Semua Bab A Kiss For Every Bruise : Bab 111 - Bab 120

GwenThe rain continued through the night. By morning, the Cruize villa felt submerged in gray silence. Like every corridor was wrapped in the muffled stillness that only storms could create. I stood barefoot near my bedroom window, watching the water stream down the glass while Kayla’s school video played quietly on my phone again. And again. And again. I no longer watched only my daughter. Now I watched myself through her.The hesitation before entering the classroom. The way her tiny fingers tightened around Adrian’s hand before she forced herself forward anyway. The visible fear versus the decision to move despite it. Courage was not fearlessness. I was beginning to understand that courage was movement.A soft knock interrupted my thoughts. Before I could answer, Sebastian pushed the door open slightly. “You’re awake.” “I could say the same to you.” He gave me a tired look before entering fully. His tie hung loose around his neck, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He looked

GwenThe house did not recover after that conversation. It pretended to and that was different.Staff still moved quietly through polished corridors. Meals still appeared precisely on time. My father still left for work every morning in tailored suits that smelled faintly of cedar and expensive cologne. But beneath the surface, tension moved through the villa like a hidden fracture spreading beneath ice. No one trusted the silence anymore. Especially not me.I sat in the library late the following evening with one of the old Cruize financial ledgers open across my lap, though I had not actually read a single page in almost twenty minutes. My thoughts kept circling the same thing.Three years ago. Something had frightened Camilla badly enough to make her erase traces of Adrian and me from the family archives. Why? The question clung to me relentlessly. A soft creak interrupted my thoughts. I looked up. My father stood near the doorway.For a second neither of us spoke. Then he entered

GwenYou were never erasable. And neither was what we had. I read Adrian’s message three times. Then a fourth, for good measure. The room around me faded gradually into silence while those words settled somewhere deep beneath the damage Kai and Mason had carved into me over the years. Not because they were romantic but because they were certain.Adrian never overwhelmed me with pressure. Never cornered me emotionally. Never demanded I heal faster. He simply… remained, steady, patient and absolutely certain. As though he had decided long ago that loving me was not conditional on whether I returned whole. The realization hurt. Albeit not painfully. Rather, quite tenderly.I sat alone at my desk while rain moved softly against the windows. The glow from my bedside lamp spilled across the open notebook where I had begun documenting everything involving Camilla. Dates, patterns, conversations and ehavioral

GwenI could not sleep after watching the gala footage. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Camilla standing at the edge of that ballroom watching Adrian like a woman starving outside a locked house.Hers was not admiration or attraction but utterly disgusting entitlement. And somehow that realization unsettled me more than the hypnosis ever had. Because hypnosis required planning, money and networks. But obsession? Obsession endured and it adapted.The villa remained quiet long after midnight. I sat curled beneath the window seat in my room wearing one of the oversized sweaters Sebastian had found packed away in storage boxes untouched for years. Adrian’s sweater. The scent was long gone now. Only memory remained. Still… My chest tightened the moment I pulled it over my head.I remembered stealing it during university winters. Remembered Adrian pretending annoyance while secretly loving it every time.

Author's POV Adrian answered on the second ring. Sebastian rarely called him directly. Which meant something was wrong...Very wrong. “What happened?” No greeting or politeness. Straight to the wound.Sebastian’s voice came low and tight through the line. “Someone sent surveillance photos of Gwen.” The temperature in Adrian’s office dropped instantly. Across the room, Miguel looked up sharply from the couch.Adrian’s expression did not change. That was always when he became most dangerous. “How recent?” “Tonight.” Adrian rose slowly from his chair. “Send everything.” The files arrived seconds later and Adrian opened them immediately. His pulse slowed. Not from calmness but from control.Photographs of Gwen entering the villa grounds. Gwen near the east terrace. Gwen standing by her bedroom balcony. All taken from long range. Professional distance. Professional angles. Not paparazzi but deliberate surve