บททั้งหมดของ Priced By My Billionaire Nemesis: บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

The apples feel heavier than they should—three bright, harmless spheres in a cheap plastic bag, digging into the tender flesh of my palm. My pulse hasn’t steadied since the moment the elevator doors closed on Adrian and his impossibly elegant mother. I stand rooted to the spot in the hospital corridor, trying to breathe normally, trying to pretend my insides didn’t twist into a tight, burning knot the instant I saw him soften beside her.Of course he has a soft side. He just never spent it on me.The sight of him holding his mother’s elbow with quiet care, adjusting her scarf so gently it made my chest ache… it felt like watching an alternate universe. A version of him I never got. A version I never deserved in his mind.I push the feeling away—hard—and start toward Mia’s mother’s room. The corridor smells like antiseptic and overcooked vegetables, the universal perfume of hospitals. The farther I walk, the easier my lungs work, until finally I push through the doorway and Mia is ther

By the time the bus groans to a stop near my street, the sky has sunk into the kind of half-dark that feels neither night nor day—just a hollow in-between space where the world looks washed-out and tired. Fitting. I step onto the pavement, my legs feeling like they belong to someone twice my age. Each step sends a faint tremor up my calves, the kind that comes after too many hours on my feet, too many shocks to the system, too many emotional collisions packed into one day.The air is colder here than it was near the hospital. It has teeth now, small sharp ones, biting at the exposed skin of my arms. I cross them tightly over my chest, more to hold myself together than to keep warm. My heart has been pounding in a slow, irregular rhythm since the moment I saw him in that hallway. It hasn’t settled. It won’t. The entire walk home feels like moving through thick, invisible mud.By the time I reach the building entrance, the heaviness has settled deep—into my bones, into my spine, into th

Morning arrives without softness. The sky outside my window is a dull, washed-out gray, the kind that makes the world feel heavy before the day even begins. My body matches the sky. My limbs ache with the kind of fatigue that isn’t solved by sleep. It feels carved into bone. Even brushing my hair exhausts my arms halfway through. I try to blame it on a bad night, but I know what sits behind the ache — fear has weight, and I’ve been carrying it for too long.Eight days left.I say it once in a whisper while tying my shoes, hoping that giving the number shape might ease the pressure clawing at my chest. It doesn’t. It pulses beneath my ribs like a second heartbeat as I walk out the door.But the kindergarten… at least that part of my life is still warm.The moment I step inside the classroom, something inside me loosens. The air smells of strawberries and oranges — Cynthia’s mother sent homemade fruit muffins again — and the sweetness wraps around me like a blanket. Before I can even re

The moment the elevator doors close, my knees nearly give out. I grip the metal railing inside the cabin with white knuckles, trying to hold myself upright as the floor seems to tilt beneath me. My reflection in the polished doors is a stranger—wide eyes, blotchy cheeks, a smear of panic shaping my mouth. I drag in a breath, but it catches halfway down, scraping my lungs instead of filling them. Each inhale feels like latching onto a rope tied to a collapsing building.The elevator glides downward, silent except for the low hum of machinery and the frantic pulse echoing inside my skull.Eight days.Eight days.Eight days.The numbers throb behind my eyes, relentless as a drumbeat.When the doors slide open into the marble lobby, the air feels too thin. The chandeliers are too bright. People walk past me with their polished shoes and effortless confidence, and the world spins with their motion. My throat closes so tightly I don’t realize I’m gasping until the receptionist glances up wi

The oncology wing always smelled the same—bleach, cold metal, and the faint sweetness of plastic IV bags—but today, the scent hits Adrian like a blow. It clings to his skin, settles in his lungs, sinks into the seams of his clothes as he guides his mother down the corridor.She walks slowly. Too slowly.Every few steps her breath shudders, and he matches her pace, keeping one hand at her elbow even when she tries, out of pride or habit, to wave him off. The veneer of independence she once wore like armor now slips at the edges, cracked by weakness she can no longer hide.He hates seeing it. Hates that he can’t fix it. Hates that this is their life now—hallways, consultations, side effects, bargains with fate.The exam room feels colder than the hallway. He settles her gently into the chair, adjusting the blanket she brought from home. It’s pale blue, frayed at the corners from years of washing, but she likes how soft it feels against her skin.Her fingers tremble as she pulls it over