Semua Bab The taste Of Revenge: Bab 11 - Bab 20

I dropped my purse on his thousand-dollar couch with deliberate carelessness. "You have twenty minutes to explain yourself. Then I'm walking out of this building and you never contact me again."‎His eyebrow lifts towards his hairline."Twenty minutes."‎"Nineteen now." You just wasted one staring at me saying the same thing. I said crossing my arms. "Start talking. Why the marriage contract? Why the obsessive surveillance? Why me specifically when you could've chosen any of Aurora's victims to weaponize for your revenge plot?" ‎He doesn't answer immediately. He ‎just stares at me with something that looks like approval in his face, like he's pleased I'm being difficult.‎"You want honesty?" he finally asks‎"I want the truth. There's a difference."‎"No, there isn't." He moves from the beautiful water fountain to the liquor cabinet and pours himself a drink. Rather, whiskey, neat. He doesn't offer me one. "The truth is honest. Honesty is the truth. They're the same thing wearing dif

“Your medical hearing's been extended." Damian wasn't looking at me. Again. "Sixty days instead of twenty-eight." ‎I wanted to laugh. Or maybe scream, it was hard to tell which anymore.‎"So that's it? That's why we're…” I gestured vaguely at the car, the driver, the entire situation"...running?"‎"Being rerouted."‎"To where exactly, Damien?"‎He did this thing where he paused for too long. Like he was deciding how much truth I could handle.‎"Somewhere quiet. Somewhere peaceful. At least to ease your mind off the chaos that's been happening."There was silence. Utter silence. I smoothed my dress. This ridiculous dark thing I'd picked because it looked expensive and I'd wanted to look like someone who had their shit together. Well at least I looked dangerous, which was the whole point after all, but all for somewhere…quiet and peaceful.‎"You do this often? Collect traumatized women in nice cars trying to seem…nice?"‎His jaw tightened and somehow, it felt like his muscle kept jump

XavierThe whiskey burned while going down my throat but not enough to silence the voice in my head screaming that I'd fucked up. Massively, terribly.Monumentally fucked up.I poured another glass. Third one in an hour, or was it fourth? Lost count around the time Aurora called with her latest brilliant plan that would definitely not blow up in our faces like every other brilliant plan she'd had.My phone sat on the table mocking me, staring and daring me to make that call.Twelve hours. That's what Aurora said. “Give Selene twelve hours to sign or we send everything to the medical board. Trust me to do something like that. It's the only way babe” Aurora had purred over the phone an hour ago, her voice doing that thing where it sounded reasonable and insane at the same time. "She's getting too comfortable with the new guy. She seems to look a bit too protected. We really need to remind her she has everything to lose.""And if she doesn't sign?""Oh please, don't be a dummy Xavier. D

SeleneI signed the divorce papers at 7:43 AM. Not because Xavier threatened me or because Damian told me to. Not even because that unfortunate bitch, Aurora won. I signed them because I woke up that morning, stared at the ceiling of a penthouse that wasn't mine, watching the sun set from the couch I was seated on and realized I was still legally bound to the man who'd helped plan my destruction. Still his legal wife on paper, still his in the most technical, humiliating sense of the word. But before I could bring myself to sign them, I'd wrestled so hard with the realization that whatever our souls were made of, his and mine were never the same. That the man I'd loved even more than life itself has left me shattered, broken and weak, but it's the only decision I have come to make even if something inside me died that day.Done.Done. I got up before Jade's 6 AM session, before Damian's usual morning check-ins, before his cook served me hot coffee and freshly baked cake from the oven.

Maya had lunch waiting by the time I returned to the penthouse. Grilled salmon, avocado and a side of something green I pretended to be grateful for, and strong coffee she'd made without being asked. She had a way of doing that; anticipating the precise shape of what you needed before the need had even fully formed in your own mind. It was a skill that had nothing to do with employment and everything to do with the kind of woman she was.“Aria asked about you again this morning," Maya said, setting down the coffee with quiet pride and a bright smile that reached her eyes. "She wants to know if the pretty lady in the penthouse is a princess."I smiled around the rim of my cup. "Tell her I'm working on my crown and she'd soon have to spend a day with the princess she saw.” Maya laughed softly and excused herself, and the penthouse returned to its vast, elegant silence. I sat at the dining table holding the contract file Damian had placed in my bag. I looked at the documents, completel