All Chapters of Married by Fate, Broken by Love: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Dylan's POVI didn’t leave when I should have.That was the first thing I realized.I should have walked out the moment the conversation started to feel like something more than what we had agreed on. I should have taken the easy exit—the polite one—before things crossed into territory that couldn’t be undone.But I didn’t.Instead, I stood there in her apartment, close enough to hear the quiet shift in her breathing, close enough to notice the way her fingers tightened slightly against the edge of the chair like she needed something to hold onto.Aliya wasn’t looking at me the way she used to.Before, there had been distance in her eyes. Careful calculation. A quiet line she never let me cross.Now—There was hesitation.And something else.Something softer.Something far more dangerous.The morning light had shifted since I arrived, spilling further into the living room and stretching across the floor in long golden strips. It caught in her hair, brushing against the side of her fac

Dylan's POVI didn’t look at Leo.Even though he was the one who asked the question.I looked at her.Because the answer had never really been his to give.Aliya stood a few feet away, her posture still, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and something far more complicated. Her fingers curled slightly at her sides, like she was holding back a reaction she hadn’t decided on yet.The room felt quiet in a way that stretched time.Leo, on the other hand, had no such patience.“Well?” he asked, glancing between us, his small voice cutting cleanly through the silence.I almost smiled.But I didn’t move.Didn’t speak.Because if I said anything now, it would tip the balance—and this wasn’t mine to control.Aliya exhaled slowly, the kind of breath that carried thought with it.“Leo…” she started, her tone gentle but careful. “Dylan has things to do.”“I can cancel them.”The words came out before I could stop them.Her eyes snapped at mine instantly.So did Leo’s.“What?” Leo sa

Dylan's POVI wasn’t supposed to notice things like this.Not the way her fingers curled slightly around her fork when she got lost in thought.Not the way she watched Leo when she thought no one was paying attention, soft, unguarded, almost fragile in a way she would never allow anywhere else.Not the way she avoided looking at me for too long.But I noticed.Every single time.Lunch had settled into something quiet.Not awkward.Not forced.Just… real.Leo’s voice filled most of the space, excited, scattered, jumping from one topic to another without warning. One minute he was explaining how his fastest car worked, the next he was describing a story that didn’t quite make sense but mattered entirely to him.And Aliya listened.Even when she was distracted.Even when her mind was clearly somewhere else.She always comes back to him.That kind of consistency wasn’t learned.It was built.Earned.Lived.“You’re not eating,” I said, my voice low enough that it didn’t interrupt Leo.Her

Dylan's POVThere was a moment, right after she said she didn’t know how to do this, when everything changed.Not loudly.Not dramatically.But I felt it.The resistance that had been so sharp, so immediate before… it wasn’t gone.But it had softened.And that was enough.She was still standing in front of me, close enough that I could see the faint rise and fall of her breathing, the slight tension in her shoulders that hadn’t fully disappeared.But she hadn’t stepped away.That mattered.More than anything she had said.“You don’t have to figure everything out today,” I said quietly.Her eyes lifted to mine again.There was something different in them now.Less guarded.More… open.“That’s easy for you to say,” she replied.“It is.”A faint crease formed between her brows.“You’re not the one who has to think about the consequences every second.”“I do,” I said.She shook her head slightly.“No, you don’t. You think about them differently.”“That doesn’t mean I don’t think about the

Dylan’s POVBy the time we walked back into Leo’s room, something had changed, not visibly, not in a way anyone else would notice, but I felt it.Aliya wasn’t keeping the same distance anymore. She wasn’t pulling away either.She just… stayed, and that, more than anything, meant progress. Leo looked up the moment we entered, his face lighting up like we had been gone for hours instead of minutes.“You came back!” he said, like it had ever been a question.“I said I would,” I replied. He nodded seriously, as if confirming my reliability had just been added to some internal list.“Come see,” he said again, grabbing my hand this time, tugging me toward the middle of the room.I let him. Aliya followed more slowly behind us, her steps quieter, her presence softer but still there., always there. Leo dropped to the floor again, pointing at his structure, which had somehow grown even more chaotic in our absence.“I added more space,” he explained. “For the new cars.” I crouched beside him, s