.I gave a dry, humorless laugh. “You think just because she’s smiling now, it’s a trick? That she’s manipulating me?”“I think you’re letting your guard down too easily. Everyone who gets close to her either disappears or ends up hurt.”“She’s not

CHAPTER 055THE MONSTERS WE LEARN TO LOVEPOV (FREYA)I followed Eliza through a long hallway, deeper into the manor. Her hand was warm in mine, but her steps were stiff, mechanical, like her soul had been drained minutes ago and she was walking out of habit, not will.She said nothing. Not until we reached a narrow wooden door tucked beneath a stone arch that looked far too small to be part of a house this grand.She pushed it open.I blinked.It wasn’t a room. It was a cell.Four tight walls, cracked and yellow. The window, if I could even call it that was the size of a shoebox. The air tasted like mildew and old paint. There was no bed, just a thin mattress on the ground and shelves stacked with notebooks and books worn to their spines. Paintings on the walls, no bigger than postcards, were scrawled like desperate messages. Some were wild and chaotic, others hauntingly detailed.“This...” My voice barely found itself. “This is where you grew up?”She nodded.I stared, unsure whethe

CHAPTER 057E MONSTERPOV(FREYA)The study felt like something out of a horror novel. Dim, antique, and suffocating with shadows. A hundred cracked spines stared down at me from the towering bookshelves. The fireplace glowed faintly, not warm, just alive. And in the chair across from me, the old man sat with his steepled fingers, eyes heavy like they carried centuries."Tea?" he asked.I shook my head, barely able to find my voice. “No.”He poured it anyway, a delicate, almost ceremonial gesture, then began like he’d been rehearsing the story his whole life."There was once a girl," he said, "born with blood in her mouth. Not literally, of course. But close. Let’s call her… E.”My stomach knotted.“She was just two when the pets began to disappear. Rabbits, cats, songbirds. All vanished. Who would suspect a child? Then at seven, her father gifted her a dog..."He paused, his lips curling slightly.“...and the dog died that night. The maids said they heard it crying. Whimpering. But by