All Chapters of CRUEL OBSESSION : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

CHAPTER 41 — BETWEEN THE SHADOWS The mansion had settled into silence, a thick, almost tangible quiet that pressed against the walls and pooled in every corner of the dimly lit hallways. Only the faint hum of the city outside and the occasional creak of floorboards reminded Sienna that the world beyond the Westwood estate still existed. In her room, shadows danced across the walls, flickering in time with the candles that lined the mantle and casting a golden glow over the plush carpet. The air smelled faintly of wax and polished wood, but beneath it lingered something else—something warmer, richer, something that made her pulse skip in anticipation. Sienna perched on the edge of her bed, hands clutching the hem of her silk nightgown as if it could anchor her to some sense of composure. Her bare feet brushed against the cool wood floor with restless rhythm. She had tried to focus on her breathing, counting slowly to ten over and over, but each inhale brought with it the memory of Da

CHAPTER 43 — THE THINGS WE DON’T NAME The room didn’t feel like a bedroom anymore. It felt like a threshold. The kind you crossed once and never fully came back from. Sienna sat beside Damien on the edge of the bed, her fingers still loosely curled into the fabric of his shirt as if letting go would make everything collapse. The mattress dipped slightly beneath their combined weight, grounding her in the reality of the moment, but her thoughts floated somewhere far less steady. Her breathing was uneven. Not panicked. Just… overwhelmed. Damien noticed everything. He always did. The way her shoulders tensed, the way her thumb brushed nervously against his chest, the way her gaze kept dropping and lifting again as if she wasn’t sure where she was allowed to look. He turned slightly toward her, not touching her this time. Giving her space. That alone made her chest ache. “You’re thinking again,” he said quietly. She huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh. “I never stop.”

CHAPTER 45 — WHAT SILENCE SOUNDS LIKE Damien did not follow her. That was the first thing he noticed after she left. The door closed softly behind Sienna, the sound barely audible, yet it echoed through the dining room with an uncomfortable finality. Chairs shifted. Silverware clinked. Someone cleared their throat. Life resumed. And that, more than anything, unsettled him. Damien remained seated at the head of the table, hands resting flat against the polished wood, posture rigid. His expression did not change. It never did—not when Vanessa smiled that thin, knowing smile, not when his mother reached for her tea as though nothing remarkable had happened, not when his father resumed speaking about logistics and appearances. But inside him, something had gone very still. He hadn’t defended her. The thought came uninvited, sharp and unwelcome. He told himself it wasn’t that simple. That reacting would have escalated things. That silence was control. That keeping the peace—his p

CHAPTER 47 — THE WAR WITHOUT GUNS Damien told himself it didn’t matter. That was the lie he repeated as the days passed. Three of them. Three days of polite distance. Three days of carefully measured interactions that felt worse than shouting ever could. Sienna spoke when spoken to. She responded when necessary. She existed within the same walls as him without ever truly meeting him. She had perfected absence. At breakfast, she sat across the table with her posture straight and her attention on her plate. She did not glance at him when he entered. When Eleanor spoke, Sienna listened respectfully. When Vanessa made her thinly veiled remarks, Sienna smiled faintly and said nothing. Damien watched it all from behind his coffee cup. She was calm. Too calm. It unsettled him more than her earlier defiance ever had. He noticed the small things first. She stopped waiting for him in the evenings. Stopped lingering in shared spaces. Stopped trying. No quiet conversations. No ten

CHAPTER 49 — WHEN THE HOUSE LISTENS Morning arrived without mercy. Light spilled through the tall windows of the Westwood estate, pale and intrusive, cutting through the quiet like a blade. The house woke slowly—maids moving softly, doors opening and closing with practiced care—but the tension lingered, thick and unmoving, like fog that refused to lift. Sienna had been awake long before the sun. She lay on her side, facing the window, her body still and her thoughts loud. Sleep had come in fragments—brief, shallow moments before she woke again, heart racing for reasons she refused to name. Damien had not come to bed. She knew that without checking. There was a particular weight to absence when you had grown used to someone’s presence—even when that presence had once felt heavy, uncertain, unfinished. She had spent months learning his rhythms. The quiet way he entered rooms. The way he stood at windows when thinking. The way silence clung to him like a second skin. And now she