All Chapters of Under His Roof, Her Game : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Mateo’s POVElara stands near the door, perfectly composed. Her eyes follow me without flinching. Not intimidated. Not impressed. Not afraid. Just… calm.And tonight… it unsettles me more than fear ever could.I sit at the room desk, fingers tapping lightly on the polished wood. The sound echoes in the silence. Just enough to punctuate the air. I want to break the quiet, but I don’t. I want her to speak first.She doesn’t.Her hands are folded in front of her, small, delicate, precise. She tilts her head slightly, waiting. Observing. Measuring.I clear my throat. “Sit.”She moves like she owns none of the space, yet somehow dominates it. She perches on the edge of the chair across from me, posture straight, no nervous shifting, no fidgeting.I study her. Study the way her eyes don’t dart to the door, the way her hands remain steady. Calm. So calm.I lean back, trying to assert something. Dominance. Power. Something to remind her who’s in charge. “Tell me… were you afraid today?”The q

ELARAI sat in front of my vanity mirror slowly removing my jewelry one piece at a time. My earrings rested beside the silver brush on the table. My bracelet followed after that. Then my rings.My reflection stared back at me calmly.Too calmly.I looked tired tonight. The charity event yesterday had drained everyone in the house in different ways. Mateo had spent most of the evening locked inside his office. I lifted my hand and unclasped the necklace around my throat just as the bedroom door suddenly swung open without warning.I looked up immediately.Luna stepped inside.She didn’t slam the door behind her. She closed it softly instead, which somehow felt worse.Her makeup was slightly ruined around her eyes like she had cried earlier and tried fixing it afterward. Her lipstick had faded. Her breathing looked uneven even though she was trying hard to appear calm.I slowly turned in my chair to face her fully.“Luna.”She smiled.Not warmly.“You’re awake,” she said lightly.“I wa

ELARAI sat across from Mateo at the long wooden table near the fireplace, sorting through paperwork while he read over shipment reports. The lamp beside him cast a warm golden light across his face, but it did nothing to soften the tiredness in his eyes. He looked exhausted lately. Not weak. Mateo would never allow himself to look weak. But there was something darker now. Something drained.A glass of whiskey rested near his hand. Half empty.Another one already sat abandoned near the edge of the desk.He had been drinking more.I noticed everything.Neither of us spoke much. Papers shifted softly beneath my fingers while rain poured outside. The fire cracked quietly in the background. Mateo occasionally glanced toward me without saying anything, and every single time, I pretended not to notice.Then the office phone rang.The sound cut through the silence sharply enough to make Mateo look up immediately.He frowned slightly before reaching for it.“Yeah.”His voice was calm, low, co

MATEOEvery morning, breakfast waited at the same hour. Every evening, the mansion became quieter after midnight, the guards rotating shifts downstairs while rain or wind pressed softly against the windows outside. Business continued. Meetings continued. Life moved forward like nothing terrible had happened inside these walls.And somehow… Elara had become part of all of it naturally.The seat beside me at dinner no longer felt strange when she occupied it. Some nights we barely spoke, yet the silence never felt uncomfortable. She would sit across from me in my office reading paperwork quietly while I handled meetings or calls, and oddly enough, the room always felt calmer when she was there.She never interrupted.Never demanded attention.Never tried to impress me.That should have made her forgettable.Instead, it made her impossible to ignore.After difficult meetings, I found myself walking toward wherever she was without thinking about it first. Sometimes the library. Sometimes

ELARA Mateo had always been observant, but now he watched me with a kind of quiet focus that made the air around him feel sharper.Like he was trying to solve me.The terrifying part was that he still stayed close to me anyway.That was what made me realize he knew something.Or suspected something.A normal man would have pulled away. Become colder. Distant. Careful.Mateo did the opposite.He came to breakfast earlier just to sit with me while I drank coffee. He started asking whether I slept well. Whether my shoulder still hurt from Luna’s attack. Whether I wanted more guards outside my room at night.Protective.Gentle.But underneath it… there was tension now.Suspicion breathing quietly beneath kindness.And I could feel it every time he looked at me.That morning, rain tapped softly against the dining room windows while I sat across from him eating fruit I barely tasted. The mansion felt colder lately. Even the staff moved more carefully now, speaking quieter in the hallways l