All Chapters of Ruin Me, Blackwood: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Amelia’s POVI barely made it back to my office before my hands started shaking.Not from fear. Not exactly.From something else.A mixture of adrenaline, anger… and something darker I wasn’t ready to name.I slammed the door shut behind me, leaning against it for a second, my heart pounding like I’d run a damn marathon. Every word Dominic had thrown at me in that meeting room kept replaying in my head, scraping against old wounds I didn’t even realize I still carried.You think this is brotherly concern? Is that what you tell yourself?I closed my eyes, groaning out loud. God, what was wrong with me? I should’ve fired back. Should’ve stormed out and let him stew in his self-righteous, grumpy billionaire attitude. But no. I’d frozen like an idiot because, for a split second, he’d looked at me like I was more than an employee. More than Evan’s little sister.And it scared the hell out of me.My phone buzzed on the desk, dragging me out of my spiral.Harper:Drink after work. You look l

Amelia’s POVThe apartment felt suffocating the second I walked in. It wasn’t even dark yet, but the heavy clouds hanging over the city dimmed everything in this cold, grey glow. I tossed my bag down on the couch and stood in the middle of the room, unsure what to do with myself. The silence was deafening.I hated how Dominic’s voice still echoed in my head, sharp and unrelenting. The look in his eyes. That storm of anger… and something else. Something darker, something raw.I went to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of red wine I’d opened a few days ago. It was barely touched, but tonight it felt like a necessity. I poured a generous glass and took a long sip, letting the burn coat my throat.What the hell was happening to me?I couldn’t get him out of my head. His words, his touch — that moment in the car when the tension between us had been thick enough to choke on. I’d barely survived the ride home. Every glance, every brush of his hand against the gearshift felt like it would u

Amelia’s POVI don’t know what time it was when I finally gave up pretending I’d sleep.The clock on my nightstand glared 12:47 AM in bold red numbers, but I knew even if I laid here for the next six hours, sleep wouldn’t come. Not with the way my heart thudded against my ribs. Not with the way every inch of my skin felt too tight, too hot, like it didn’t belong to me anymore.I threw the covers off and padded barefoot to the living room, wrapping my arms around myself as I paced in the dim glow of the streetlights outside. The wine buzz had long since worn off, leaving behind nothing but this gnawing ache.I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t.But God, I did.I wanted to hate him. Hell, most of the time, I thought I did. Dominic Blackwood was impossible — sharp-tongued, unrelenting, infuriating. He made it a point to get under my skin like it was his personal pastime. And yet… every look, every word, every tension-laced silence between us chipped away at my resolve.I should’ve left that jo

Dominic’s POVThe moment Amelia stepped into the office that morning, my breath caught in my throat. She had this way of walking in that made everything else—the sharp lines of the skyscraper, the cold gleam of the polished desk, the buzz of the city below—fade into insignificance. She was the only thing I could see, the only thing that mattered.I hated how much she unsettled me. Not because she was a threat, but because she was a challenge I didn’t want to lose. Because beneath her confident exterior, I saw pieces of myself I was terrified to face.I’d spent so long building walls, so long convincing myself that being closed off was the only way to survive this cutthroat world. But Amelia... she was cracking those walls down, brick by brick, without even trying. And part of me wanted to scream at her to stop, to walk away before she got hurt. But the larger, louder part of me wanted to pull her in and never let go.When I’d sent that message the night before—We need to talk—it was t

Dominic’s POVThe city stretched out before me as we slipped through the maze of streets, headlights weaving like rivers in the dusk. The car was wrapped in silence, but it wasn’t peaceful — it was thick, suffocating, the kind of silence that carries more meaning than words ever could. Amelia sat beside me, her eyes flickering from the passing streetlights to the dashboard and back again, caught somewhere between thought and hesitation.I gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white, trying to keep my breathing steady. I wanted to say something, anything — but the words kept escaping me, tangled up in the mess of everything I’d been trying to avoid for so long.She was here, right next to me. The woman I’d been drawn to since she first walked into my life. The woman who had transformed from my little sister’s annoying kid sister into the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about.But damn it, I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready to be vulnerable. I wasn’t ready to admit that the walls I b