The Playboy's Forced Bride의 모든 챕터: 챕터 11 - 챕터 20

I knew Serena Voss was coming before she even showed up. She came through the main doors of the Ardent Club at a normal pace, two friends beside her, and had a glass of champagne in her hand within thirty seconds. She moved through the room like she belonged there, socially, she probably did. Three years of digging into Adrian’s world had given me a thick file about her. A model turned creative director. Silverton’s favorite face in magazines for two straight years. She had been his most serious relationship. Eight months together, and from everything I read, the breakup left marks.Knowing her on paper was easy.Seeing her in the same room was something else.She arrived forty minutes after us. The timing felt planned and deliberate. Not too early, not too late. She wore a simple black dress that looked expensive without trying too hard. She spotted Adrian first across the room.Then she spotted me.Her face stayed smooth. I noticed the tiny effort it took to keep it that way befo

Dominic’s house made the estate look like a starter home.It was easily twice the size of our own. It was everything else. The way the entrance made you feel the moment you stepped through it. The high ceilings. The kind of house that had been designed not to impress guests but to remind them, continuously and without saying it directly, whose world they were standing in.I had spent three years studying this family from the outside.Being inside the room with them was something research could not have prepared me for.Dominic was already at the table when we arrived. That was the first thing I noticed. He did not come to welcome us at the doorway. He had not stood either when we entered. He was simply there, at the head of a table that had been laid with the precision of a formal occasion, and we walked to meet him where he sat.Vivienne stood close to the window with a wine glass in hand, dressed flawlessly, her expression warm and carefully composed, a look I recognized most on her

The lights went out at 8:15 p.m.No message or signal was given. Darkness came instantly. and then the low hum of the backup generator pulling on somewhere beneath the house and bringing back only what it considered essential.The refrigerator. The security system. The heating was barely working. Everything else stayed dark.My laptop screen went black right in the middle of my sentence. The router in the hallway outside my door shut down too. And I thought about what I was going to do with an evening that had just lost all its structure.I sat at my desk in the dark for a moment.Then I found my phone torch and went looking for candles.Adrian had the same idea. We met in the main sitting room coming from opposite ends of the house, which would have been funny under different circumstances. He already had one candle lit. I had found three in the kitchen and lit them on the way.Our gazes met.“It’s a basic generator,” he said.“I can see that,” I said.The sitting room had a firepl

“Get your coat.”Three words through my door at 7:30 p.m. and then his footsteps retreated down the hall.I stood in the doorway for a moment.Then, I got my coat anyway.He was already at the front door, dressed when I came downstairs. He held keys in his hand, the easy readiness of someone who had already made a decision. I was about to ask him. “Don’t ask,” he said, and opened the door.I got in the car.We drove into the city. I waited for him to turn toward Silverton Heights or the Financial District Road, somewhere that made sense for an evening that involved Adrian Tao. Instead, we kept going. Through the Financial District without slowing down, and through the gallery quarter, into the warehouse district where the streets spread out and the old buildings got lower.I watched the city change outside the window and I gave up trying to predict where we were going.We stopped in a neighboring town, and it was very quiet over here—a small restaurant with its regular customers.We

I almost didn't hear the knock on my door—just a faint sound.I was still at my desk under the lamp at 2:00 in the morning, working through a trail of evidence. It was completely dark outside the estate grounds.I continued working on the evidence I had revamped from the previous night. Tightening the connections and double-checking the dates. This kind of job requires adequate attention, so I stopped being distracted by anything outside the computer screen.Then a gentle knock, unsure of who it was.I opened the door.Adrian was standing in the hallway barefoot.He wore a dark shirt. With the look of someone who had been awake for hours and was bored being alone. His hair was slightly messy.He didn’t say he wanted to come in.He just stood there and looked at me and for a moment neither of us said anything.“I know something is wrong with you,” he said.I held his gaze and kept my face still.“I don’t know what it is,” he said. “I’m not asking.”He hesitated for a while.“But are y