Semua Bab Married to the cold CEO: Bab 291 - Bab 300

Footsteps slowed as Elena Harper crossed the quiet corridor outside the executive wing of Cross Enterprises, her senses alert despite the calm that had settled over the building. Victory had a strange aftertaste—sweet, but fragile. The kind that made one hyper-aware of shadows, of silence, of everything that could still go wrong.The company was stabilizing. The press had begun to retreat. Marcus Blackwell’s influence was crumbling faster than anyone had anticipated. And yet, Elena felt no urge to celebrate. Not yet.Inside Damian’s office, lights glowed softly, illuminating a space that had once felt impenetrable. Now it felt… shared.Damian Cross stood by the window again, a familiar posture, but something about him had changed. His shoulders were less rigid. His gaze no longer scanned the city like an enemy territory. When he turned and saw her, there was no calculation—only recognition.“You’re thinking too hard,” he said quietly.Elena smiled faintly. “You always know.”“You’re s

Warmth lingered in the penthouse long after the city lights dimmed, as if the walls themselves remembered what had been spoken there.Elena woke before Damian, something she had grown used to over the years. For a long time, she simply lay still, listening to his steady breathing beside her. It was a sound that once would have surprised her—Damian Cross, the man who slept with one eye open, the man who trusted nothing and no one, now resting without tension.She studied his face in the early light filtering through the curtains.The sharp edges were still there. The strength. The discipline carved into him by years of solitude and power. Yet something softer had taken root beneath it all. Something human.Something hers.Carefully, she slipped out of bed, padding quietly toward the kitchen. She didn’t turn on the lights. The quiet felt precious, fragile, like something that could shatter if disturbed.She brewed coffee slowly, deliberately, grounding herself in the small ritual. For s

Something inside Elena shifted the moment she realized there was nothing left to uncover.No hidden files. No withheld truths. No half-spoken fears waiting to explode at the wrong moment.For the first time since she had signed her name on that contract, the ground beneath her felt solid.She stood in the quiet of the penthouse kitchen, sunlight slipping across the marble counter, her thoughts uncharacteristically still. Peace didn’t arrive loudly. It crept in, cautious, like something unsure it was welcome.Damian watched her from the doorway.He had grown used to reading rooms, markets, people—but Elena had always been the one place where certainty failed him. Today, though, there was something different in her posture. Not guarded. Not braced for impact.Settled.“You’re thinking too loudly,” he said.She smiled faintly without turning. “I didn’t know that was possible.”“With you, it always is.”She turned then, leaning back against the counter. “I was just realizing something.”H

Silence lingered between them in a way it never had before.Not the heavy, uncertain quiet that once carried doubt, but a settled stillness—one born from battles survived and truths faced head-on. Elena stood near the wide glass window of the penthouse, watching the city breathe beneath the fading sky, her reflection faint against the lights.Behind her, Damian closed the door gently.No rush. No tension.Just presence.“You didn’t say anything on the drive back,” he noted, voice low, careful not to disturb what felt fragile and sacred at the same time.Elena exhaled slowly before turning. “I was listening,” she said. “To everything that didn’t need words.”Damian studied her, as though trying to memorize a moment he feared time might steal. For years, he had believed love came with sharp edges—demands, leverage, conditions written between the lines. What stood before him now was something else entirely.Peace didn’t weaken him.It steadied him.“You were incredible today,” he said.E

Somewhere between what had been lost and what still dared to exist, Elena realized her hands were trembling.Not from fear—she had lived with fear too long for it to surprise her—but from the quiet, unbearable weight of everything this moment carried. The city below the glass-walled penthouse pulsed with light, unaware that the empire towering above it had nearly fallen apart, unaware that two people standing inches apart had nearly destroyed each other in the process.Damian stood near the window, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up, the rigid posture of the man she had first married long gone. He looked… human now. Tired. Bare. Vulnerable in a way she had never seen before.Silence stretched, heavy but not hostile.Elena took a breath that felt like crossing a border she could never return from.“So,” she said softly, voice steady despite the storm inside her, “this is it.”Damian turned, slowly. His eyes—those once-glacial eyes that had terrified boardrooms and broken rivals—held s