Lahat ng Kabanata ng Game Of Chess With My Ex-Husband's Uncle : Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

~ Lorenzo's POVThe penthouse felt emptier than it ever had before.I stood in the exact spot where I'd watched Vivienne disappear into the elevator, my feet seemingly rooted to the marble floor. The doors had closed minutes ago—or maybe hours, time had lost all meaning—but I couldn't move.She was gone.And I had let her go."Sir." Eric's voice came from somewhere behind me, tentative and careful. "Sir, I'm so sorry. I should have—""Not now, Eric."My voice sounded foreign to my own ears. Flat. Empty.I finally forced myself to move, walking to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. The morning sun was climbing higher, casting long shadows across the streets below. Somewhere down there, Vivienne was in a car with her brothers, believing that I was responsible for her mother's death.Believing that I had known and kept it from her.She wasn't entirely wrong about the second part.I pressed my palm against the cold glass, my mind replaying the last thirty minutes on an

~ Vivienne's POVThe alarm went off at six-fifteen.I was already awake.I'd been awake for most of the night, as it turned out — drifting in and out of something that resembled sleep without quite committing to it, my mind running quiet circles around the same sequence of thoughts the way water runs around a drain. By five in the morning I'd given up entirely, showered, and sat in the armchair by the window watching the city go from dark to grey to pale gold. By the time the alarm sounded I was already dressed — a deep burgundy blouse tucked into slim black trousers, low black heels, my hair pulled back from my face in a smooth low bun that had taken me three attempts to get right because my hands wouldn't stop being slightly unsteady.I looked composed. That was the point.I checked on Dante before I left. He was still asleep, one arm thrown over his head, mouth slightly open, deeply unbothered by the world in the way that only small children and people with very clear consciences c

~ Vivienne's POVThe silence between his words and mine stretched for a moment longer than it should have.I was standing in the middle of the suite, one hand at my side, the morning light coming through the window in long pale strips across the floor. Everything in the room was exactly as it had been thirty seconds ago. Nothing had moved. And yet something had shifted in the particular way that things shift when a conversation takes a turn you were half-expecting and dreading in equal measure."Marco," I said. My voice came out even. I was grateful for that."It's good to hear your voice," he said. "It's been a while.""What do you want."Not a question. I didn't give him the inflection of a question because a question implied I was open to the full range of possible answers, and I had already decided that whatever he said next, I would not be moved by it. That was the intention, at least. I held the phone with both hands now without realizing I'd lifted the second one, my knuckles p

~ Vivienne's POVFear consumed me entirely as I pressed harder on the accelerator, my car weaving through traffic at speeds that would have terrified me under normal circumstances. But these weren't normal circumstances. My son was in the hospital. My baby had collapsed. Nothing else mattered.The highway stretched before me, and I changed lanes without bothering to check my mirrors properly, my sole focus on getting to St. Mary's Memorial as quickly as possible. A truck horn blared somewhere to my left, long and angry, and I realized I had cut someone off. I didn't care. I couldn't care.My heart hammered against my ribcage, each beat echoing Dante's name. Dante. Dante. Dante. The rhythm of my panic, the pulse of my terror.I approached an intersection just as the light turned yellow. Any other day, I would have slowed down, would have stopped like a responsible driver. Today, I floored it. The car shot forward, racing through as the light flickered to red. I heard the screech of bra

~ Lorenzo's POVThe walk from the parking lot to the hospital entrance felt both endless and too short at the same time. My mind was racing, thoughts tumbling over each other in a chaotic mess that I couldn't quite organize into coherent sense.A seven-year-old boy. Vivienne's son. A child who looked like a Blackwell.The timeline played over and over in my head. Seven years ago, Vivienne would have been married to Marco. But marriages ended for reasons, and from the contempt in her voice when she had mentioned him, theirs had clearly ended badly. What if it had ended before the child was born? What if Marco wasn't actually the father despite his claims?But if not Marco, then who?The question haunted me with every step I took toward those automatic doors. I thought about Vivienne's reaction to me that first night, the way she had seemed almost stunned when she saw me. I had attributed it to attraction, to the undeniable chemistry between us. But what if it had been something else? W