All Chapters of Scent of Obsession : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Chapter 31; PartyThe flash of cameras hit her the moment they stepped out of the car.Liora blinked hard against the blinding lights. Paparazzi shouted Damien’s name, then hers, voices overlapping in a chaotic blur. For a second the world tilted. She felt small. Out of place. The emerald green dress suddenly felt like a costume she had borrowed.This was his world. Not hers.Damien’s hand settled firmly on her lower back, warm and steady through the silk. He leaned in close, his voice low against her ear.“Hey. I’ve got you.”The touch grounded her. She leaned into it without thinking, letting his presence push back the dizziness. He guided her forward through the entrance of the luxurious hotel, past the flashing lights and into the grand ballroom.Inside, it was another level entirely. Crystal chandeliers, women in gowns that probably cost more than a year of her old rent, men who carried power like it was casual cologne. She had never imagined standing among these people. Not as o

Chapter 33: DecidedDamien's POVForty minutes.He kept coming back to that number.Liora sat against him, forehead at his shoulder, fingers twisted in his shirt. Her breathing had changed in the last ten minutes. Shallower. Uneven. The flush at her throat had crept to her collarbone and her grip on his shirt had gone tight in a way that had nothing to do with fear.He knew the difference.He had catalogued her for three months. Every version of her. He knew this one too.She was fighting it.The drug was doing what it was designed to do and Liora Kane was gritting her teeth against her own body with the discipline of a woman who despised losing control. Her lips were parted slightly. Every exhale came out fractured.His jaw tightened.She shifted against him. A small, involuntary movement. Her thighs pressing together.His hand at her waist tightened before he decided to let it."Damien." Her voice came out low. Strained at the edges.Not careful. Not deferential.Like she was allowe

Chapter 35: UndoneLiora's POVThe penthouse was quiet.She hadn't turned on many lights. Just the lamp by the window and the low glow from the city coming through the glass. She sat on the couch with her legs tucked under her and her phone face down on the cushion beside her and her wine untouched on the table.It had taken Elias two hours to calm down.Two hours of him pacing their apartment asking questions she answered carefully and watching her face with the typical attention of a brother who knew her inside out, and she'd smiled and deflected and reassured until he'd finally let it go. She was fine. The champagne had been spiked and Damien had handled it and she was fine.He'd believed her.Or he'd decided to believe her.She stared at the city.Now she was here and alone with her thoughts, weather it was a blessing or a curse, she couldnt decide.The gala kept coming back in pieces.Raymond's face near the pillar. The familiar smile of his, of a man who thought he still owned s

Chapter 37: Lines Blurred Damien's POVShe was in the kitchen when he got back.He heard her before he saw her. The clink of a mug. The coffee machine finishing. Then she walked out and nearly ran into him and stopped with the mug in both hands and her hair still down from last night and her eyes doing the thing they did when she was caught off guard and didn't want to show it.They looked at each other."You're back," she said."Meeting ran long."She nodded and moved past him toward the couch and he watched her go and said nothing and loosened his tie and dropped his jacket on the chair and stayed standing because the room felt smaller than usual and he couldn't work out why.He could work out why.He just wasn't ready to name it yet.She sat with her knees pulled up and her coffee and her eyes on the city and he looked at her profile and thought about sixty two pages and a paper title and three years and a private lab and the blanket that had started all of this sitting in the bac

Chapter 39: AsymmetryDamien's POVShe was already awake when he opened his eyes.He knew before he looked. Her breathing had that quality, shallow and irregular, the specific rhythm of someone lying still and thinking hard. He'd learned the difference between her sleeping and her pretending to sleep in the second week and she was definitely pretending.He looked at the ceiling.Let her pretend.Outside the city was doing its early grey thing, that twenty minute window before the sun committed to anything, and the room was warm and dark and her hand was on his arm the way it ended up every night without either of them deciding that was where it went.He thought about Reeves.About six to eight weeks.About three months.He thought about the anger, still there, small and cold and patient, and the thing underneath the anger that was considerably less patient and had been getting less patient since approximately the third week when she'd turned to face him in the morning for the first ti