Semua Bab Bound by Contract, Owned by Hate: Bab 31 - Bab 40

Chapter 31 (Sophia's POV) The Laurent Luxe design archive occupied the entire fourteenth floor. It contained three years of work, proprietary fabric compositions, seasonal collection blueprints, the autumn campaign assets that hadn't yet gone to print and everything that made Laurent Luxe irreplaceable rather than merely successful, locked behind a security system Claire had personally overseen after the Paris lighting rig incident. Someone had been inside it. Claire met us at the elevator looking like a woman who'd been containing herself for approximately forty minutes longer than was comfortable. "Two hours ago," she said, walking us through the corridor toward the archive entrance. "The security log showed an access card swipe at eight fifty-three, the door was open for eleven minutes." "Whose card?" I asked. Claire stopped outside the archive door. Turned to face me with the expression of someone delivering news they'd spent two hours dreading. "Ethan's," she said.

Chapter 33 (Sophia's POV) The private jet glided onto the Maldives runway. Turquoise water stretched endlessly on both sides of the narrow strip of land. Palm trees swayed in the warm breeze and the air smelled like salt, sunscreen and escape. For the first time in weeks, the crushing weight of New York felt a little farther away. The trip was Richard's suggestion, the the kind of strategic visibility in a private setting with photographs that told a story of a marriage settling into something real rather than maintained under pressure. It was just the performance of a honeymoon that was four weeks late. I told myself that on the plane. Izzy had packed my bags with the particular enthusiasm of someone who considered this a personal victory. "Five days," she'd said, folding the emerald swimsuit with unnecessary care. "No Claire, no board meetings and no Rachel Voss lurking outside buildings." "It's a strategic appearance," I'd said. "It's a holiday, Sophie. Your fir

Chapter 35 (Sophia's POV) The third morning arrived with the same unhurried beauty as the first two. I was beginning to understand what Reginald had understood about water and silence and the particular gift of a place that asked nothing from you before the day began. I was also beginning to understand that the thing that had shifted between Xander and me last night wasn't going to quietly rearrange itself back into something manageable in the morning. It simply existed now. Permanent. I found him on the deck at seven with coffee and his phone face up, which meant Dax had sent something that couldn't wait. "Richard," he said when he saw me. "Something came through overnight." I sat down. He turned the phone toward me. A scanned document. Multiple pages. The header was in French, a notarial registry from Paris, dated seventeen years ago. I read the first page. Then the second. My coffee went cold beside me. "Laurent Tower," I said. "Yes." "This is the

Chapter 37 (Sophia's POV) I noticed on the fourth morning. A small thing. Easily dismissed. The kind of detail that wouldn't have registered at all under normal circumstances, except that nothing about the last several weeks had been normal and my body had apparently decided to make that point in the most inconvenient way available. I was late. Four days late. Which under ordinary stress could mean nothing. Except that the Maldives had removed stress entirely and the calculation still didn't resolve cleanly. I sat with it alone for an hour before I did anything else. Xander was on the far end of the island on his morning walk, a habit he'd developed here, an hour of solitary movement before the day organized itself. I had the villa to myself and I used it to think with the focused honesty that was only available when no one was watching. The facts were straightforward. I was not panicking. I was, processing. There was a difference and I was holding onto it care

Chapter 39 (Sophia's POV) The Maldives didn't feel like paradise anymore. It felt like a pause button. And pauses never last. By evening the sky had shifted into streaks of violet and gold, the ocean glowing like glass beneath the fading light. It should have been beautiful. It was. But something in me refused to settle. The late period left a quiet echo behind, one I couldn’t quite shake. It wasn’t fear and it wasn’t relief, just something unresolved, suspended between the two. Xander was in the outdoor lounge behind me, sleeves rolled, phone pressed to his ear, voice low and controlled as he spoke in German. Business again. Always business. He looked grounded and focused. Like nothing could touch him. I wanted to believe that. I almost did. My phone buzzed against the table. An unknown number. I hesitated. Then picked it up. It was a message. No greeting. No introduction. Just a link. Every instinct told me not to open it. Which meant I di