جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 50

The house was quiet, too quiet for the way my nerves felt.After the attempted break-in, I had vowed not to let Lydia dictate my life anymore. Not my time. Not my space. Not my energy. I would reclaim control.I started small. The florist shop. Emails, schedules, planning deliveries, and overseeing the team. Every decision is intentional. Every movement calculated. I reminded myself: control is a habit, a practice, a muscle.But muscles fatigue.By mid-morning, my head throbbed from constant awareness, from replaying possible breaches, and from thinking two steps ahead of someone who never stopped moving. Every new gift, every ambiguous message, every slight appearance of Lydia’s presence was like a pinprick to my focus.Then it started again.A delivery at the shop. Expensive chocolates, perfectly wrapped, delivered without a name. A note tucked inside:You look tired. Don’t let him forget me.I slammed the card into the trash, hands shaking slightly.I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t

Lydia changed tactics again.She always did when pressure stopped working.The gifts ended. The messages stopped. The appearances became deliberate instead of frequent. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I might’ve thought she was finally backing off.She wasn’t.She was repositioning.The next time I saw her, it was at a private dinner one of those carefully curated events Adrian couldn’t avoid without consequences. Fewer people. Softer lighting. Conversations that mattered more because they were quieter.She arrived composed, elegant, and calm. Too calm.That was how I knew she was planning something.She didn’t look at me immediately. Instead, she moved straight to Adrian, greeting him with familiarity that was just believable enough to make others comfortable.“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she said lightly.“You did,” he replied, tone neutral.She smiled anyway.I stayed where I was, glass in hand, observing. Control didn’t mean confrontation. It meant timing.Dinner progressed s

I woke up with the certainty that something was coming.Not fear but anticipation.The kind that settles into your chest when the tension has been stretched too long and you know it’s about to snap.Lydia had tried everything around me. Gifts. Whispers. Pressure. Narrative. Even fear. None of it had removed me. None of it had made Adrian retreat toward her.So she did the one thing people like her always did when control slipped through their fingers.She aimed higher.The call came mid-morning.Not from her.From someone who mattered.“Elara,” the voice said carefully, “I wanted to give you a courtesy notice. There’s… talk. Questions about your position. Your role.”I closed my eyes briefly.“Questions from whom?” I asked.A pause. “From people Lydia still has influence over.”There it was.She wasn’t attacking me directly anymore.She was attacking my legitimacy.I thanked them, ended the call, and sat still for a long moment, hands folded in my lap. My heart raced—not because I did

Morning arrived quietly, too quietly.I woke before Adrian did, my body aware of his presence beside me in a way that felt unfamiliar and unsettling. Not because it was wrong, but because it wasn’t simple anymore.The space between us had changed overnight.I slipped out of bed carefully, pulling on a robe and padding toward the window. The city was waking up, indifferent as always. Somewhere in that routine world, people woke beside partners who belonged to them without clauses or expiration dates.That wasn’t us.Not really.When I heard movement behind me, I didn’t turn immediately. I needed the extra seconds to gather myself—to remember where I stood.“Morning,” Adrian said, voice low, still heavy with sleep.“Morning,” I replied.Nothing else followed.No easy conversation. No reassurance. No claims.Just the quiet acknowledgment of something shared and the uncertainty of what it meant.We moved around each other later with careful politeness. Too careful. Like strangers who knew

I didn’t announce the boundary.That was the first thing I learned about boundaries they didn’t need an audience to exist.They needed resolve.I woke with the decision sitting quietly in my chest, not loud enough to feel like courage, not sharp enough to feel like fear. It was simply there, steady and unavoidable, like a truth that had waited long enough.Adrian had aligned publicly. He had chosen clarity over comfort. That mattered.But alignment didn’t erase the questions I was still asking myself.I went through the morning routine slowly. Not out of hesitation, but intention. I wanted to feel each step ground myself in the fact that I was still me, still capable of choosing where I stood even as emotions complicated the map.When I reached the kitchen, Adrian was already there, coffee untouched, eyes distant.“You didn’t sleep,” I said.“Neither did you.”A small truth exchanged without ceremony.“I’ve been thinking,” I began.He waited.“I don’t want us to drift into something u