Semua Bab I was more than pretty: Bab 101 - Bab 110

 Days passed, quietly but not gently.They slipped by like a slow tide beneath the surface of everything, carrying tension, secrets, and a sense of inevitability I refused to name out loud. On the outside, things looked calm. Work continued. Meetings were held. Plans were revised, then revised again. But underneath that controlled rhythm, something restless stirred, and I felt it every day.Soren and I met again the way we always did now—without ceremony, without witnesses, without names attached to whatever it was between us.The place was familiar, safe in its neutrality. His private home. Not the main family mansion. Somewhere in between. Somewhere that belonged to his own peaceful side and somehow held too many truths.I arrived at his house quite earlier than usual.When I got inside, I settled into the seat comfortably, kicked off my shoes, and let my posture suggest ease. But my mind was already moving ahead of me, restles

 The moment I stepped out of Soren’s house, the air struck me like punishment.Cold.Sharp.Unforgiving.It sliced through my skin, through my clothes, through the thin layer of strength I had borrowed just long enough to run. My steps carried me forward automatically at first, fast and uneven, driven by nothing but instinct. But after a few meters, they slowed. Then faltered.The adrenaline drained from my body all at once, leaving behind something raw and ugly, something heavy enough to buckle my knees if I let it.Regret.My chest tightened painfully as the weight of what I had just done came crashing down on me.What did I just do?The question echoed inside my head, loud and relentless. I lifted a trembling hand to my mouth, my breath breaking apart as fragments of the moment replayed against my will. His face, open and vulnerable. His voice, steady and sincere. The way his hands had held mine as

 The kitchen smelled of onions and oil.It was a smell Serena had come to know too well—sharp, lingering, clinging to her skin long after the fire was turned off. Her hands moved mechanically over the cutting board, slicing vegetables with practiced precision, even as her mind drifted far away from the present.The knife paused mid-air.Without warning, Eve’s voice echoed in her head.“Thank you… for taking my life.”Serena’s fingers tightened around the handle. She had heard that from Eve, not once but twice.Her chest constricted.She hadn’t thought about those words in days. Weeks, maybe. She had buried them under exhaustion, under pain, under humiliation. But now, standing alone in the kitchen, they rose up like ghosts that refused to stay buried.“Thank you for taking my life.”A strange chill crept down her spine.“What did you mean by

 I woke up the next morning with a strange stillness inside me.It wasn’t peace.It wasn’t certainty either.It was resolve.The kind that settles quietly after a long war, when your heart is tired of running in circles and your mind finally whispers, enough. I lay on my bed for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, again. The cracks there seemed more familiar than usual, like old companions who had witnessed too many of my sleepless nights. Outside my window, the city was waking up slowly—car horns in the distance, a vendor calling out, the faint hum of life continuing whether I was ready or not.My chest felt tight. Too tight. Like something fragile was being held together by sheer will. But beneath that tightness was something else—steady, unyielding. Something that refused to be shaken no matter how hard fear tried to claw its way back in.I knew what I had to do.The knowing didn’t arri

 The drive home felt impossibly long, yet impossibly short, as if time itself was unsure how to handle the two of us.The city blurred past like streaks of memory, the sound of the tires against the asphalt a soft sound in the background.I had been driven by Soren before, yes, during the Gala incident, but back then everything had been tense, charged with a mixture of scandal and shame. Now, it was different. Now, I was his. Officially.I couldn’t help sneaking glances at him every few minutes, as subtle as I could manage. His profile, sharp yet softened by the faint light spilling through the windshield, made my heart flutter in ways I hadn’t thought possible.His fingers, long and perfectly aligned, still held mine with that quiet possessiveness that always made me feel… anchored, safe, desired.I had cried for hours earlier in the day. But now, I had regained control of myself. No tears, no trembling, no suffocat