All Chapters of Bound By The CEO's Contract : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

(NATALIE'S POV)My mind went blank for a second or maybe more, I couldn’t feel anything. Not even the sharp, sterile chill of the air conditioning that had been bothering me since I entered.Everything froze.Just moments ago, Alexander had blurted those words, “You’ll be moving in with me.”They bounced around in my skull like broken glass, slicing into everything I thought I had resolved back home barely an hour ago.I had made up my mind.I was going to end this contract.End it tonight.Now here was I sitting, blinking at him, as he just… casually flipped the script on me like none of it mattered. Like my feelings were nothing but some irrelevant footnote in his bigger picture.“Live with him?”I swallowed hard.Like he and I under the same roof? Waking up to his face every morning?Having to deal with the sharp glances of his sister who clearly wanted me out the second I walked in?Having to smile and pretend to his parents whom I was sure must have seen the news already and

(NATALIE’S POV)The front doors opened with a slow-paced, ponderous swing, revealing a hallway so wide that could fit three automobiles parked side by side. Marble floors stretched ahead of them like an endless sea, and light from an ornate chandelier poured down in golden streams.It ought to have felt beautiful.It didn't Two staff members stood on both sides of the doorway, dressed in crisp black uniforms. Their eyes flickered to me for a second before lowering again. There were no casual greetings and no hello. Just the silent acknowledgment that I had crossed into their space and Alexander's space. "Your things will be brought up," Alexander said casually, like I had already agreed to move in.I didn't answer. My eyes were too occupied checking around the room: the paintings on the walls, the heavy drapes, the smell of polished wood and something faintly floral. It was too perfect, like a show room. Nothing is disorganized."Come," he said, going on ahead without waiting to see

POV: NatalieIt would never be easy living with Alexander, I had told myself that long before we moved into the mansion. Two obstinate people in the same house was already a challenge, but with the rules and the distance between us, that was another thing entirely. I thought I was ready for the silence, for the coldness, for the walls he built so effortlessly. But nothing could have prepared me for the night.The mansion at night was mostly quiet, the kind of silence that made the tick-tock of the clock in the hallway so loud like it was a drum. I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to sleep. That's when I heard it.“Eleanor!”When I heard it, I froze in my bed. My heart pounded because it reminded me of the night I had discovered him drunk and broken. Back then, I had assumed that it had been an instance of weakness, a rare slip for a man who lived in control. But now, hearing him cry out in his sleep again, it was obvious that whatever had haunted him had roots far deep

POV: NatalieThe mansion had been holding its breath for days. Each night was no different, cries through the silence, the name “Eleanor” echoing down the walls like a ghost refusing to leave. I had promised myself that I would endure it, to hold on to the agreement we had made never to enter each other's rooms. But that night, I simply couldn’t stay put.His voice was distinctive.It wasn't yelling anymore. It was breaking.“Eleanor!” His shout was uttered, anguished, desperate. Then it dropped into a sound I had never heard from him before, one of tears.I froze initially, my hand on the side of my bed, my heart racing. Alexander….crying? The man who carried himself like stone? The man who never let anyone close enough to see his cracks?I couldn't sit any longer. I tossed the blanket aside and rose and ran out of my bedroom, my ice-cold feet on the exceedingly high-polished floor. I didn’t even stop to think about the agreement this time. His agony was louder than any promise.When

POV: AlexanderI wasn't really certain when it happened, but sometime during the dark nights and endless mornings, Natalie and I had come closer together than I ever would have thought.It was supposed to be an arrangement. A contract. A performance for the world to see. But most of the time now, there were moments where I forgot to pretend. When I would get carried away by her laughter, not because anyone was watching, but because I wanted to. I found myself reaching for her hand in public, not as a show, but because it felt right.The longer we were together, the more I realized she had slipped into the cracks of my life, the cracks I once thought could never be filled.It was at that moment that it struck me. The thought that changed everything.I wanted to introduce her to my parents.It wasn't intentional. It wasn't part of the package. But one night we were both in the living room, and the words just flowed out of me before I knew what was happening.″Natalie,” I said to her, a