Semua Bab Tangled in His Web: Bab 31 - Bab 40

Lily Carter wasn’t used to being summoned into Alex Knight’s office first thing in the morning. Usually, he kept their interactions limited to clipped instructions, a glance that felt more like a dissection, and occasional corrections sharp enough to slice through steel. So when she found herself clutching a notebook, standing in front of his glass-walled office with Melissa whispering, “Careful, rookie, maybe he’s about to deport you to HR exile,” Lily’s heart already felt like it was auditioning for a marathon.Alex’s voice was calm when he finally looked up from his screen. “You’ll be traveling with me next week.”Lily blinked. Once. Twice. “Traveling? Like… for coffee? Because honestly, the Starbucks down the street feels like a trip sometimes.”The faintest twitch touched the corner of his mouth — not a smile, but something that made her feel she’d cracked open a vault only the bold dared to touch.“London,” he clarified. “Merger negotiations. Investor dinner. Seven days.”Her br

The city outside pulsed with light; inside the hotel, everything felt muted and too close.Lily Carter lay on the wide bed, one arm flung over her forehead, the other curled around a pillow as if it might steady her. Pillowcases, duvet, the hotel scent of linen and citrus — all the things designed to soothe — only highlighted how awake she was. The traffic noise below hummed through the glass, far-off horns and the shuffling of late-night pedestrians, but none of it coaxed her toward sleep. Her thoughts circled, and circled.She’d expected exhaustion — after the investor dinner, the long flight, the adrenaline of being on somebody else’s schedule — but instead a single image kept cleaving through everything else: the balcony. Alex framed against the city lights, the rare soft fold in his expression. For a blink, the edges of him had softened. For a blink, he looked less like the CEO everyone feared and more like a man who hadn’t expected to feel anything beyond control.It had been sm

The city had barely stirred awake when Lily Carter opened her eyes, groggy and unmoored. Jet lag clung to her like a stubborn second skin, pulling her in and out of shallow sleep all night. She had rolled over more times than she could count, her mind replaying Alex Knight’s voice in the car yesterday: Stay close to me.It wasn’t just the words. It was the way he’d said them — clipped, sharp, but threaded with something that didn’t feel like business. Something heavier. Almost personal.Now, as sunlight filtered pale gold through the hotel curtains, Lily groaned into the pillow and willed her brain to shut up. She was supposed to be preparing for another round of meetings, another day of shadowing Alex in the lion’s den of investors and strategists. Instead, all she could think about was the way his eyes had burned when they met hers.Dragging herself out of bed, she washed her face, ran a comb through her hair, and pulled on the first semi-presentable outfit she could find in her sui

The car door clicked shut with a dull, final sound, as if sealing them into a private cage of silence. The driver adjusted the rearview mirror, waiting for Alex’s instruction, and Alex gave a clipped nod toward the street.The vehicle pulled smoothly into motion, headlights carving the London dusk into streaks of gold and gray. Inside the back seat, the atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife.Lily shifted against the leather, arms crossed loosely, gaze fixed on the passing cityscape. She didn’t speak immediately, though her posture screamed frustration.Alex sat rigid on the opposite side, one hand braced on his knee, the other pressed against his temple as though concentration could burn away the chaos inside him. His jaw was iron—clenched so tightly it was a wonder the bone didn’t crack.Finally, Lily broke the silence. “You know,” she said, voice sharp in the stillness, “for someone who claims efficiency is everything, you have a terrible habit of freezing people out when

The city woke with its usual roar. Morning traffic pressed through the streets in metallic streams, horns bleating, engines growling, pedestrians rushing like schools of fish darting through current. The skyline glinted in the pale light of dawn, all glass and steel sharpened by a chill wind.In the hotel’s high-rise dining lounge, polished to a sheen of quiet luxury, Lily Carter sat at a small table near the window, hunched over a menu she wasn’t really reading. Her hair was still damp from the hurried shower she’d taken twenty minutes earlier, curling rebelliously around her face despite her best attempts to tame it. A cappuccino sat untouched in front of her, steam rising in lazy curls that dissipated into the air.She looked tired — not messy tired, but the kind of tired that lived in her eyes, the remnants of a restless night she couldn’t quite explain. Every time she had shut her eyes, she’d seen Alex on the balcony from the night before: the dark silhouette against the city lig