All Chapters of Contractually Yours: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

Jem's POV For several long seconds after Dante said those words, neither of us moved. The words kept replaying inside my chest over and over again, and no matter how many times I heard them in my head, they still didn’t make complete sense to me. Because part of me wanted to feel angry. I wanted to stay angry. But another part of me could not stop hearing the way he said it. Not coldly. Not clinically. Not like somebody talking about a system or an experiment. He sounded serious. And somehow that scared me more. I slowly pulled away from the desk close to where I was standing and turned fully toward him again, my chest tight and my breathing uneven. “Explain it to me properly,” I said quietly this time, but my voice still shook slightly. I continued, “Because right now everything feels insane. One minute I think I’m just living in this house with you, and the next minute I find files about myself, marriage contracts, curses, and names crossed out in red like people just stopp

Jem's POV The room suddenly became completely silent after that. Dante held my gaze steadily before speaking again, his voice lower this time. “I didn’t want you feeling like a destiny instead of a choice.” The words hit me so hard my chest physically hurt. Because somehow, out of everything he had said today, that affected me the most. Not the curse. Not the council. Not even the marriage contract. It was the way he said it quietly, honestly, like he genuinely meant every word. For one horrible second, I suddenly remembered all the little things again. The way he watched me when he thought I wasn’t looking. The notes in the file. The way he kept trying to push me away while still pulling me closer at the same time. And suddenly, beneath all the terrifying confusion, something painful twisted inside me because a part of me realized Dante had probably been fighting this long before I even knew it existed. Before I could figure out what to say next, Shark suddenly cleared h

Jem's POV The rest of the day passed like something heavy sitting directly on my chest refusing to move. No matter where I went inside the mansion, no matter what I tried forcing my mind to focus on, the female elder’s voice kept replaying over and over inside my head. The seven before you did not survive the exposure process because their hearts were not strong enough to carry the weight of what Dante is. Every single time I remembered those words, my stomach tightened again. I could not stop thinking about it. Seven people. Seven actual people had stood where I was standing now. Seven people had somehow been pulled into whatever this thing between me and Dante was, and somehow none of them lasted long enough to remain part of it. And the worst part was that nobody in this house talked about it like it was horrifying. Everything here felt too calm. Too normal. Like this mansion had already gotten used to swallowing terrifying things whole without reacting anymore. I barely

Jem's POV Dante’s jaw tightened faintly. “It wasn’t done maliciously.” “That doesn’t answer what I asked.” There was another silence. Then finally— “Yes,” he muttered. The word hit me strangely hard. I didn’t even fully know why. Maybe because suddenly those crossed-out names from earlier no longer felt distant anymore. They were real people. Real lives. Real memories. People who once stood exactly where I was standing now before eventually being made to forget Dante completely like none of it had ever happened. My stomach twisted uncomfortably. And I just sat there, lost in everything as I sat staring at the darkness in front of me trying to process what he had just said. People had actually lived inside this house. Known him. Probably cared about him. And then one day everything connected to him had simply been taken away from them like it never existed at all. The thought made something cold crawl slowly through my chest. “So they don’t remember you at all anym

Jem's POV I slowly leaned back against the headboard, still holding the papers loosely in my hands, my eyes staring at them without really seeing them anymore, because for the first time since I met her, I fully understood why Mara had been acting the way she did, why she watched me so closely, why she tried so hard to push things in her own direction, and why every move she made carried that quiet urgency underneath it. Now I know why she wants me out of the house and far far away from her uncle. This was never just jealousy. Never just cruelty. This was survival to her. And somehow realizing that made everything feel heavier instead of lighter. I stayed sitting there for a long time after that, staring silently at the decree while morning light slowly spread across the room around me. Eventually, I forced myself to get dressed. But even while changing clothes, my mind still kept replaying everything over and over again. The curse. The council. The marriage. The seven ot