All Chapters of MARRIED TO MY ARROGANT ENEMY: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

ENID'S POVThe taxi ride back to the hotel was a silent, heavy thing. The quiet wasn’t mine, it was his. It pressed in from his side of the backseat, thick and suffocating.Alex had practically glued himself to the door, his body angled away from me, a tense line of shame from his hunched shoulders to his clenched jaw. He stared fixedly out the window at the blur of the city, but I saw the way his throat worked, the subtle tremble in the hand resting on his knee. I took up my own space, my legs spread wide, an arm slung along the back of the seat. The contrast was deliberate. My calm to his storm.Back then in the park, he’d tried to dust himself off in the park, his movements jerky, embarrassed. He’d opened his mouth to speak, to defend himself maybe, but I’d just turned and walked away. He followed, of course. He always followed now.My gaze drifted to his hands again. The knuckles were reddened, a faint scrape on one. He was trying to hide them, tucking them between his thighs. T

ENID'S POVI let my finger continue its slow path downward, over the tense ridges of his stomach. His skin was hot under my touch, every muscle drawn tight as a bowstring. He didn’t speak. He just watched, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts.So beautiful like this, I thought. All that pride, that arrogance, reduced to this waiting, trembling thing.“I want to hear you say it again,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. My hand splayed flat against his lower abdomen, feeling the muscles jump. “Tell me what you want.”He licked his lips. “You know what I want.”“I do,” I agreed, my fingers dipping just below the waistband of his joggers. He sucked in a sharp breath. “But I want to hear you beg for it. Properly this time.”A war played out on his face. It was shame and need. A final, futile flicker of defiance. It was the defiance I wanted to crush.“Enid, please…”“Please, what?” I prompted, my thumb hooking under the fabric, not pulling, just resting there. A promise, and a t

ALEXANDER'S POVHe said it so casually. “Traveling?”The word hung in the air between us, a simple statement that felt like a sentence. My mind raced, scrambling for purchase. He was leaving. He was leaving me.He made a soft, dismissive sound, sucking his teeth as he got off the bed. The mattress sighed, the loss of his weight feeling monumental. “Yeah,” he said, his back to me as he straightened his shirt.“Where?” I asked, my eyes glued to the broad line of his shoulders, the way his shirt strained slightly across them. He didn’t answer. He just began to walk toward the door, each step a hammer blow to my composure.“When… when are you leaving?” I pressed, hating the desperate tremor in my voice.“This evening.” He paused by the door, his hand on the knob, and he still didn't look back. “Take your bath. Take a nap. You definitely need it.” It was a dismissal.He was going to walk out. Just like that, after everything.“Enid, wait!” The plea ripped out of me, raw and unguarded.He

ENID'S POVDay three.Three days of his face haunting me. Three days of wondering what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling, in that sterile hotel suite across the sea.What is he thinking?He must have called me every name in the book by now. He might have even left the hotel, fury burning a hole in his chest. I left nothing behind but that cold text before I boarded the plane. It was cowardness.The night before I saw him at the park, after the gym, my phone rang. Jax, my assistant back in Scotland, had called. He told me grandpa was sick, and he had being taken to the hospital.The floor dropped out from under me. Grandpa was the only real family I had left. The only anchor. And now he was bedridden?Jax asked me to come home. I told him I’d see, that I had too much on my plate.But deep now I knew it was a weak lie. The truth was, I had Alex. A tangled, unfinished mess I couldn’t bear to abandon.Then, the next day, in the pale park sunlight, another text from Jax. “GRANDPA CONDITIO

ALEXANDER'S POVI held on, my arms locked around his torso, my cheek pressed hard against the warm, solid plane of his chest. The faint rhythm of his heartbeat was a steady drum against my ear, a lifeline in the silent room. I just couldn’t let go.Who knows? If I let go, he might leave again. He might vanish into that cold silence and never come back.“I’ve really missed you, Enid,” I whispered again, the words damp against his skin. A fresh wave of emotion tightened my throat, and hot, silent tears escaped, tracing paths through the faint dusting of hair on his chest. All this while, his arms remained at his sides. He never hugged me back.The moment stretched, thin and fragile. Then, he was the one to break it.His hands came up, not to embrace me, but to grip my shoulders. He pulled away slowly, steadily, as he guided me back until I leaned against the solid edge of the desk, then reached past me to set his wine glass down with a soft click.I kept my face down, my eyes fixed on