THE CONTRACT BRIDE’S REVENGE のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 31 - チャプター 40

OLIVIA’S POV The gala was winding down the way expensive events always did. Gradually. Reluctantly. People finishing conversations they had started two hours ago, collecting coats and compliments in equal measure, the energy of the room thinning slowly like something being poured out.Marcus had said his goodbyes thirty minutes earlier. An emergency call that pulled the warmth out of his face mid laugh. He had squeezed my hand and told Jaden to take care of his wife and Jaden had said something dry in return and then Marcus was gone and the room felt slightly less easy without him in it.Jaden touched my arm lightly.“Ready to go?”“More than ready,” I said honestly.My feet had opinions about the heels again. I kept them to myself.We moved through the thinning crowd saying the goodbyes that needed to be said. Jaden’s hand at my back guiding us from one cluster to the next with the practiced ease of a man who had been closing out rooms like this for years.We found the Thompsons n

OLIVIA’S POV The house had a rhythm I was beginning to know.Not just the schedule of it. The deeper rhythm. The way it breathed differently on mornings when Jaden had early calls versus mornings when he worked from the study. The way the kitchen smelled before Clara had fully started breakfast. The specific quiet of the third floor hallway at night when everyone had gone to their rooms and the house settled into itself.I knew these things now without having tried to learn them.That realization visited me on a Tuesday morning three weeks into living here and I sat with it for a moment before getting up.I had not expected to know this house.I had expected to move through it carefully. Like a guest who understood they were temporary and behaved accordingly. But somewhere between the library and the dining table and the evenings on the terrace watching the city go dark, the house had stopped feeling like something I was being careful in.It had started feeling like somewhere I lived

OLIVIA’S POV I could not focus on the book.I had tried. I had turned twelve pages and retained nothing. The words kept dissolving before they reached anywhere meaningful, replaced immediately by the same loop of thoughts I had been running since I woke up.My father.The surgery.The specific helplessness of waiting for news you could not rush or control or fix with any amount of effort.I set the book down and looked at the library ceiling.I had thought about him every day since I moved into this house. That had not changed. But today felt different in a way I could not fully articulate. Heavier. More present. Like my body knew something my mind was still catching up to.I got up.I walked out of the library and through the ground floor and out of the front door into the compound. The afternoon air was cooler than I expected. I walked the length of the driveway slowly without purpose. Just movement. Just the simple animal relief of a body in motion when the mind needed somewhere t

OLIVIA’S POV The receptionist recognized me before I reached the desk.She looked up from her screen and her face opened with the particular warmth of someone who had been expecting you and was glad you made it. She gestured us through without requiring me to explain anything and I was more grateful for that small mercy than I could have articulated.The ward corridor smelled the same as every time I had come here. Clean and cool and carrying that specific hospital quality that I had stopped flinching at weeks ago. I know these floors now. I knew which turn led where and how many steps it took to reach my father’s room from the elevator.I had spent enough hours here to know it the way you knew places that had held something important.Jaden’s hand found my back as we walked.I registered it without reacting. It was the same hand that knew exactly where to be in rooms full of people watching. Steady and present and asking nothing.Today it felt different from a gala.Today it felt ne

OLIVIA’S POV We left the hospital at half past one.I picked up my bag and we walked to the elevator without speaking. The doors opened and we stepped in and they closed behind us I stood beside Jaden in the small mirrored space and looked at my own reflection.Red eyes. A face that had been through something and showed it. Hair still neat but carrying the particular quality of composure that had been tested for several hours and held on through effort rather than ease.I looked tired.I looked relieved.I looked like someone whose father had just come through surgery successfully and who was still processing what that meant after months of not being sure it would.I noticed my reflection smiling slightly without having decided to.Jaden was looking at his phone beside me. I caught his reflection in the elevator mirror. The controlled profile. The slight loosening around his jaw was not quite relaxation but was the version of it that he allowed himself.The doors opened at the groun