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Todos los capítulos de Scent of Obsession : Capítulo 71 - Capítulo 80

114 Capítulos

Chapter 66: The Bookstore

Chapter 66: The BookstoreDamien's POVHe went to the east side on Wednesday morning.Not because he'd planned to. Or not consciously. he'd told cole to take the day off and had decided to take the car for a drive to clear his mind and before he knew it, he had pulled into traffic heading east instead of north where the office was.He didn't correct it.The report had been sitting in his phone since Monday evening. He'd read it three times. The academic background. The published papers. The lab registration. The timeline that kept sitting in his chest with a weight he couldn't put down cleanly.Three years of research.Same year his insomnia resolved.This could be nothing but a coincidence but he wasn't sure.He looked at the city.The building were exactly what the report described.Unremarkable. Residential facade on a street that had three coffee shops and a dry cleaner and a florist doing morning setup with buckets of flowers on the pavement. Third floor. The lab he couldn't see

Chapter 67: Ten AM

Chapter 67: Ten AMLiora's POVShe arrived at nine forty three.Seventeen minutes early.She stood outside the small meeting room and looked at the frosted glass panel and thought about the seventeen minutes and what they said about how well the not being nervous was going.She opened the door.He was already there.Two coffees on the table. The city through the window. No conference table this time. Just a small round table and two chairs and nothing between them except the coffees and the files she was carrying and the specific charged atmosphere that was always there between them.He looked up.She looked at him."You're early," she said."So are you," he said.She sat down.He watched her sit.She opened her files."The methodology framework," she said. "You mentioned wanting to understand the compound isolation process more thoroughly.""Yes," he said. "Walk me through it."She turned to the relevant page.Slid the file across the table toward him.He leaned forward to look at it

Chapter 68: The Call

Chapter 68: The CallLiora's POVShe called Nina back at six.Zara was in the living room conducting what appeared to be a very serious meeting between Gerald the rabbit and three other stuffed animals she'd arranged in a circle on the floor. There was a sock involved. Liora had stopped trying to understand the sock.She went to the kitchen.Closed the door halfway.Called Nina.It rang once."FINALLY," Nina said. "I've been sitting on this since this morning do you know what that does to a person""I was in a meeting," Liora said."All day.""Most of it.""With him?""Nina.""Was the meeting with him."Liora looked at the kitchen window. "It was a project meeting. There were files.""There were FILES," Nina repeated. Like this was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "Okay. Files. Very professional. How did he look.""Like a person.""Liora Rose Kane.""He looked fine Nina.""Fine." A pause. "The man walked into my bookstore on a Wednesday morning, stood in the fiction section for fo

Cuhapter 69: Grey Eyes

Chapter 69: Grey Eyes Damien's POV He wasn't supposed to be on that floor. The Voss Industries meeting had been on the second floor. Conference room B. Forty minutes about grant allocation and quarterly reporting that Henderson could have handled and had offered to handle and Damien had said no to because he'd wanted to be in the building. He hadn't examined that too closely. The meeting ended at eleven. He took the stairs instead of the elevator. Third floor. He told himself it was because the elevator was slow in this building which was true and not the reason. The corridor was quiet. Most of the labs had their doors closed. The focused hush of a floor full of reseaerchers doing work that required concentration. Her lab was at the end. He knew which one it was. He'd looked at the institute floor plan in the car on the way over. He hadn't examined that too closely either. The door was open. He slowed before he reached it. Could hear something. Music fa

Chapter 70: Back to the Bookstore

Chapter 70: Back to the Bookstore Hale's POV He sent the file at two fourteen PM. Just the basics. Name. Date of birth. Mother. Father listed as unknown which was the most dishonest honest thing he'd ever put in a document because unknown was technically accurate and practically the furthest thing from it. He closed his laptop. Sat at his desk. Looked at the city. He'd been doing this for thirty years which wasn't actually true because he was thirty one and had started at twenty three but it felt like thirty years. This was costing him something. He pushed his glasses up. Looked at the closed laptop. Thought about Liora Kane in a lab on the third floor of an institute not knowing this was happening. Thought about Margaret Voss who had told him to use his judgment and whose judgment he had now definitively not used. He stood up. Put his jacket on. Left the office. He walked. That was the thing about information work. When something sat badly you couldn't think it thro

Chapter 71: Mathematics

Chapter 71: MathematicsDamien's POV He read the file three times. Not because he didn't understand it the first time. He understood it perfectly the first time. He read it three times because understanding something and accepting it were different processes and he was still in the middle of the second one. Name. Zara Kane. Date of birth.xx/xx/xxxx Father. Unknown. He looked at the date of birth. Did the mathematics. Looked at the city. Did them again. Arrived at the same place. He put his phone face down on the desk. Sat back in his chair. The office was empty. His assistant had gone home at six. The building had that specific quality it got after seven, the ventilation system louder than usual, the city outside more visible without the daytime activity competing with it. He looked at the desk. At the phone face down on it. Thought about grey eyes in a doorway. About the thing in his chest that had been loud since the corridor and hadn't gotten quieter since. He tho

Chapter 72: The yellow dress

Chapter 72: Zara Liora's POV Friday morning started with a negotiation. Zara wanted to wear her yellow dress to the institute. The yellow dress had a tutu bottom and over forty plus buttons and was designed for birthday parties not research labs and Liora had explained this twice already while Zara stood in front of the mirror in the yellow dress looking at her own reflection with the expression of someone who had heard the explanation and was choosing not to be moved by it. "It has buttons," Zara said. Like this settled it. "It has forty seven buttons," Liora said. "And a tutu." "I like the tutu." "I know you like the tutu." "Gerald likes the tutu." Liora looked at Gerald sitting on the bed. His button eyes offered no useful opinion on the tutu. "Zara," she said. "We're going to a science lab. You need clothes you can move in." Zara turned from the mirror. Looked at her mother. At the jeans and the institute shirt Liora was wearing. "You're not wearing a tutu," she sai

Chapter 73: Neutral Ground??

Chapter 73: Neutral Ground?? Liora's POV The coffee place was three blocks from the institute. Small. Unpretentious. Fifteen years on the same corner with the same regulars in the same seats ordering the same things. She'd suggested it because it was nothing like anywhere Damien Voss would normally be. No conference rooms. No professional buffer. Just coffee and a table and whatever was coming. He was already there. Dark suit acket. Collar open. The jaw set in a way she recognized and had spent four years trying to stop recognizing. He stood when she came in. She sat without acknowledging that. The waitress came. They ordered. The waitress left. He looked at her across the table. She looked back. "Thank you for coming," he said. "It wasn't really optional." Something moved through his expression. "I need to ask you something," he said. "I assumed," she said. He held her gaze. "The man," he said. "Ashford. From your team." She blinked, it took he

Chapter 74: The Weight of Knowing

Chapter 74: The Weight of KnowingDamien's POVHe walked back to the office.The city moved around him.Indifferent. Continuous.He thought about grey eyes.About the maths,About a file with father listed as unknown.He thought about Liam.About the hand at the small of her back.About the coffee every morning.About the easy comfortable certainty of a man who had decided his welcome in her space was established.The cold nameless thing moved through him again.He walked faster.It didn't help.He sat at his desk.Looked at the files opened on his screen from this morning that he hadn't finished reading before Hale's file had arrived and reorganized his entire morning.He read the first line.Read it again.Closed it.Looked at the city.He was a man who dealt in certainty.He made decisions from complete information and executed them cleanly and didn't revisit them once made. That was how he'd run his company for years and how he'd run his life for considerably longer than that.He

Chapter 75: The Line

Chapter 75: The LineLiora's POVMonday started normally.She was at her bench by eight thirty. Liam came in at nine with two coffees and with the easy smile and his signature bed hair she took the coffee because she always took the coffee and they talked about the project timeline for twenty minutes with the professional ease that had always characterized them and she forced herself to not think about Demien.By eleven she had results worth documenting.She pulled up her research notes on her laptop.Typed steadily.At eleven forty she needed the secondary compound analysis from the folder on the far end of the bench.She stood up.Crossed to the door."I'll be back in ten," she said. "I need to pull something from the archive room."Liam looked up from his own bench."I'll be here," he said. Easy. Comfortable. She went to the archive room.Found what she needed.Came back in eight minutes.The lab looked the same.Liam was at his bench.Same position.Same easy posture.She cro

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