All Chapters of RUTHLESS HEARTS COLLIDE : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

81 Chapters

CHAPTER 61 — Echoes from the Past

The first sign that something was wrong came quietly. Too quietly. Arielle was in the small office space she’d claimed at headquarters for the Emma Locke Foundation, a modest, sunlit suite Damian had insisted remain intentionally separate from Blackwood Industries. No glass towers. No intimidating logos. Just pale walls, a long oak table, donated laptops, and the low hum of people who believed in something fragile and good. Hope, Arielle had learned, always began quietly. She was reviewing grant applications, red pen tucked behind her ear, when her phone vibrated on the desk. Once. Then again. Then again. She frowned, sliding it closer. Three missed calls. Same number. Her stomach tightened. She answered on the fourth ring. “This is Arielle Blackwood.” There was a pause, too long, filled with static and hesitation. “Mrs. Blackwood,” a male voice finally said, clipped and professional. “This is Victor Hale from Northbridge Financial Compliance.” Arielle straightened. “Is

CHAPTER 62 — Damian’s New Weapon and Support

The instinct came to Damian immediately. Crush it, erase it. Make the problem disappear so completely that no one would ever dare repeat it. It was the reflex that had kept Blackwood Industries untouchable for over a decade, the reflex that had turned threats into footnotes and enemies into cautionary tales. A single call, a legal blitz, a sealed settlement, and the Emma Locke Foundation’s accounts would be unfrozen before sunrise. But Damian didn’t move. He stood at the edge of Arielle’s office doorway that night, watching her sit at her desk surrounded by documents, notes, timelines, and handwritten lists. She hadn’t asked him to intervene, she hadn’t begged, she haven't even complained. She was working. That, more than anything, stopped him. The old Damian would have taken the wheel without asking, justified it as efficiency, and left her standing behind him, grateful but diminished. He felt the urge rise in his chest like muscle memory. And then he remembered what Arielle

CHAPTER 63 — The Real Proposal

The kitchen smelled like vanilla, citrus zest, and something faintly burned. Arielle stood barefoot on the cool marble floor, sleeves of Damian’s old shirt rolled up to her elbows, hair twisted into a messy knot that kept unraveling no matter how many times she pinned it back. There was flour on the counter, flour on the floor, and a faint dusting of it on her cheek that she kept forgetting to wipe away. She was baking because she needed to feel normal. Because after boardrooms and cameras and investigations and threats, she wanted something that required only her hands and patience and heat. Something that didn’t care who her husband was or how powerful his enemies had once been. She was halfway through folding batter when she heard footsteps behind her. Not hurried. Not sharp. Just Damian. He leaned against the doorway, jacket discarded somewhere unknown, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up in a way that made him look less like the man who commanded rooms and more like the man w

CHAPTER 64 — Wedding Planning & Intrusion

If Arielle had learned anything about wedding planning, it was that joy could be loud. It arrived in bursts of laughter, overlapping opinions, fabric swatches spread across tables like fallen petals, and Emma’s absolute conviction that every flower should be yellow because yellow was “a happy color and this is a happy wedding.” The penthouse, once quiet and austere, had become a controlled chaos of notebooks, tablets, mood boards, and half-drunk cups of tea. Arielle sat cross-legged on the rug, a binder open on her lap, while Emma sprawled beside her with a coloring book that had already evolved into a detailed sketch of a bride wearing a crown and sneakers. Damian stood near the window, jacket abandoned, sleeves rolled up, listening to a florist on speakerphone while simultaneously scrolling through a seating chart on his tablet. “No,” he said calmly. “We don’t need exclusivity clauses. This isn’t a hostile takeover. It’s a wedding.” Arielle looked up, smiling. “You say that lik

CHAPTER 65 — Damian’s Final Demon

The cemetery was quiet in the way only old places could be. Not peaceful. Not comforting. Just still. Damian stepped out of the car and closed the door with deliberate care, as if loud sounds might wake something buried too close to the surface. The air was cold, grey clouds stretched low and heavy above him, pressing down on the world. The path beneath his shoes was damp from an earlier rain, gravel crunching softly with every step. He hadn’t been here in years. Not because he didn’t know where the grave was. He could have found it blindfolded. The shape of this place, the slope of the ground, the crooked oak tree near the eastern fence, all of it lived in his memory with cruel precision. He hadn’t come because he hadn’t been ready. Until now. Damian adjusted his coat as he walked, fingers brushing the inside pocket where a small, smooth black stone rested. He had picked it up that morning from the riverbank near their home, turning it over in his palm until it felt right. No

CHAPTER 66 — The Bachelor Party

If anyone had ever asked Damian Blackwood what a bachelor party was supposed to look like, his mind would have supplied images borrowed from overheard conversations and secondhand reports: excess, noise, recklessness disguised as tradition. He had always assumed it would be something he would either endure politely or avoid entirely. What he had not expected was quiet laughter, honest words, and a strange, steady warmth that settled in his chest and refused to leave. The night began without spectacle. No velvet ropes. No flashing lights. No crowd that didn’t know his name only to use it. Liam insisted on picking the place. A small, discreet restaurant tucked away on a side street, the kind that didn’t advertise itself because it didn’t need to. The windows glowed amber against the night, rain-slick pavement reflecting soft light instead of neon. Damian stepped out of the car and adjusted his jacket out of habit, then paused. Jacob noticed. “You don’t have to armor up,” Jacob sa

CHAPTER 67 — The Night Before

Tradition, Damian decided, was a strange thing. For a man who had spent most of his life dismantling rules that inconvenienced him, it was oddly ironic that this was the one he chose to respect without argument. No seeing each other the night before the wedding. No sharing the same space. No collapsing into the familiar gravity that pulled them together when the world grew too loud. So the penthouse was divided. Arielle stayed in the east wing, surrounded by soft lamplight, garment bags hanging like quiet sentinels, Emma asleep two doors down with a fierce insistence that tomorrow would be perfect. Damian retreated to the west wing, the space that had once felt cavernous and cold now rendered unbearable by absence. The door between them, solid wood, soundproofed, heavy, might as well have been an ocean. Damian stood on his side of it for a long time after everyone else had gone to bed. He rested his palm flat against the surface, as though the warmth of her could travel through

CHAPTER 68 — The Wedding

Morning arrived softly, as if the world itself had decided to tread carefully around the day. Sunlight filtered through sheer curtains, pale and golden, resting gently on white linens and quiet surfaces. The air smelled of fresh flowers and early dew, the kind of morning that did not rush, that did not demand, that simply was. Arielle woke before anyone else. She lay still for a long moment, hand resting over her heart, listening to the unfamiliar calm inside her chest. No dread. No racing thoughts. No sense of bracing for impact. Just anticipation, steady, warm, almost reverent. Today, she would marry Damian. Not the contract version. Not the man shaped entirely by strategy and scars. But the one who had learned how to sit with her in silence, who had unlearned cruelty and control, who had chosen tenderness even when it terrified him. She rose quietly and padded to the window. Outside, the garden was already being transformed. White chairs arranged in gentle arcs. A simple wood

CHAPTER 69 — The First Day of Forever

The morning after the wedding arrived without ceremony. No rush of staff. No itinerary clipped to a tablet. No waiting car idling outside with tinted windows and security protocols. Just sunlight creeping through the curtains and the quiet, unfamiliar sound of laughter drifting down the hallway. Damian woke slowly, disoriented for half a second, his body instinctively preparing for pressure that did not come. There was no meeting to dominate, no crisis to manage, no performance to maintain. Instead, there was warmth beside him and the steady, even rhythm of Arielle’s breathing. She lay on her side facing him, hair spilled messily across the pillow, mouth slightly open in sleep. Her hand rested on his chest as if it belonged there, fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. His wife. The word settled into him with surprising gentleness. He lifted his hand carefully, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. She stirred but didn’t wake, only shifted closer, her knee slid

CHAPTER 70 — Building Legacies

Everything shifted after half a year passed.Not with sirens blaring or cameras flashing, yet through slow turns, like morning light crossing a floor, the sort of changes that stick around because they shape how you drink tea, tie shoes, or answer the phone. These were never caught on film, still carried weight no tweet could lift.The penthouse no longer felt like a fortress.Light poured in each morning, no curtains drawn anymore. Footwear showed up near the entry, nothing like shiny imported leather. Papers and drawings lay scattered on the table, mugs still holding cold tea nearby. Sometimes laughter rang out down the hall, Emma’s voice bouncing off Damian’s conference talk, mixing into Arielle’s organized agendas.Life lived openly had changed the air itself.That morning, Arielle lingered inside the charity's doorway, staring at what she now owned even if it didn’t always feel real. People passed by her with steady eyes, shifting papers, answering calls, each step measured but l

...

4 5 6 7 8 9

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP