บททั้งหมดของ ALMS TO LOVE: บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

Valeria fixed her with a wise stare. "You're thinking about him, aren't you?"Fiona's heart skipped a beat. "I'm not.""Uh-huh," Valeria said, raising an eyebrow. "Don't think I don't see."Fiona swallowed, the truth searing like a black cloud in the back of her throat. She couldn't tell him. How could she? How could she make him understand what drew her to Charles? How could she make him understand the discord, the tension between what he'd done for her and what she'd felt for him?"Don't think too much about it," Valeria went on, her voice now sarcastic. "But you're not deceiving me. I'm sitting in the front row for your drama spectacle, and I'm enjoying every moment of it.""Shut up," Fiona growled, her cheeks blazing.The nurse came back in a minute, with a smile on her face to the two of them. "Ms. Degenery, Liza's vitals are stable, and she can be discharged in an hour. We just have to complete the final check."Fiona's heart leaped. An hour. That's all. Liza would come home."T

The lock caught smoothly with the key being pushed in, and Fiona opened the door with one hand resting on her hip on Liza Liana and the other hand gripping a canvas bag containing medication and scripts. There was a whiff of fresh linen and drifting lavender entering, golden and cosy. Home.For the first time in weeks, it wasn’t a hospital room she was stepping into. No antiseptic. No machines beeping. No dull gray walls. Just sunlight spilling across the hardwood floor and the sound of her daughter humming faintly against her shoulder.“We’re back,” Fiona whispered, as if speaking too loudly might wake the dream.Liza Liana blinked sleepily and murmured, “This smells like pancakes.”Fiona smiled. “It smells like hope, baby. We’re home.”She set Liza down gently on the couch, tucking her bunny under one arm and wrapping the pink throw blanket over her. The little girl immediately curled into the corner like it was the safest place in the world.Fiona leaned forward and kissed her foreh

The air was faintly scented with chalk, old books, and spectres of past essays. Morning sunlight streamed through high windows, light on long rectangles between the lines of hunched students over notebooks, laptop keys typing, pencils scratching. Fiona stood near the front of the room, dark curls contained, blouse taut at the waist, heels muffled on the wooden floor.She clutched a dog-eared copy of The Yellow Wallpaper against her palm, pages covered in scribbles in numerous colors over the years of academic battles. Her voice sliced through morning quiet, firm, crisp, yet intimate—like she was sharing a secret she wouldn't share."Her voice," she went on, moving slowly through the room, "is frequently misinterpreted. It is not soft. It is not melodic. Sometimes… rage. Sometimes, staying alive."She stopped walking, turned to the class, gazing at them. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman didn't write about wallpaper because she adored interior design. She wrote it because women like her were b

The Billion estate dining room was a world sustained by violence and custom—tear icicles suspended like crystal chandeliers, ivory hand-lacquered chairs covered in adornments, and a table so enormous that two footmen were needed to serve courses from one end to the other.Fiona never felt smaller.She pulled down the collar of her satin top—a chic, but subtle gesture—and ironed out wrinkles in her skirt beneath the raptor-gaze scrutiny of the woman in charge of the table. Madam Jamaica Billion was a vision of command—posture queenly, drawn-back silver hair in crown style, and icy eyes scanning Fiona as if proofreading the first draft for spelling errors."I do hope the dress fitting went well," Jamaica responded icily, her spoon clinking against the rim of her white china cup.Fiona gulped hard. "Yes. The atelier was. lovely.""She was gorgeous," Charles interrupted before his grandmother could add another sugary poisonous comment. "The designers were speechless."Madam Jamaica raise

And as darkness fell into quiet, Charles stood outside the door of his car, its motor turned off and the road unfolding before him lined with the cold, harsh light of distant streetlights. It still hummed with things unspoken, a burden hanging between him and the world at large. His head was light-years away from the quiet night—his head whirling with the natural order of things that had transpired, with Fiona's distant stare and the annihilating pull between them. He'd tried to submerge it, to shunt it back, but the verity of his own feelings still remained, obstinate and immovable.His phone buzzed in his pocket, pulling him from his thoughts. He didn’t need to check the screen. The familiarity of the number—the authoritative ring of Madam Jamaica Billion—told him everything he needed to know. With a sigh, he accepted the call, bracing himself.“Charles,” Jamaica’s voice was calm, but there was an unusual softness to it, the kind that made him uneasy. “I’ve been thinking.”He stood