Semua Bab The Billionaire Broken Bride—Married To My Enemy.: Bab 31 - Bab 40

MICHAEL'S POV The soft scrape of my pen across the ledger was the only sound in the study. Numbers blurred. Contracts waited patiently for my signature like obedient dogs at the foot of a distracted master. But I couldn’t focus. Not really. My attention kept drifting to the open door to the faint echo of a voice that had somehow slipped past my defenses and carved out a quiet space inside me I hadn’t consented to share. Alessa. Just hours ago, she’d floated down the hallway in a yellow dress like she was sunlight stitched into fabric, weightless, alive, untouchable. There had been something unshackled about her. Something honest. And for a moment, the mansion didn’t feel so cold. She had spun softly, a little laugh slipping past her lips like it didn’t need permission. Her joy had filled the corridor like perfume, unexpected, disarming. And I had stood there in the shadows like a man watching something sacred. Something he had no right to want. I didn’t move. I didn’

NATASHA'S POVTwo months gone, and I still wasn’t free. Not from the scandal. Not from the rumors. If anything, it was getting worse. But what surprised me the most? I didn’t think about Michael anymore. And that gave me peace, for reasons I couldn’t even begin to explain.I was lying in bed when it happened. Raised voices. Banging doors. Heavy stomps against our marble floors. Disrupting the calm I’d worked so hard to find. Then I heard it.“Madam Johnson!”Dad.The name hit my chest like a slap.Granny was here. Nina’s grandmother.I shot up, panic rising like steam. Why now? After all this time? Why was she here two months later? She never liked me. In fact, she made that very obvious from the beginning.I headed straight downstairs, heart in my throat. The guards were already confused, trying to contain her, but she stormed in like she owned the house.Dad waved them off. “Let her be,” he said. “We know her.” And just like that, the entire room shifted. The tension crackled. The

ALESSA'S POV I stood in the hallway of Michael's house, my house now, technically. But even after two months of marriage, the marble floors and glass chandeliers still felt borrowed, like I was only ever visiting.No matter how many mornings I woke up beneath that roof, it never wrapped around me like home. Maybe because I hadn’t built it. Maybe because I hadn’t earned it. Or maybe because too many shadows clung to the corners of every room. Shadows I didn’t put there. Shadows I couldn’t name.But most of all, I missed my mother.She was recovering in India, her surgery successful but her body fragile. The doctors said she needed to return to a peaceful, familiar place. Somewhere that reminded her of who she was.And our old house wasn’t that anymore.It had been two months since I left that home, the same day I became a wife. The same day I surrendered pieces of myself I didn’t even know were mine to give.The contract had stated that Michael would sponsor my mum's treatment, so he

ALESSA'S POV It was the day before Mum’s return.The house I’d bought with trembling hands and desperate pride stood still, breathing in silence. Not the comforting kind, but the kind that presses too tightly on your skin. The kind that echoes. The kind that listens.Disha wasn’t with me. We had done everything we could the day before. Curtains had been drawn. Furniture dusted, arranged, fluffed, and loved. Even the garden had received its touch of magic. The roses were blooming, the lilies open like they were waiting to be seen.But I couldn’t stay away.I had tossed all night in Michael’s house, the same way I had tossed in his presence, in his shadow, in this marriage that had been written as a contract instead of a promise. My heart wouldn’t rest. My mind kept turning back to the envelope I had tucked into my bag.I needed to read the will.And I needed to return it.I hadn’t really read it when I first found it. Just glimpsed enough to know it wasn’t ordinary. Disha had interr

ALESSA’S POVThe moment I stepped out of the car, the night air hit me like a slap across the face, cold, sharp, and unwelcome. It clung to my skin like a warning, but I barely felt it. My legs moved on their own, taking slow, deliberate steps away from the vehicle like it was infected, like staying any closer would make me implode. I wanted distance, distance from him, from his voice, from the way his carelessness had dragged me back into the one place I had buried deep inside myself.The moment he drove past me, my knees gave out.The world dipped sideways. I stumbled forward, crashing to the ground without grace or sound. Pain bloomed through my kneecaps where they met the rough gravel, but I didn’t react. I was somewhere else now. Not here. Not tonight.Seven years ago.I was fifteen. Small. Quiet. Naïve enough to believe that what we had was real, me and Michael. Until he decided to make a joke out of me. Right there in the cafeteria. He’d laughed, loud and cruel, dragging m