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Accueil / Romance / The Paralyzed Billionaire and his nurse: A love story / Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 5

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5

The monster and the mercenary

NATHANIEL'S POVNathaniel King was once composed of sunlight, saltwater, and speed. At least, that’s what the glossy magazines used to say before I became the world’s favorite tragedy.Now, I was made of shadows and the electronic hum of a server rack.I sat in the center of my study, a room that had become my entire universe. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls, which once offered a billion-dollar view of the Pacific, were smothered by motorized blackout curtains. I’d had them installed the day I came home from the hospital. I couldn't stand the light. The sun belonged to the man who surfed at dawn—a man who died six months ago in a scream of tearing metal and the scent of burning rubber.Six months. One hundred and eighty-two days of being a ghost in a gilded cage. I adjusted the joystick on my armrest, the electric motor whirring—a pathetic, mechanical whine that served as a constant reminder that I was no longer the one in control.A notification pinged on my primary monitor.Securit

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-01-02

The ghost in the machine

NATHANIEL's POV The light was a physical weight. Even with the curtains partially drawn back a compromise I’d only allowed because my head was throbbing the room felt exposed. Raw.I ignored the woman sitting on the sofa. Ava Bennett had spent the last two hours in a silence that was surprisingly… tolerable.She didn't hum. She didn't offer platitudes. She simply sat there, reviewing my medical charts and occasionally typing something into her own battered laptop.I turned back to my monitors. The King Corporation didn't stop because my legs did. In fact, since the accident, my margins had improved. Bitterness makes for a terrifyingly efficient CEO."The merger with Vestra is stalling," I muttered, more to the screen than to her. "They think I'm weak. They think they can wait for the 'transition of power.'""They're waiting for you to die, you mean," Ava’s voice cut through the hum of the servers.I pivoted my chair, my eyes narrowing. "You have a remarkably blunt way of speaking for

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-01-02

The weight of the silence

NATHANIEL's POV The door hadn’t even fully clicked shut behind Ryan and Elena before the oxygen seemed to vanish from the room.I’d held it together. I’d played the cold, untouchable King. But as the sound of their retreating footsteps faded, the mask didn't just slip it shattered.The silence that followed was a physical weight, pressing down on my chest until I couldn't draw a full breath.They’re together.The thought was a rhythmic pulse in my temples. While I was floating in the grey static of a coma, they were finding "comfort" in each other.Every memory of Ryan cheering from the pits, every image of Elena waiting for me at the finish line it was all tainted now. A long, elaborate lie.I tried to reach for the joystick on my chair, but my hand wouldn't obey. It shook with a violent, rhythmic tremor that made my knuckles knock against the carbon fiber."Nathan."Ava’s voice was soft, but it sounded like a gunshot in the quiet."Get out," I managed to choke out. My visi

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-01-02

Geometry of a crime

NATHANIEL's POV The gym was silent except for the rhythmic clack-clack of the cable machine. I was pushing through a set of chest presses, my muscles screaming in a way that felt like an old friend returning. But my mind wasn't on the burn. It was on the numbers.Specifically, the telemetry data from the night of the crash."You’re distracted," Ava noted. She was spotting me, her hands hovering near the bar. She had a way of hovering that didn't feel like hovering; it felt like a safety net I didn't hate."I’m calculating," I muttered, locking the weight into place. "The steering rack snapped on Turn 3. High-risk, low-speed curve. But the metal shouldn't have failed. That car was inspected three hours before the race.""Mechanical failures happen, Nathan," she said, handing me a towel."Not to my cars," I snapped, rotating my chair back toward the door. "And not when the head of maintenance was a man who’d been on my payroll for a decade. A man who, incidentally, retired to th

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-01-02

New car

AVA's POV I was thirty minutes late.I stood on the shoulder of the PCH, staring at the hood of my Honda as it hissed like a dying snake. The engine hadn’t just failed; it had surrendered. "Not today," I whispered, kicking the tire. "I have a penthouse I can't afford and parents moving in next week. You cannot do this today."By the time I hitched a ride with a delivery truck and sprinted up the King driveway, I was a mess. My scrubs were dampened with sweat, and a smudge of grease decorated my cheek.I burst into the study, bracing for the execution. "I know. I'm late. My car finally gave up the ghost three miles back. You can deduct it from my pay, or fire me, or whatever your 'desire' is today."Nathaniel didn't look up from his monitors. He looked immaculate in a charcoal sweater, his jaw shadowed by a morning’s worth of stubble. "The Honda is dead?""May it rest in pieces," I huffed, dropping my bag."Good. It was an eyesore," he said, finally turning his chair. He didn'

Dernière mise à jour : 2026-01-02

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