Lahat ng Kabanata ng Her Rebirth, His Regret : Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

MAEVE My father's study always felt smaller than it actually was.Dark shelves running floor to ceiling on every wall, a heavy oak desk sitting square in the centre like something immovable, the smell of leather and old paper sitting thick in the air. I used to find that smell impressive when I first came back to this family at fifteen. Now it just meant I was about to be told something I didn't want to hear.When he sent the housekeeper to call me in here, I contemplated pretending to be asleep or better still, running away.But I had to remind myself, I wasn't that scared little girl desperate for love anymore.I stood in front of the desk with my hands loose at my sides and waited.He had his reading glasses on, a folder open in front of him that he wasn't actually reading. His dark eyes so identical to mine were fixed on me over the rim of the frames, with that cold and stern look in his eyes he kept specifically for me. He had never looked at Dorothy that way. Not once in all th

MAEVE The day of Alexander's birthday party, I had to wake up earlier than neccesary to do everything that I'd planned.I was not walking into Alexander Hagreeves' birthday party alone. That was the one thing I was completely certain of when I woke up that morning.I'd found an agency online the night before — the kind that handled professional male escorts for formal events, no weird questions, straightforward process. I'd made the call before breakfast, booked the slot for two in the afternoon, and was feeling genuinely okay about the whole thing as I pulled my coat on and headed downstairs.Outside the our family estate, I fished my phone from my purse and ordered an Uber before I kept walking towards the main road."Hey."I stopped and raised my head, my brows pulling together in a surprised frown as my eyes gook in the man in front of me.Brandon was leaning against a dark car across the street with his arms folded over his chest and his ankles crossed, his caramel jacket open o

MAEVEOkay. This was fine. I was fine.I kept my chin up and my shoulders back and my grip on Brandon's arm at a pressure that I hoped read as casual rather than desperate, and I walked into Alexander Hagreeves' birthday party in my red dress which I got only a few hours ago at a sale, and told myself that the warmth crawling up the back of my neck was just the room temperature.It was not the room temperature.Two hundred people and I could feel the attention shifting toward us like a physical thing, conversations dipping and resuming at a slightly different pitch, eyes moving and lingering in a way I was not accustomed to. People had always looked past me at these events. I had spent years being the girl standing slightly to the left of wherever the interesting thing was happening, and now I was — apparently — the interesting thing, and I did not entirely know what to do with that.Brandon leaned in. "You're gripping my arm.""I'm not.""Maeve. My circulation." I could hear the teas

ALEXANDER I had been performing for two hours straight and my face was starting to feel like it belonged to someone else.The right handshakes, the right conversations, the right amount of interest in whatever the man in front of me was saying about the third quarter projections. I was good at this. I had been doing it since I was old enough to stand beside my father at these events without fidgeting.Tonight my eyes kept betraying me.They'd find the red dress across the room and I'd pull them back and give whoever was talking to me my full attention for about ninety seconds before they moved again. Red dress. Brandon's shoulder close to hers. Her head tilting back with a laugh I was too far away to hear. I shouldn't have been affected by the fact that I couldn't hear it, but damn it, I was.I saw the look in Brandon's eyes as he watched her with interest with awe and I knew for a fact that whatever it was he was planning wouldn't end well for her. Why the fuck did she have to pick

MAEVE Alexander, for the first time that I could remember, had his displeasure and anger written all over his face, and he didn't bother to hide it. He looked at me like I was a disappointment, yet...those blue eyes remained trained on mine like he couldn't look away. The tingles in my spine that gaze left behind was something I wished I could ignore all together.He came around the desk and stopped close enough that I could see the vein working in his jaw and I kept my hands loose at my sides and my chin level and breathed through my nose.Better to get this done and keep with. I've made sure he's certain I want nothing else to do with him now all he has to do...is let me go."You actually left." His tone was accusatory, words almost forced out like he was still processing the fact."I did," I nodded, "I was no longer comfortable, so I left."His blue eyes darkened. "My grandmother asked you for one dance." His voice was low yet carried a weight that pressed down in my shoulders, th