Lahat ng Kabanata ng CRAVING THE WRONG BLACKTHORNE BROTHER: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

The whiskey burned going down. I poured another glass. Then another. He chose her. After everything, he chose her side. By the fifth glass, the humiliation had dulled to a manageable throb. By the sixth, I’d stopped replaying the way Levi looked at me. Like I was the problem. Like I was nothing. He wasn’t wrong that I’d been unprofessional. I could admit that, at least to myself. But he was wrong about everything else. He’d let Celeste tear me apart all afternoon. Smiled at her. Agreed with her. Defended her when she crossed every line. All because I wouldn’t leave Nate for him. This was revenge. And I’m done being punished for choosing my husband over my lover. Fuck him. Fuck them both. I downed the whiskey and stood, the room tilting slightly. The palace was quiet this late. Nate was in Beijing for three more days. Levi thought he’d won this afternoon. Thought he could move on with his precious princess and leave me behind like I didn’t matter. Time to remind him what

I stood in the empty hallway, disheveled and reeking of sex, trying not to cry.Footsteps. Quiet, but I heard them.Princess Celeste appeared at the end of the corridor in a robe, a small smile on her face.“Well,” she said, walking closer. “That’s quite a look.”I froze.She stopped a few feet away and tilted her head. “Does Nate know?”“That’s none of your business.”“Fair enough.” She examined her nails. “You have a little…” She gestured vaguely at my neck. “Several somewheres, actually. Levi always did like to leave marks.”Heat flooded my face.“You should know,” she continued, her voice softer, “we’re more alike than you think.”“We’re nothing alike.”“No?” A sadness crossed her face. “You’re caught between them. I can see it. The guilt. Standing here torn between the room you left and the one you’re going back to.” She stepped closer. “That doesn’t make you terrible. Just human.”“Stop.”“Why? I’m only saying what you won’t admit.” Her voice gentled. “Nate gives you security, a

Nate The flight from Beijing took fourteen hours.I spent eleven of them working.The other three, I spent thinking about my wife.Not the way a man thinks about a woman he’s desperate to return to. More the way you turn something over in your hands in the dark, pressing your thumb into the edges, trying to find where it’s soft. Trying to understand what you’re actually holding.Ella had looked at me before I left the way she looked at everyone in that house. Measured. Careful. The look of a woman who had learned that counting exits wasn’t paranoia, it was just sense. I’d told myself it was habit. Damage from before me, before this marriage, before everything that had been done to her by people who should have known better.Somewhere over the Pacific, I stopped lying to myself.She was disappointed.Not in me exactly. More in what she’d expected from me and hadn’t gotten. I’d seen it that evening at dinner when my mother made one of her comments, the particular kind of cruelty Vivien

The water was perfect.Not scheduled-perfect, the kind where someone had decided what temperature the Luna’s pool should be. Actually perfect. Warm enough to stay in. Cool enough to feel alive in.I’d been floating for over an hour with no plans to leave.I stared at the sky and thought about nothing. It was a skill I was relearning—how to just exist without producing anything, without managing anything, without being *on* for anyone. Before the wedding I’d been good at this. Before Victor decided I was a problem and Nate decided I was a solution.Before I became the Luna.I was getting back there.The door opened.I dropped my feet until I was standing, water to my shoulders, and watched Nate cross the deck in his work clothes.“You’re still dressed,” I said.“Observant.” He stopped at the edge. “How long have you been in?”“A while.”“Define a while.”“Long enough that it’s none of your business.” I pushed wet hair back. “Did you need something or are you just standing there looking

The call with Morrison was wrapping up when the door opened without a knock.I didn’t look up. My pen kept moving across the contract in front of me while Levi’s footsteps crossed to my desk.“Understood. Have the updated figures on my desk by tomorrow. And Morrison, keep this quiet.”“Of course.”I ended the call and set the phone down. My pen made three more notations before I acknowledged him.“You looked uncomfortable this afternoon,” I said without looking up. “At the pool. Should I have dismissed you sooner?”The silence stretched. Heavy. I could feel the weight of it pressing down.I looked up.His face had gone very still. The particular stillness that came right before something broke.“What did you say,” he said quietly.“The meeting ran long. I was wondering if the chair was uncomfortable.” I kept my tone conversational. Light. “You kept shifting.”His hands went to the edge of my desk. Gripped. I watched his knuckles go white.“You’re really going to do this,” he said.“Do