Lahat ng Kabanata ng Owned by the man I hated: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 17

She waited for him to return but there was no sign he was going to....The night felt heavy, pressing down on Mariana as though the very air around Alejandro’s mansion was complicit in his secrets. Her heartbeat had not yet steadied since the moment she caught him murmuring into the phone, words she wasn’t supposed to hear, words about plans, deals, and Luciana’s unwanted interference.And then there was his warning: “Truths that will destroy everything you think you know about me.”How was she supposed to sleep after that?She didn’t. She stayed awake, curled against the far edge of the guest bed, staring into the darkness as her mind churned. A part of her was furious; furious at him, furious at herself for letting him so quickly wedge himself into her heart. But another part… that foolish, vulnerable part… only replayed the way his voice had softened when he said cariño, how even his threat sounded like a plea to hold on.By the time the first pale glow of morning filtered through

The echo of his lips still burned on hers.Mariana lay in her bed that night, staring at the ceiling as though it could give her answers. The sheets were tangled around her legs, her heart refusing to calm. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, remembering how Alejandro had kissed her. Hesitant at first, then demanding, like a man fighting his own restraint.It was everything she had sworn not to want. Yet her body betrayed her, still trembling at the memory.Fool, she scolded herself, her throat tight. You didn’t come here for this. You came here to end him.But every time she repeated that truth, another surfaced. The warmth in his eyes when he whispered her name. The way he had held her as though he feared letting go. The vulnerability in him that no one else had ever seen.It was maddening, because beneath all of that tenderness was something else. Something dark. Something tied to the deal he refused to explain.Her fists curled into the sheets. “I can’t let him break me,” she wh

Mariana hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until the silence pressed so heavily against her chest that it hurt. Alejandro’s confession still lingered in the air, raw and unpolished, like a wound torn open for the first time.“I never wanted her,” he said, his voice low, threaded with a pain that made her heart tremble. “Luciana was not a choice. She was… a chain.”Mariana’s fingers curled against the armrest of the chair, knuckles pale. Every instinct screamed at her to push him further, to demand every hidden truth at once. And yet, another part of her.... smaller, weaker, but frighteningly alive still feared what she might uncover if she pressed too hard.Alejandro moved to the window, shadows wrapping around his tall frame as though they knew the darkness he carried. He didn’t look at her when he spoke again.“I was young, reckless. I thought I could build something of my own. But power… power is never given freely. It always demands blood or sacrifice.”Mariana’s chest tig