Semua Bab Bound by Desire: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride : Bab 1 - Bab 10

CHAPTER TWO — THE FIRST SHIFT IN FATE The night outside smelled of rain and cold metal like the world itself was holding its breath. Liana descended the staircase with a steadiness that didn’t match the storm inside her chest. Her fingers skimmed the polished rail briefly, grounding herself in a reality she had already died once in. The Rose family mansion was silent. Too silent. In her first life, she never noticed this quiet. She was too busy being dutiful, selfless, blind. Now the silence pressed on her ears like a warning. At the bottom of the steps, she paused. 11:48 p.m. He would crash soon. Adrian. Her husband in name. Her executioner in truth. A man whose beauty was a weapon and whose coldness was a verdict. A man she once worshipped and who later watched her fall without blinking. But tonight Tonight, she didn’t rush to his side. Tonight, she didn’t throw her career, her life, her sanity after him. She had returned not to save him but to save herself. Light

CHAPTER FOUR — THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T LET GONight settled over St. Haven’s like a tired sigh, the rain softening into a slow, steady drum against the windows. Most patients had fallen asleep. Lights dimmed. Footsteps quieted.But inside Trauma Room Three, peace was impossible.Adrian wouldn’t close his eyes.Not unless Liana stayed within arm’s reach.She sat beside his bed, spine straight, one hand resting lightly on the blanket. His fingers locked around hers like metal cuffs warm, heavy, unyielding.He watched her.Not blinking.Not breathing normally.Not even pretending to sleep.His gaze was a storm: dark, searching, almost feverish.“You’re real,” he murmured at one point, voice rough from earlier shouting.“Unfortunately,” she replied dryly.But the corner of his mouth twitched just barely as if her sharpness soothed him.The doctor had tried sedating him again. Useless. The moment the syringe came near, Adrian snarled and tightened his grip like she was being threatened, not h

CHAPTER SIX — SHADOWS OF MEMORY The morning light in St. Haven’s was the colour of old pearls, thin and cold. It slid across the private ward like a scalpel, exposing every bruise on Adrian’s knuckles, every tremor in the hand that still refused to release Liana’s wrist. He had not let go. Not once. Not even when the nurses changed the IV bag, not when the neurologist tried to shine a penlight into his eyes, not when his own mother swept into the room like a winter storm wrapped in couture. Eleanor Jin stood at the foot of the bed now, immaculate in charcoal cashmere, her gaze flicking from her son’s death-grip on Liana to Liana’s cool, unblinking face. “You look remarkably composed for a wife whose husband nearly died,” Eleanor said, voice dipped in frost. Liana did not flinch. She had died once already. A mother-in-law’s venom was child’s play. “Someone had to be,” Liana answered, letting the words fall soft and sharp. “He was fighting the entire trauma team when I ar

CHAPTER EIGHT — WHISPERS IN THE DARK Liana’s POV The elevator doors slid open directly into the penthouse, and the silence hit me like cold water. No servants. No Eleanor waiting with armed guards. Just sixty-three floors of glass and black marble and the low hum of a city that never slept, far below. Adrian stepped out behind me, close enough that the heat of his body brushed my spine. He hadn’t spoken since the hospital garage. He didn’t need to. His hand had stayed locked around mine the entire drive, thumb stroking the inside of my wrist in slow, hypnotic circles, as if he were afraid I’d dissolve if he stopped touching me for even a second. I pulled free the moment the doors closed again, letting his fingers slip through mine. He made a low, wounded sound (barely audible), but I ignored it and walked deeper into the apartment. I had never lived here. In the original timeline he had kept me at the Rose estate, a convenient wife tucked safely out of sight. This pl

CHAPTER TEN — THE FIRST TOUCHLiana’s POV – The penthouse was too quiet after Eleanor’s retreat. Adrian had disappeared into his study the moment the elevator doors closed, as if the adrenaline of defending me had left him raw and needing distance. I let him go. Space was a luxury I could afford to give (for now).I spent the afternoon reclaiming territory. I opened every drawer in the guest room, catalogued the clothes he had never thrown away, deleted every trace of the old, obedient Liana from the shared cloud accounts. By six o’clock the apartment smelled faintly of the jasmine diffuser I’d ordered delivered, and the city outside had melted into violet dusk.I was in the walk-in closet off the master bedroom (barefoot, hair loose, wearing nothing but an oversized silk shirt of his that fell to mid-thigh) when I heard the soft scrape of the door behind me.He didn’t speak. He simply stood there, filling the doorway, shoulders tense, eyes fixed on me like I was the only