Semua Bab Abandoned by my ex, Reclaimed by his boss: Bab 11 - Bab 20

Chapter TwelveLIANA,It was the soft thump of plastic against my arm that roused me from sleep. The air still held the hush of early morning, and the muted light filtering through the curtains painted the walls in quiet gold. But the bed was no longer mine alone.I stirred, groggy, and felt the small weight of my daughter perched beside me."Mummy, it’s morning. Wake up," came her bright, impatient voice.Blinking into the light, I found Emma kneeling at the edge of the bed. She held her toy bunny in one hand and a pink plastic crown in the other, which she was now tapping against my shoulder with royal insistence. A crooked grin spread across her tiny face.“Your princess is here,” she declared with theatrical flair, chin tilted up, eyes sparkling with mischief.Despite the familiar heaviness that clung to my chest like wet wool, I smiled. Emma had a way of cutting through the fog, her laughter a kind of light I couldn’t find anywhere else. I reached out and pulled her close, her sm

Chapter FourteenLIANA,The ballroom felt suffocating, like I was trapped inside a glass jar slowly filling with smoke, the air thick and stale with tension that clung to my skin and weighed down my limbs. Every breath I took was heavy, dragging at my chest as if the atmosphere itself had thickened into something almost tangible — something that pressed against me from every direction.Damien’s outburst still echoed in my ears, a sharp, venomous sting lingering like a dark stain spreading through the room. The words he’d spat so cruelly weren’t just sounds; they were poison, infecting every corner of my mind, refusing to fade no matter how hard I tried to push them away.Around me, laughter buzzed like nervous static—too loud, too forced. Smiles flickered like fragile paper flames, delicate and ready to snap under the slightest breeze. I could feel the weight of every gaze flickering toward me, sharp and expectant, as if I were some wild animal caught under a blinding spotlight, waiti

Chapter SixteenLIANAThe night stretched endlessly, cruel and silent. The only sound in the room was Emma’s soft, steady breathing, her tiny chest rising and falling like the world depended on it. In a way, mine did. I held her close, curled around her like she was the only thing tethering me to the earth, one hand resting over her heart. I could feel the rhythmic flutter beneath my fingers—warm, alive, innocent. A part of me wanted to stay just like that forever, frozen in this quiet moment where the world couldn’t touch us. But the other part, the one twisted up with grief and anger and exhaustion, knew better.She needed sleep. I needed silence. But my mind refused to cooperate. No matter how still I lay, no matter how tightly I wrapped myself around her, the storm inside me kept surging. Ethan’s voice echoed again and again in my head, sharp and unforgiving. “You’re here because I’m paying you.” As if that was all I was—some transaction, a thing to be bought and shelved, useful o

Chapter Eighteen LIANA I kept my hands busy, even though I didn’t need to. The cookie dough was already rolled and placed neatly on the tray, the oven preheated. But I kept smoothing the parchment paper, pressing it flatter than necessary, anything to avoid thinking about what I’d just heard. Daddy. The word echoed in my mind like a dropped glass shattering on tile. I hadn’t meant to listen. I’d only come to tell Ethan that lunch was almost ready and that Emma needed to wind down. But I’d frozen at the edge of the hallway when I heard her say it—so naturally, so confidently, like it wasn’t the first time she’d thought it. Like she'd just been waiting for the right moment to say it out loud. I wasn’t sure which part rattled me more: that she said it… or that he didn’t correct her immediately. He hadn’t laughed awkwardly. He hadn’t redirected her. He hadn’t said, I’m not your daddy, sweetheart. He’d just… paused. Like the word hit him in the chest, and he didn’t know what to

Chapter TwentyLIANAThe moment our car eased to a halt in front of the Grand Marquette Hotel, my entire body tightened like a drawn bowstring. My heartbeat wasn’t in my chest anymore—it hovered somewhere between my throat and stomach, thudding with a kind of anxious rhythm I couldn't tame. I had known this night would come, but now that it was here, the reality hit harder than I’d expected.Outside, chaos reigned. The night was alive with flashes—pulses of white light from hundreds of cameras, flickering like manic lightning in a storm. Paparazzi lined the entrance like a hungry, snarling pack, their voices rising as soon as our black Bentley rolled into view. They surged forward in a frenzy, elbows jutting, camera lenses aimed like weapons. The sound of shouting names and questions bled into a relentless roar. It was loud, dizzying, and suffocating.I clutched the bejeweled clutch in my lap with such force my knuckles turned white. My instincts told me to shrink, to curl into myself