Lahat ng Kabanata ng Once His Wallflower, Now His Biggest Mistake : Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

Chapter 2Evelyn’s POVThe door closed behind me with a sound that felt final.Not loud.Just done.The rain greeted me like an old accomplice.Chicago had always known when to rain on my worst days, and tonight it didn’t disappoint. The sky cracked open the moment my foot hit the front step, cold droplets soaking into the hem of my dress within seconds. My thin cardigan did nothing against the chill, but I welcomed it. The cold reminded me I was still real. Still standing.Still breathing.I didn’t look back.I didn’t need to.That house, his house had already stopped being mine long before tonight. I had just been the last to realize it.I walked down the driveway slowly, suitcase wheels rattling behind me like an accusation. Gravel pressed into the soles of my flats, each step measured, controlled. I refused to run. Refused to look like I was being chased away.Inside my chest, something fragile was dissolving, not shattering, not screaming, just quietly unravelling thread by thre

Chapter 4Caleb’s POV I woke up because something was wrong.It took a few seconds to place it. Not a sound, there were sounds. The faint hum of the city outside. The soft ticking of the clock on the dresser. Even breathing beside me.But the wrongness lived in the air itself. The absence of something I expected without realizing I expected it.I opened my eyes.Gray morning light filtered through the curtains, washing the room in colorless calm. The ceiling looked unfamiliar, even though I’d stared at it a thousand times. The house felt hollow. Like it had been emptied overnight and no one bothered to tell it.I turned my head slightly.Seraphina lay beside me, her dark hair fanned across the pillow, lips parted in sleep. One bare shoulder peeked out from beneath the sheet. She looked peaceful. At ease.Like she belonged here.She didn’t.I stared at her longer than necessary, waiting for something, comfort, satisfaction, relief. Something that justified the fact that she was here a

Chapter 6 Caleb’s POV The silence in the villa was no longer peaceful. It was abrasive. For three years, I had returned to this house and found it bathed in a soft, welcoming warmth. The air had always smelled of vanilla and home, a scent I had taken for granted, like the air I breathed or the heart that beat in my chest. Now, the air was stagnant, heavy with the scent of Seraphina’s expensive, cloying French perfume, a fragrance that felt like it was trying too hard to mask the rot underneath. I sat in my study, the mahogany desk cluttered with files I couldn't bring myself to read. My reflection in the window looked like a stranger's. My eyes were bloodshot, the sharp lines of my jaw shadowed by a three-day stubble I hadn't bothered to shave. I was obsessed. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. Not the "Wallflower" Evelyn who used to wait for me with a gentle smile and a plate of food I usually ignored. No, I saw the new Evelyn. The woman in the black silk suit who had l

Chapter 8Caleb’s POVThe ghost of the portrait followed me all night.I hadn’t slept. I had paced the length of my office, the sonogram on my desk under the harsh glow of a desk lamp, mocking me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that twelve-year-old girl in the white lace dress. The Sterling eyes. The Sterling chin. The Sterling blood.I had spent $200,000 in a single hour just to buy a name. An assistant at the Sterling Group, a man whose greed was the only thing more substantial than his fear, had finally cracked. For the price of a small house, he gave me a time and a room number."The Chairperson is reviewing the Phoenix Project bids at 10:00 AM," he had whispered over a burner phone. "Room 7001. If you get caught, I don't know you."I didn't care about the risk. I didn't care that I was essentially breaking into the most secure fortress in the financial world. I needed to see the man in charge. I needed to talk to the "Old Man" Sterling, the patriarch I had seen in the cente

Chapter 10Evelyn’s POVThe Alps did not welcome.They loomed.They were white and endless, their jagged peaks cutting into the charcoal sky like the teeth of a predator. As the jet broke through the cloud layer, the sheer scale of the mountains felt like a warning from the earth itself. Up here, nothing was soft. Not the land, not the legacy, and certainly not the people who carried the Sterling name. We carried it like a weapon, sharpened over generations, until we forgot it was ever meant to be a birthright.The jet descended in a haunting silence. The engines were marvels of engineering, muted by money to ensure they disturbed nothing, not even the thin, frigid air. Below us, the Sterling villa began to emerge from the snow like a secret that had never truly wanted to be found.It was a sprawling construct of stone and reinforced glass. It had old-world bones, but they had been braced with modern arrogance. The villa wasn't built on the mountain; it was carved into it, as though