บททั้งหมดของ TWO LIVES - Shattered Illusion : บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

Maybelle looked down like a cat that had eaten something expensive. “You noticed. It’s hard to keep things secret when you glow, isn’t it?”“Who’s the father?” Niya didn't know what to expect.May’s lips curled, that same look she wore when she used to crash out about young Alex. She stepped forward, brushing invisible lint from her bejeweled strap.“Oh... no one special. Just Alexander,” she said sweetly like she was offering a cookie. The words knocked the breath clean out of Niya’s lungs and her legs crumpled beneath her weight. “What?”“Are you okay? Mm-hmm Good,” May beamed. “Technically he was yours, I know. But after your little Sleeping Beauty phase, someone had to keep the poor man warm. I guess we got... close.”“You lying bitch.” Niya’s voice came out like strained static, but her chest was screaming.May laughed. “Please. You think I’d lie about this? I already posted the ultrasound on my close friend's story. And of course, you’re not on that list.”Niya moved towards h

She shivered.His hand slowly slid down her spine, fingertips tracing the dip in her back like a muscle memory.“You’re shaking,” he whispered. “That’s how I know you’re still alive, Angel.”Her eyes trailed the tattoos crawling from beneath his ear and disappearing into the slope of his shoulder. Finally, she found the strength to speak. “What… what are you doing?”His fingers splayed across her lower back and pulled her in as he leaned down until their foreheads nearly touched. She didn’t want this. She wanted him, yes, but not in a way that felt like drowning. His presence was suffocating and he knew exactly how to pull at her dumb strings. This man that doesn't even know a thing about her could control her? No!Yet her traitorous body betrayed her the moment his scent harassed her nose. It ignited something primal and ravenous in her that made her core pulse without permission, the heat unfurling up into her belly like a fever she couldn’t fight, and suddenly she was maddened wi

His smirk didn’t move but his brows did just slightly.She leaned forward before he could speak. “Fake. Marriage. Contract. You pretend to be my husband, you do the husband duties, you smile, hold my waist, act like you like me –”“I already like you.”“Focus,” she snapped her fingers close to his face, and his lids twitched. “You act like you like me, I give you peace of mind, and you get to say you’re not completely miserable. Six months and I'll walk away once I'm free. Also, you don't ask personal questions.”He tilted his head, amused. “And what exactly are my husband duties, Angel?”“Nothing that involves your mouth or your hands.”“You sure? That mouth gave you goosebumps.”Her nose flared.He rested back in the chair with arms folded, giving her a full view of the tattoos under the hem of his sleeve. “So that’s your brilliant plan. You fake love me. I fake like I care. You get out. And you expect me to behave?”“I expect you to keep your hands to yourself.”“I don’t make promi

The wind curled through the trees, mostly oaks and old maples that lined the edges of Rosedale’s narrow sidewalks. Their bare branches reached out like bony fingers, rattling as the breeze ghosted through them. Streetlights buzzed overhead in yellow halos as they casting long shadows over broken sidewalks and rustling garbage bags that hadn’t been collected since morning. Typical Rosedale. One of those Queens neighborhoods where the porches were too close, the fences were too low, and you could always tell who’d cooked dinner by what wafted in air. Even now, long past midnight, someone’s TV hummed through a half-open window nearby, playing reruns nobody was probably watching. Everyone was as sleep except her.Niya stepped off the stoop and into the cold, her flip-flops slapping lightly against concrete. Her eyes found two black cars parked adjacent her block, and she hugged herself without thinking.Her legs crumpled and her throat went dry.Silas stood next to the first car, as sti

Niya glanced out the tinted windows and blew air through her nose. Her phone buzzed, the screen lit with the message she’d sent to Rapha nearly an hour ago:~ ‘If your plan was to piss me off by making me take a day off at my new jobs just to rot in traffic, congrats. It’s working.’She’d read it an unhealthy amount of times that it made her feel sick about it. Meanwhile, the car rolled on in silence.Silas hadn’t said a single word or even a glance in her direction since she got into the car. Not even when she sighed for the hundredth time, or when she snapped her seatbelt with more force than necessary. He still didn’t even look at her. The man might as well have been a mannequin with batteries.“You know, you could at least pretend I’m not being kidnapped,” she huffed.It fell on deaf ears. He was completely unbothered by her presence.“Cool,” she muttered, staring at the back of his head like she could set it on fire. “We’ve been on the road for hours. I missed a whole shift for