All Chapters of DESIRED BY MY LYCAN EX AND THE BETA: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

(Bella’s POV)If someone had told me that a single impulsive sentence—“Marry me”—would change my entire life, I would have laughed in their face. But here I am, Bella Morgan, sitting in the backseat of a sleek black car that probably costs more than my entire family’s house, next to a man I barely know. Correction—my husband.Even now, the word feels foreign. Husband.I peek at him from the corner of my eye. Adrian Blackwell—though I only found out his full name last night after we signed the marriage papers—sits beside me, calm, collected, and far too composed for a man who just got married to a stranger. His gaze is fixed on his phone, his jaw sharp, his profile like something carved by a sculptor who had all the time in the world.Meanwhile, I’m clutching my small handbag like it’s a life raft.This is insane. Completely insane.I married a man I don’t know. A man who, as it turns out, is not only devastatingly handsome but also wealthy enough to own three penthouses across the cit

(Bella’s POV)If I thought marrying Adrian Blackwell was the craziest decision of my life, living as his wife was proving to be the craziest experience.Every day brought something new. Another headline screaming my name, another curious call from relatives I hadn’t spoken to in years, another tense dinner where Adrian and I circled each other like wary animals learning to share the same cage.But beneath all the noise, something else was happening. Something I wasn’t ready to admit out loud.I was starting to want him.Not just the way his presence filled a room, or the way his voice wrapped around my name like velvet and steel, but the cracks he tried so hard to hide. The weight in his eyes, the loneliness that whispered louder than his silence.And the worst part? I had no idea if he wanted me back.---The storm came on a Friday.I was curled on the couch, flipping through a glossy magazine I didn’t even care about, when my phone buzzed with an unknown number. Normally, I ignored

Bella's pov I had always believed silence was peaceful.But the silence in our penthouse that morning was suffocating.Adrian left early, well before the sun had stretched across the city skyline. I only half-remembered the warmth of his hand brushing my arm, the softest whisper of “Go back to sleep.” By the time I opened my eyes fully, he was gone. No scent of his cologne lingering, no sound of his voice in the halls. Just emptiness.I sat at the edge of the bed for a long time, staring at the place he had vacated. A space that was both cold and hauntingly warm because of what it meant. Adrian was trying to protect me, but the way he did it—by shutting me out, by carrying the weight alone—left me drowning in questions.I pressed a palm to my chest. “If I mean so much to him, then why does he keep building walls?”But I knew the answer. Because I wasn’t just his wife. I was his liability.---By midday, I had grown restless. Normally, I could distract myself with books, or by losing

Bella's pov There are moments in life when the air shifts, when silence carries weight, when you realize nothing will ever be the same again.For me, that moment was the instant I locked eyes with the woman across the street.Her smile hadn’t faded from my mind. It wasn’t friendly. It wasn’t even mocking. It was a smile that said, I know you. I know your weakness. I know how to break you.And what terrified me most was how certain she looked, like she had already won.---Back at the penthouse, I could barely breathe. I pressed my back against the cool glass of the balcony door, staring down at the city where I had just seen her. She was probably still out there somewhere, moving through the streets like smoke, impossible to catch.I should have told Adrian. I knew that. Every instinct screamed at me to run to his side and confess what I’d seen. But another part of me—the stubborn, fearful, doubting part—held back.Because I didn’t know who she was to him. Enemy? Former lover? Someon

Bella's pov They say a storm never arrives without first giving you signs—the heaviness in the air, the way the sky darkens, the quiet before the thunder.Cassandra was my storm. And her signs were everywhere.---The morning began almost deceptively normal. Adrian left early for a meeting, pressing a kiss to my forehead before striding out the door. His touch lingered, warm, reassuring, but his absence spread cold through the penthouse the second he was gone.I tried to distract myself with coffee, with Margaret’s gentle chatter, with the endless view of the city below. But my nerves hummed, restless, alert. Every sound felt sharper—the knock of a glass on the counter, the distant echo of the elevator, even the wind pressing against the windows.I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming.By afternoon, the tension was unbearable. I slipped into the library, desperate for silence, and curled into the chair where I’d once discovered that forbidden drawer. The books offered