~The Moment That's Stuck To My Brain~

Camille's POV I forgot how to breathe when Adrien stepped out wearing nothing but a white towel slung low on his hips.Water glistened on his bare chest, droplets tracking down defined muscles I had no business noticing. His dark hair was wet, pushed back from his face, making his bone structure even sharper and more devastating. His skin was still damp, catching the morning light in a way that made my mouth go dry.I'd seen him in his white coat. But this. This was something else entirely.This was the man beneath all those professional layers. Raw and utterly, devastatingly masculine."Noe!" His voice carried that edge of parental exasperation. "How many times do I have to tell you not to play with the light switches in my bathroom? If you spoil them again, I will...."He stopped mid-sentence.We locked eyes.For three seconds, neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke. Then reality crashed back in."I'm sorry!" The words burst out of me in a rush. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to be

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~Spirals~

Camille's POVI couldn't stay in my bedroom.The walls were too close, the air was too thick, and the messages kept replaying in my head like a nightmare on loop.Criminal charges…Prison…Public scandal…I stumbled into the attached bathroom, locked the door behind me, and sank to the floor with my back against the bathtub.My chest was too tight. I couldn't get enough air. Each breath came in short, painful gasps that did nothing to fill my lungs.Panic attack. I was having another panic attack.But knowing what it was didn't stop it. It didn't slow my racing heart or clear the black spots dancing at the edges of my vision.One million euros in two weeks? The numbers were impossible.And Julien knew it. That was the point. He wasn't actually expecting payment. He was creating an impossible situation so he could follow through on his threats.He was going to have me arrested.The charges were fabricated. I knew they were fabricated. I'd never stolen jewelry. The account withdrawals he

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~The Persuasion~

Camille's POVI'd just finished giving Noe his bath and was in the kitchen preparing a light lunch when I heard footsteps on the stairs."Camille! We're ready!" Noe's voice rang out with excitement.I turned from the counter and froze.Adrien and Noe descended the stairs together, both dressed for their museum outing. Noe wore dark jeans, a navy sweater, and those little leather shoes that made him look impossibly grown up. His hair was combed neatly, though I gave it five minutes before his energy turned it into its usual chaos.But it was Adrien who made my breath catch.He wore charcoal gray slacks that fit perfectly, a black henley that clung to shoulders I now knew were devastatingly defined, and a tailored jacket that somehow made him look both casually elegant and impossibly sophisticated. His hair was styled, his jaw freshly shaved, and those storm-gray eyes behind his glasses were sharp and focused.He looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine. Like every dangerous fantasy I

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~Hiding~

The marks are purple by morning.I notice them while getting dressed, my sleeve riding up as I reach for my hairbrush. Four distinct ovals pressed into the inside of my left wrist, thumb-shaped and deliberate. I study them for a moment under the bathroom light. Then I pull my sleeve down and finish getting ready.I already know this morning will require both hands to hold together. I can feel it in the way yesterday sits in my body, heavy and undigested. The messages. The numbers. One million euros in fourteen days, Julien's particular brand of cruelty dressed up in legal language and delivered with a tick tock at the end like he was enjoying himself. Which he was. He always enjoyed himself most when I had nowhere to go.And then Adrien on the bathroom floor beside me, breathing with mechanical precision, his voice completely controlled while I fell apart. Counting my inhales like a problem to be solved. Leaving the moment I stabilized, because that was all it had ever been to him. A

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~The Money Offer ~

I did my hair the Sunday way.It took longer than usual because my hands were not entirely cooperative this morning, still carrying some residual trembling from last night and from Julien's message and from the general accumulated weight of the past several weeks settling into my fingers like something physical. I stood at the mirror and worked through it slowly, section by section, until it fell the way Noé had specified, soft and wavy, the way that had apparently been reported to Luca as evidence of effort.When I was done I looked at my reflection for a moment.I looked like someone who had slept three hours and cried into a pillow and sent a text to her ex husband at dawn that she did not regret but would probably think about for a long time. I looked like someone wearing the blue dress with the buttons that a seven year old had selected with the authority of a person who knew things.I looked, underneath all of that, like someone who was going to have to say the number out loud t

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~Feeling Protected~

He was still looking at me over those glasses.The card rested in his hand and the distance between us felt dangerously small. The towel remained wrapped low around his hips exactly as it had been since he stood up. His bare chest rose and fell with steady breaths, the damp skin catching the light from the monitor, the tattoo across his shoulder and arm standing out boldly against all that exposed muscle and strength.I waited for him to say something.He said nothing for long enough that the silence became its own kind of pressure, the specific weight of a man who understood that most people would fill quiet with words if you let it stretch, and who had apparently decided to let it stretch until I did exactly that.I did not fill it.I was learning.Then he leaned forward slightly, gray eyes sharp behind the dark frames."What did you say earlier, Camille?"The question caught me off guard again. Heat flooded my face as I remembered the soft curse that had slipped out while my eyes h

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Lahat ng Kabanata ng In Love With The Hot Billionaire.: Kabanata 121 - Kabanata 126

~The Moment That's Stuck To My Brain~

~Spirals~

~The Persuasion~

~Hiding~

~The Money Offer ~

~Feeling Protected~