جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 110

*Bella's POV* I looked at her for a long moment. "You really aren't letting this hypothetical thing go, are you?" A sheepish smile crossed her face. "Just answer." I leaned back in my chair, folding my arms loosely across my stomach while I searched for an answer that felt honest. "I don't know." The admission surprised even me. It wasn't uncertainty because I hadn't thought about it before. It was uncertain because I had thought about it too many times. "What does 'I don't know' mean?" Clara asked softly. I lowered my eyes to the untouched food in front of me. "It means there are mornings when I wake up believing I've finally reached a place where forgiveness feels possible." My fingers tightened slightly around my fork. "And then there are days when I remember every single night I cried myself to sleep because he chose someone else." The words came quietly, but they carried years inside them. I lifted my gaze to meet hers. "So... I honestly don't kno

*Alex’s POV*The café had settled into that quiet stretch of late afternoon that always came before the evening crowd arrived. Golden sunlight spilled across the pavement outside the window, stretching long across the street while I sat alone at the corner table with both hands wrapped around a cup of coffee that had long since lost its warmth. Every few minutes, I found myself checking my watch before looking back at the entrance, convincing myself that the next time the door opened, it would be her. The breeze outside stirred gently, carrying the distant sounds of traffic and children's laughter from a nearby park. I drew a slow breath into my lungs, hoping it would ease the tension that had settled deep inside my chest hours ago, but it didn't. Time moved in strange ways when you were waiting for someone who might never arrive. Minutes stretched until they felt like hours, and hours slipped by without offering even the smallest reward for hope.The barista cleared a nearby table

*Bella's POV* I didn't hear Chloe call my name the first time. For nearly ten minutes, I had been staring at the same paragraph in a custody appeal, my eyes fixed on the words without truly reading them. My attention had drifted somewhere I kept insisting I had already left behind. It always started the same way, with a name I refused to say aloud, a familiar voice that still lingered somewhere beneath old scars, and a mistake I could never convince myself was only a memory. "Ma?" Chloe's voice came again as she leaned around the doorway, a stack of files pressed against her chest. "One of the interns said someone's asking for you at reception." I rubbed my tired eyes and forced myself back into the fluorescent brightness of my office. It wasn't even noon yet, but my head already felt unbearably heavy. I had hoped burying myself beneath legal briefs, court filings, and deadlines would finally quiet the restless thoughts that refused to leave me alone. "Who?" I asked.

*Bella's POV* I turned toward Daniel before I could stop myself. My heartbeat stumbled against my ribs because I recognized the expression on his face. I had seen him angry before. His anger had always been disciplined, measured, and hidden beneath professionalism. Daniel's jaw tightened before he finally answered. "I'm concerned." Clara let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh. "You're lying." His chest rose with a slow breath that seemed to cost him more than he wanted anyone to know. "And even if I were jealous," he replied after a long pause, "what difference would that make? It still wouldn't change the fact that you forced Bella into a situation she never chose for herself." I closed my eyes. No one had spoken the truth outright, but it hung between us anyway, unmistakable and impossible to ignore. The silence that followed seemed alive. It settled over the room, waiting for someone to be brave enough to break it. Clara swallowed, and when she spoke again, the anger had

*Bella's POV* I realized I had read the same sentence five times, yet I couldn't remember a single word of it. The legal arguments on my screen had dissolved into meaningless lines of text, every paragraph blending into the next until the entire document became nothing more than a blur. My office felt unusually quiet, and the afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows only made the silence more noticeable. Across from me, Chloe sat behind her desk, her fingers moving quickly over the keyboard as she worked through a stack of documents. Every so often, she glanced from one file to another, completely absorbed in her work and seemingly unaware that I had been losing the same battle with my own thoughts for nearly an hour. Eventually, the tapping of her keyboard stopped. She looked up over the rim of her glasses and studied me for a moment before speaking. "Okay," she said with a faint smile. "You're not concentrating on a single thing. You look like you're standing in th