All Chapters of The Devil's Wedding Ring : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

"I’m sure, Jeff," I said, forcing a tightness into my voice to keep it from trembling. "I just need to get into character, that will help." Jefferson leaned against the doorframe, his posture relaxed but his eyes scanning me with a familiarity that made my skin prickle. He was one of the first stars I met when I did set foot in Hollywood, back when I was wide-eyed and the world hadn't yet tried to break me. He had made his moves early, pushing advances with the polished confidence of a man that used to get what he wanted. He had been visibly stung, his ego bruised, when I did turned him down for Jaxson. I remembered the day we started this production. He had cornered me near the equipment trunks, his voice low and bitter. "You mean he’s better than me?" he’d asked, the news of my relationship with the star athlete fresh on his mind. It had been an awkward realization that he was my male lead, and I was stuck in his orbit fo

Oh no. Was the exclamation that escaped my subconscious as those words left his lips. He hadn't even thought about it for a second before saying it. Everyone, I could see the shock in the air. The way they were all looking from me to Cillian and then back to me. Like they wanted an explanation of what was actually going on. Should I be angry right now or be happy he was trying to protect me? There was no way he should've said that. Everyone knows that I'm still grieving over Jax, and I'm married already! Questions like, When? How did it happen? Did you two-time both Jax and this hunk of a man in the room? I could almost see the barrage of questions in their heads as they still stood speechless, frozen in place and not moving. "Can I take her now?" He asked like he hadn't just dropped a bomb on them. I turned and my eyes found Sarah; she was also speechless, like this was exactly what she had predicted would happen if someone ever knew I got

"Marriage is about trying and failing," Cillian continued, his voice dropping to a low, melodic vibration that seemed to settle the frantic beating of my heart. "Let's say I fail this round. I was just trying to make you comfortable, but I guess I'm spoiling things. I get it. I just want you to be fine without being attached to grief, because being attached to grief never helped anyone heal faster." He reached out, his fingers gentle as they turned my face toward his. He looked at me taking in my tear-stained cheeks and the mascara smudged beneath my eyes. He let out a long, heavy sigh that carried the weight of his own frustration with himself. "You can't be crying so hard because of that. I will fix it. If it meant announcing to everyone you work with, how I begged to save you even though you didn't want me to, I could explain everything to anyone you care about to keep you sane. I will do that. But please... don't cry." 

 "I want you... Cillian..." I whispered. But instead of the fire I expected, there was only a tender, lingering kiss on my forehead as he pulled me into his chest, where I would listen to his heartbeat, feel what he felt for me. That he was never lying about his feelings for me. He was never lying about wanting to protect me. He was never lying when he said he would never make me cry. And I believed him. I believed in the way his heart beat with my head placed on top of it. In the way his body twitched under my touch.  "We will do it sometime later," he whispered into my ears, his own heart thudding against my back. "When the world isn't so loud. And when you won't hate me."  But I don't hate him. How could I hate someone as precious as him. God gave him to me. My compensation, how could I hate someone like him? Someone who'd rather get hit than seeing me in pain.  Over th

 The world didn't just stop, it shattered. Sarah’s voice is still tiny and tinny, vibrating against the floor. But I couldn't hear her anymore. The only sound in the room was the roar of blood in my ears, a deafening tide that threatened to pull me under. Jaxson was killed. The words weren't just a sentence, they were a physical blow to my solar plexus. I gasped for air, my lungs refusing to expand, my vision tunneling until the only thing I could see was the blurred pattern of the rug beneath my feet. Every memory of the crash, the black headlines, the closed casket, the agonizing "accident" reports, was being rewritten in real-time with a darker, more sinister ink. Cillian was at my side in an instant. The remote was gone, and his hands were on my shoulders, steady and grounding, but I felt like I was made of glass that had already begun to spiderweb. "Valeri