บททั้งหมดของ WHERE SIN FEELS LIKE HOME: บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE : Daughter's Friend~Zella's POV~The question hung in the room for exactly one second before I wanted to physically remove it from existence."Actually..." I said. "Never mind. That's not, I came to ask about the bathroom products."Evander looked at me."The products," I said. "In the bathroom. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to use them or if they were just there for..." I stopped. "Can I use them?"He looked at me for another second. Then something happened at the corner of his mouth.He smiled.Not the almost-smile. Not the corner-of-the-mouth movement. An actual smile, brief and warm, the kind that appeared occasionally and without warning and did something to the inside of my chest that I had absolutely no framework for managing."Everything in that flat is yours," he said. "Use whatever you want.""Why."The smile stayed. "Why else. Because I want you t

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE : One Dinner~Zella's POV~I woke up thinking about the invitation.Not obsessing. Not lying there with my heart doing things. Just... thinking. The way you think about something that should be simple and isn't quite.*Nice to meet you. The view from the east ridge is better than this one if you want to see it sometime.*Callum. Easy smile. Local knowledge. Nothing complicated about him. That was the point of him, apparently, nothing complicated. And yet here I was at seven in the morning turning it over like it required analysis.I got up. Made tea. Stood at the window with my hands around the mug.The penthouse lights next door were off.I looked at the hills instead.---Brynn called at nine like she had radar."Tell me everything," she said, before I'd finished saying hello."Good morning to you too.""Good morning. Tell me everything."I sat on the sofa. "There's nothing to tell.""You texted me last night that you met someone.""I met someone on a walk. A lo

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE : First Day~`Zella's POV~He opened the door before I knocked.Like he had heard me coming through the gate or had been watching from somewhere. He stepped back to let me in and I walked past him into the warmth of the main house and he closed the door behind us."Brynn called me," he said.I turned around. "What?""Twenty minutes ago." He crossed to the kitchen, unhurried. "She called to inform me that I was not to give you work materials over the weekend, that you needed time to settle before Monday and that she was holding me personally responsible for your stress levels."I stared at him. "She called you.""She called me." He put the kettle on. "She had quite a lot to say.""I told her you weren't the problem.""She disagreed." He looked at me over his shoulder. "She has strong opinions about how I run things.""She has strong opinions about everything."

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN : Tomatoes~Zella's POV~Turns out being Evander's estate manager meant seeing Evander constantly.I had not fully thought this through.Every file needed his sign-off. Every decision above a certain threshold went through him. Every contractor query that Sienna hadn't covered in the handover and there were several required a conversation with the man himself. By noon on my first day I had been in and out of his office three times and my face had been doing the tomato thing for approximately four hours straight.Sienna noticed on the fourth trip.She fell into step beside me in the corridor, file under her arm, reading something on her phone, and without looking up said... "Are you okay?""Fine." I kept walking."You go red every time you're about to go in there." She glanced at me sideways. "Cheeks, neck, the whole thing.""It's warm in this building.""It's January in Scotland.""I run hot."She stopped walking. I stopped too."Don't be scared of him," she sa

Chapter 39: Waiting~ Zella Pov ~I went back to my desk.Not immediately. I stood in the hallway for approximately forty-five seconds, letting my breathing return to something resembling normal, letting my body stop doing the things it had been doing, letting my mind catch up to the fact that I had just been told I belonged to someone and had found the thought entirely too appealing.Then I straightened my dress. Checked my reflection in the glass of a dark window. Looked vaguely professional. Opened the office door and walked back in like I'd been checking emails instead of having my entire internal structure reorganized by a man who hadn't even needed to touch me to do it.Sienna was waiting with the file still under her arm, her expression perfectly neutral, the specific professionalism of someone who had worked in this environment long enough to hear nothing and see nothing and certainly not notice that my blouse was half-buttoned or that I was moving like someone who had just be