All Chapters of The CEO’s Temptation : Chapter 231 - Chapter 240

*****************************POV: Mack************************** The silence in the room was suffocating. Not the kind that offered peace or comfort, but the kind that wrapped around your chest and tightened until you forgot how to breathe. No one moved. No one dared to. The faint hum of the overhead lights felt louder than necessary, a poor attempt to drown out the tension lingering like thick fog. Even the air conditioner seemed to hesitate, whirring too gently as if it knew it didn’t belong in a room filled with the echoes of devastation. My eyes flicked from Morgan to Henry, then to Rowe, and finally settled on me. I sat down with my hands clasped in front of me, shoulders drawn taut beneath my black button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up to my elbows as though I needed room to move quickly if things spiraled again. My jaw was locked, sharp, and unmoving, as if letting it slack for even a moment would unravel everything I was holding together. No one said a word for a beat t

*******************Liam's Mother’s POV******************** The morning Liam died, the world didn’t shatter like I expected it to. It simply… continued. Birds chirped outside my window, the sun rose like it always had, and people walked the streets with coffee cups and careless laughter. But I didn’t. I sat in my silk robe, still smelling faintly of jasmine and grief, staring at the news like it was a mistake that could be corrected. “Liam Agyis, heir to Agyis Dynamics, confirmed dead during the dramatic rescue of Claire Walsh, daughter of late Ambassador Pierce.” Claire. Even the name on the screen burned. They didn’t say murderer. They didn’t say thief. They said “rescued.” As if she hadn’t been the one to undo my son from the inside out. As if she hadn’t cracked open the very structure of our family and fed the pieces to the wolves. Henry hadn’t spoken a word to me. Not even when he came home the night it happened. His shirt was stained with something I didn’t want to

********************************Claire’s POV*********************** The first time I stepped outside after everything, the world felt smaller. Not in the comforting way you’d feel when someone you love wraps you up, but in that suffocating way where even the air seems to lean in, listening, waiting for you to stumble. The sun was warm, yes, but it didn’t touch me—not really. I could still feel the cold from Agyis Dynamics’ headquarters clinging to me like it had claws. Mack had insisted on a quiet drive. No entourage. No high-profile security tailing behind, though I knew his definition of “quiet” still meant a watchful network of eyes I couldn’t see. But to me, it just felt… fragile. A glass bubble. One wrong move, and it would all shatter. People were staring. We stopped at a small café—not because we needed coffee, but because Mack was trying to trick me into feeling normal again. He didn’t say that, but I could hear it in the way he asked, “Fifteen minutes? Just you and me?”

******************************Liz’s POV**************************** The rain had been falling since late afternoon, a soft, persistent curtain against the windows of the small study where Rowe and I had ended up after the day’s endless noise. The war room had been too loud, the corridors too full of voices I wasn’t ready to hear. Here, the silence felt heavier, like the world outside had muted itself so it wouldn’t intrude. He was leaning against the desk, one hand in his pocket, the other curled loosely around a glass of water he hadn’t touched. I was in the armchair by the fire, legs curled under me, staring at the flames as though they could tell me what I was doing here. “You’ve been quiet all day,” Rowe said, his voice low, almost cautious. I glanced up. His eyes were darker than usual, shadowed from exhaustion, but still steady in that way that made it hard to look at him for too long. “Maybe I’m just tired,” I said. “You’re not just tired.” He set the glass down and

******************************(Claire’s POV)*********************** The first time I noticed it, I told myself it was nothing. A misplaced letter was in the stack of bills on my kitchen counter. No return address, just my name in sharp, slanted handwriting that I didn’t recognize. Inside was a single photograph of the ocean—deep, restless waves under a sky heavy with storm clouds. No note. No signature. Just the ocean, frozen in grayscale, as if whoever had taken it wanted to strip it of warmth. I stared at it too long. The smell of the paper reminded me faintly of saltwater. I slid it into the drawer by the sink, shut it, and told myself it was some strange misdirected art project. But that was last week. Today, the wrongness came again. The day had started normally enough. Mack had left early for a meeting, promising to be back by dinner. I’d kept myself busy—organizing the small study, making tea, telling myself that normalcy was something you could rebuild brick by b