جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 150

Teresa's Pov Mark studied my face for a moment. His eyes moved across my features, like he was looking for something. Maybe fear. Maybe doubt."He will not touch you.""You cannot promise that.""I can promise he will regret it if he tries."I almost smiled. Almost."That sounds like a threat.""It is."We stood there for a few seconds. His hands were still on my shoulders. The city hummed below us, indifferent."I just want to leave," I said."We are leaving.""Good."Mark squeezed my shoulders lightly. Not hard. Just enough to feel."Get some rest tonight," he said. "Tomorrow is going to be a long drive."I nodded.But I knew sleep would be difficult.---Across the city, Nathan stood in his penthouse office.The room was quiet. The only sound was the low hum of the building's systems and the distant noise of traffic sixteen floors below. The walls were glass on two sides, offering a view of the city that most people would never see. Lights stretched out in every direction, a grid

Teresa's POV The investor didn't lower his voice. That was the problem. If he had whispered, if he had pulled Mark aside, maybe I wouldn't have heard. Maybe I would have stayed where I was, standing near the edge of the room near the window, pretending I belonged there, pretending I was just another professional at a business gathering.But he didn't lower his voice."So this is the situation now?" the man said, his tone sharp and carrying. He was older, well-dressed, the kind of man who was used to being heard. "We're taking financial hits because of a personal scandal?"I froze. My hand tightened around the glass I was holding. The ice clinked softly against the sides.Mark didn't respond immediately. I could see him across the room, standing near a tall potted plant, his posture controlled but his jaw tight. He had been talking to this investor for several minutes before the tone shifted. Now the conversation had turned."We've already addressed that," Mark said calmly. His voice

Teresa povThen the kiss deepened. Not rushed. Not out of control. Just real. Just present. Just the two of us, finally alone, finally safe, finally able to breathe.His hand moved slightly against my back, holding me closer. I didn't pull away. I didn't want to. Not now. Not after everything. Not after the hospital, the investor, the panic attack, the long weeks of pressure and fear and exhaustion.The kiss lingered.**********I looked at Mark across the table in our dimly lit bedroom. We had pushed the small round table to the center of the room and covered it with a white cloth. Candles flickered on top, casting soft shadows on the walls. Soft music played from the speaker on the dresser, a slow jazz song I didn't recognize but that felt romantic. We had planned this for days. A role play night. Nothing wild or complicated. Just pretend we were on our first date, meeting for the first time.My heart fluttered with excitement. I smoothed my dress over my thighs. It was a simple nav

Teresa's POV The first post showed up in the morning.I was sitting on the edge of the bed, my phone in my hand, scrolling without really thinking. I was trying to distract myself from the heaviness that still sat in my chest after everything that had happened. The hospital. The investor. The way my body had simply shut down. I wanted something mindless, something that didn't require me to feel.Then I saw it.A headline. Not from a major outlet. One of those smaller platforms, the kind that feeds on rumors and anonymous sources. The kind that doesn't fact-check because facts get in the way of clicks.I almost skipped past it.Then I saw the name.Rexona.My hand stilled. My thumb hovered over the screen. The world outside the window continued moving, but inside the room, everything went quiet.I tapped it.The article was short. Vague. Careful. It didn't accuse directly. It didn't say anything clearly enough to be challenged legally. The writer had been trained, or paid, to walk rig

Teresa's POV The place was quieter than I expected.When we landed at the small regional airport, there wasn't much around. Open land stretched in every direction, brown and golden under the afternoon sun. Long stretches of road cut through the fields. A few houses sat in the distance, their roofs barely visible against the horizon. It felt far from everything we had just left behind. The city, the stress, the constant pressure. All of it seemed to belong to another world.Mark drove. He had rented a car at the airport, a dark SUV with leather seats that smelled new. I sat beside him, watching the road ahead through the windshield. Neither of us talked much during the drive. There wasn't anything left to say right now. We both knew why we were here. We both knew what was waiting for us.The silence wasn't uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that comes between people who have already said the important things. The kind that doesn't need to be filled.After a while, the house cam