บททั้งหมดของ I Slept With The Wrong Man: บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

~ Seraphina ~ The heavy oak door click-locked with a finality that made the air in the conference room feel instantly thin. Outside, the muffled sounds of the board meeting’s conclusion—the scraping of chairs, the polite hum of corporate networking—faded into a suffocating, artificial silence. Lucien didn't move to sit. He stood by the expansive glass table, his silhouette sharp against the city skyline, the kind of calm that told me he thought he’d already won. “Adrian’s going to use the pregnancy against you, if he found out fully” he said. His voice was flat, devoid of the usual boardroom performativity. It wasn't a warning; it was a cold statement of fact. “He’ll claim it’s his. Then he’ll destroy your credibility in court and take custody. That’s his play.” The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. My blood ran cold, a visceral chill spreading from my chest to my fingertips. I felt the phantom weight of the two blue lines I’d hidden in my dressing room, the secret I

~ Seraphina ~ The silence in the penthouse had changed. It was no longer the heavy, ignored quiet of two people living parallel lives. Now, it was vibrating with something sharp and hidden. I sat across from Adrian at the breakfast table, my fingers curled tightly around a cup of herbal tea. I hadn’t touched the coffee in weeks, a small change I hoped he hadn't noticed. Across from me, Adrian was the picture of corporate grace, his silk tie perfectly knotted, his expression smoothed into a mask of benign concern. “You’ve seemed distant lately, Seraphina,” he said, his voice smooth and solicitous. He didn't look up from his tablet, but I felt the weight of his attention. “Everything alright? You’ve been staying in quite a bit. It isn’t like you to miss the Botanical Society brunch.” “Just a bit under the weather,” I replied, my voice steady. I had spent years perfecting this tone—the one that gave away nothing. “The season is changing. I think I just need more rest.” Adrian

~ Seraphina ~ The feeling didn’t come all at once. It arrived in pieces, like a puzzle I didn't want to solve. It started on Tuesday, a gray morning where the mist clung to the glass towers of the city. I was leaving my yoga studio, my bag heavy on my shoulder, when I saw it—a dark gray sedan parked two houses down from our driveway. It was idling, the exhaust a faint plume in the cold air. I didn't think much of it then. People have lives. People wait for friends. But when I came home from a grocery run three hours later, the car was still there. The driver was a shadow behind tinted glass, unmoving. By Wednesday, the shadow had a face. I was sitting in the corner of The Gilded Bean, the small coffee shop three blocks from the penthouse. I had traded my usual double espresso for a decaf latte, a small concession to the life growing inside me. A man sat two tables away. He wore a plain navy windbreaker and a baseball cap pulled low. He had a cup in front of him, but he never lifted

~ Seraphina ~ The morning began with a phone call from Eleanor Knox, a woman who usually only contacted me when she needed a premium table at the Fall Gala. "Seraphina, darling," she said, her voice dripping with a saccharine concern that made my skin crawl. "I was just calling to check in. I heard something rather… odd at the club yesterday. A mention of some trouble at home? I told them it was nonsense, of course, but you know how people talk." I gripped my phone, my knuckles turning the color of the white marble countertop. "Everything is fine, Eleanor. I’m not sure what you could have heard." "Oh, just vague things. Something about 'unconventional arrangements,'" she hummed. "Anyway, I just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you. We should do lunch. When things… settle." She hung up before I could reply. I stared at the blank screen of my phone, my heart drumming a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Unconventional arrangements. It was a surgical strike. Adrian didn’t have to acc

~ Seraphina ~The air in the penthouse felt like it had been replaced by liquid nitrogen. I stood in the center of the living room, the city lights shimmering behind me through the floor-to-ceiling glass, but my focus was entirely on the man standing by the marble fireplace.Adrian hadn't even taken off his overcoat. He looked impeccable, every silver hair in place, but his composure was a thin, brittle shell. The calm he usually wore like a weapon had been replaced by a cold, vibrating fury. On the coffee table between us lay a tablet, its screen glowing with the latest financial headlines: Vale Industries Stock Plummeting Amidst Scandal."You think you can humiliate me?" he said. His voice was dangerously quiet, the kind of whisper that carried more weight than a scream. He didn't move toward me, yet I felt the space around me shrinking. "You think you can destroy what I’ve spent my entire life building?"I didn't respond. I kept my hands clasped in front of me, digging my nails int