All Chapters of Addicted to His Rejected Mate: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

[Killian]Victoria arrives at 6:40 with takeout from Nobu and a binder of venue options.She's trying. I can see it in the way she's dressed. Casually, by her standards, which still means silk and cashmere but with her hair down and less armor than usual. She's attempting domesticity. The kind of evening a normal engaged couple might have: dinner, plans, idle conversation.I pour her wine and listen as she walks through three venues Conrad has pre-approved. Her voice is practiced, efficient, the cadence of someone who grew up presenting at charity galas. T

[Sera]The bell above the door chimes.I don't look up. I'm mid-pour, steaming milk into a latte for our last regular, and my brain's still half on the grocery list for tomorrow. Eggs. Diapers. The good crackers Lulu demolishes by the fistful.But my body knows before I do.It's not the bond. The bond's dead. It's something older, dumber. The way your hand jerks off a hot stove before your brain catches up. Pine. Fresh snow. That deep, electric undercurrent of power that doe

[Sera] I don't sleep. Not really. I do that thing where you lie in the dark with your eyes closed, pretending so hard your body almost buys it, but your brain's running laps around a track made of worst-case scenarios. Every time I start to drift, the bell above the door chimes in my head. Pine. Fresh snow. Gray eyes landing on my daughter like a scanner reading a barcode. Lulu's out cold beside me in the crib, one fist curled near her mouth, breathing in that slow, boneless way only babies and people with zero existential dread can manage. I envy her. Deeply. Around 2 a.m., I give up the charade and sit up. The room's dark except for the pale wash of streetlight through the curtain. Then I suddenly notice something on the pillow that wasn't there before. A black envelope. No stamp. No address. Just sitting there on the cotton like it grew out of the fabric overnight, matte and dark as a bruise. My heart kicks sideways. I snatch it up, glancing around the room like the se

[Killian]Douglas Hargrove conducts business the way he drives. Slow, deliberate, and on his own terms.Day three of negotiations, and the old man insists on his private yacht in Elliott Bay. Not the waterfront restaurant I'd suggested. Not even a proper meeting room on dry land. A fifty-foot sailboat bobbing on gray water under a grayer sky, because apparently conference tables "make people lie" and sea air "makes them honest."His words. Verbatim.The wind finds every gap

 [Killian]She turns her back to me and walks out.I should let her go. Every word she said was a wall laid in mortar, and my promise eighteen months ago was mortar of my own. Clean lines. Final terms.But my feet carry me to the doorway anyway. Not chasing. Just standing there, watching her move toward the elevator, her wet coat dripping a trail on the carpet.Then she stops. Not the way people stop when they've forgotten something. The way a machine