جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 40

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO LAUREN’S POV I yanked my shirt up from the floor with shaking hands and glared at Julian through the mess he had made of me. “You disgusting bastard.” He set the gun down on the desk like it was nothing. “I’ve been called worse,” he said. “By people still alive?” His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Worse. I shoved my arms into my sleeves and nearly missed one because my fingers were trembling so badly. He stood there and watched me put on my jeans like he had all the time in the world. “You’re sick,” I said. “Do you know that?” Julian picked up his whiskey again and took a slow sip. “Repeatedly.” I stared at him in disgust. He wore a white shirt, first five buttons undone and black pants. “Did you kill them?” His gaze lifted to mine. “Your parents?” “Yes, my parents.” “If I had, you’d know.” I folded my arms over myself, partly because I was cold and partly because I wanted some sort of barrier between us. “So this was what? Entertainment?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURLAUREN’S POVI did not sleep well.That stupid clock sound kept replaying in my head, deep and old and wrong, followed by Silas’s calm voice answering his phone.*Silas on the line.*I had gone back to Julian’s office after that with my heart trying to claw its way out of my chest and my face arranged into something that looked normal from a distance. I did not know how I pulled it off. I only knew that if Silas had looked at me for two seconds longer, he would have known I was spiraling.By morning, my nerves were shot.Julian was in the dressing room buttoning a shirt when I opened my eyes.He glanced at me through the mirror.“You look awful.”I stared at him.He adjusted his cuff. “You’re glaring.”“You’re alive. Be grateful.”That got a low chuckle out of him. He walked over, stopped at the edge of the bed, and looked down at me in that quiet, piercing way.“You’re tense,” he said.I pushed the covers off and stood. “I’m going out later.”His expression did no

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXLAUREN’S POVThe moment we got back to the penthouse, I turned on him.I waited until he disappeared into his study like he had not just kissed me in a dark office like a man trying to send a message through my skin.I pushed the study door open without knocking.Julian was in his chair behind the desk, one hand around a tumbler, the other lazily spinning the chair a few inches left and right. His tie was gone. His jacket was unbuttoned. His mind looked far away.He barely looked at me.I shut the door behind me. “What the hell was that?”He took a sip without answering.I stepped closer. “I’m talking to you.”His gaze lifted then, slow and unreadable. “I know.”“Then answer me.”He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling like I was interrupting a thought he had not finished having.“I did it for someone,” he said.I frowned.That was not the answer I expected.“For someone? You kissed me like that for someone?” I repeated.He swirled the whiskey in the g

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTLAUREN’S POVThe Melbourne sun painted the skyline gold as our private jet touched down. Julian hadn’t let go of me since we left Seattle. His hand stayed at the small of my back through customs, his thumb stroking slow circles like he couldn’t stop touching what was his. It felt like a honeymoon—champagne on the flight, his mouth on my neck at thirty thousand feet, the kind of trip normal couples dreamed about. Except nothing about Julian was normal.“I’ve wanted this for months,” he said in the back of the town car, voice low against my ear. His fingers traced the strap of my sundress, slipping it down an inch. “Just you and me. No penthouse walls. No ghosts. I’m fucking obsessed, Serena. You know that, right? I think about you every second I’m not inside you.”I shivered, heat pooling low in my belly. His confession wasn’t new, but saying it out loud, here, made it feel dangerous. Real. I turned, catching his mouth in a quick kiss that turned filthy fast, his h

CHAPTER FORTYLAUREN’S POVMy throat burned like I’d swallowed fire. I woke on the cold marble floor of the bathroom, gasping, one hand flying to my neck where Julian’s fingers had left dark, blooming bruises. The penthouse was quiet now—too quiet. Silas must have dragged Julian off me before he finished the job. My vision still swam, but I forced myself up, gripping the edge of the vanity.The mirror didn’t lie. Purple fingerprints circled my throat like a twisted collar. I tilted my head, tracing the marks with shaking fingers. They hurt, but the real pain was deeper—humiliation, rage, and that sick, unwanted spark of heat low in my belly. He’d almost killed me. Again. And some broken part of me still remembered the way his body had felt against mine.I was still staring when the door opened behind me.Julian stepped in, phone pressed to his ear, voice low and lethal. He hadn’t even changed: the bandage on his chest stark against the fabric. His eyes met mine in the mirror—dark, unr