Lahat ng Kabanata ng Raven's Kiss : Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

It’s almost midnight, and I’m still in my home office pretending to focus on paperwork. My eyes keep scanning pages, but my mind refuses to stay put. It keeps dragging me back to dinner… to her face, the moment she found out about Lilly.I still don’t know which part upset her more—the fact that I have a child, or the fact that I didn’t tell her. Either way, it’s done. I can’t change anything now. People like me don’t get to undo things; we just carry them.I’m flipping to the next page when my door flies open. I don’t look up right away, but my hand stills. My workers would never enter without permission. Lilly always knocks. Debbie doesn’t come upstairs. That leaves one person.She steps in and slams the door shut behind her.I lean back in my chair and finally look at her, curious.“You know, I tried to wrap my mind around it,” she explodes instantly, pacing but refusing to meet my eyes. “I tried to cook up any reason why having a child would be such a trivial thing to hide from th

“Do you always think aloud?” he asks, breaking into my thoughts with that flat, emotionless tone.I snap back to reality. “What?”“You were asking yourself what you’d gotten into.” He walks into my room like I invited him. Slowly. Inspecting. Observing. Judging.My stubbornness flares. “Why would you just enter my room without permission?”“That’s rich,” he says quietly. “Considering you didn’t open the door when I knocked.”He turns fully to face me, and those eyes lock onto mine so intensely that my brain stops functioning. One second. Two seconds. Three—“You’re staring, Diana.”My stomach drops. I look away so fast my neck almost cracks.“What do you want?” I mutter, rummaging through my wardrobe for absolutely no reason.“I’m going to the office.”“So?”“Do you want to come along?”I freeze. This is unexpected. Suspiciously unexpected.“Why? Are you suddenly feeling guilty, Mr. Graham?”“Do I have any reason to?” he asks, voice steady, unbothered, like he’s discussing stock price

Diana’s POV I’ve been in my room since I left dinner—lying flat on my back, staring blankly at the ceiling, sinking deeper and deeper into thoughts that don’t have edges or beginnings. It’s like thinking about nothing and everything at the same time. My head feels heavy, but my chest feels even heavier, like something is pressing against me from the inside.I don’t know what my life is supposed to be anymore. I used to believe that if I just endured everything long enough, it would eventually make sense. That one day, all of this would line up and form something I could understand… but it hasn’t. And the more I try to figure it out, the more tangled and painful it becomes.The truth is simple: I’m hurting. Deeply.I feel bruised on the inside.I want to scream.I want to cry.I want to break something—anything—just so something in my world reacts the way I feel.But nothing does. Everything stays the same. Nothing cracks. Nothing changes I’m married to a man who doesn’t love me—marr

Roland’s POVThe house feels too quiet.I’ve been walking through the corridors for almost twenty minutes, and every step just seems to echo back at me, louder, heavier, like the silence is trying to suffocate me. I’ve always been comfortable with silence—preferred it, even—but tonight it scratches against my nerves like something sharp.I can’t sleep.Not a surprise.I haven’t been able to really sleep for a long time.But tonight… it’s worse.I blame the dinner. Or maybe myself. Or maybe the fact that I had a drink—fine, several drinks—trying to knock my brain into shutting up. But nothing is working.I stop in front of her door.Diana’s door.I don’t know why I’m here.No, that’s not true.I do know—I just don’t want to admit it.She left dinner like she was running from something burning. And the moment she walked out, I was confused.Annoyed?, I thought. Later I realized it wasn’t annoyance. It was the kind of thing that sits in your chest and makes you feel… responsible, somehow.

“I didn’t think I’d see you anytime soon,” Troy says, finally letting go of Diana after pulling her into that long cheerful hug.“And I’ve been expecting you,” she replies easily, giving him a light punch on the arm. “You always just show up late.”Something in my chest shifts.I don't recognize that laugh—the looseness of it, the way it rings without restraint. It’s a sound I don’t hear from her often or at all. With me, it’s always sharp banter, controlled smiles, guarded sarcasm. This is different. This is… free.A sudden wave of something unfamiliar hits me. I can’t immediately name it, but it settles heavy in my stomach. Seeing her so animated with another man—seeing her light up—makes me feel strange, unsettled, mildly irritated for reasons I refuse to examine too closely.I straighten and clear my throat, deliberately loud.Both of them turn toward me.I keep my expression blank, unreadable, my gaze moving from Troy to Diana and back again. I wait. For context. For an explanati