Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 31 - Chapitre 40

Arianna POV He stood in the middle of the room and looked at me like I had just spoken in a language he didn't recognise. I had expected that. I had sat in this room for hours and thought through exactly what his face would do when I stopped fighting him, and I had prepared for every version of it. The suspicion. The calculation. The way his eyes would move over me looking for the angle. I kept my face open and tired and completely readable, which was itself a performance, but the kind that was designed to look like the absence of one. He set the food down on the table and turned to me. "Where did you go?" I asked casually. He watched me for a second before he answered. "Home." I nodded. I didn't push it. He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down and looked at me the way he looked at me steadily, like things he didn't trust. "Why are you being cordial?" I looked at him. "I'm tired, Nikolai." "You were tired yesterday. You were still fighting." "I'm

Ara Pov: I shook my head, but my body betrayed me again—pushing back against him, fucking myself on his cock like I was starving for it. He reached around and found my clit, rubbing tight, merciless circles that had my knees buckling. The orgasm hit me like a freight train. I came hard, screaming his name as my pussy spasmed around him, gushing down his shaft and thighs. Waves of pleasure crashed through me, leaving me trembling and gasping. Nikolai didn’t stop. He fucked me through it, drawing out every shudder, then pulled out again. I barely registered him dragging me to the table until he bent me over it, scattering the food he’d brought earlier. Plates clattered to the floor, but neither of us cared. He spread my legs wide and drove back in, deeper than before. The table creaked under us as he set a punishing rhythm. One hand pinned my wrists above my head while the other slapped my ass—sharp, stinging smacks that only made me wetter. “Look at you,” he groaned, voice wr

ARIANNA POV There was no clock in the room.I had checked for one three times now — out of habit more than hope — and the answer was the same each time, there was nothing. Just walls and curtains that were thick enough, and me sitting in the middle of it with no phone, no Noah, no idea whether it was nine at night or two in the morning.Darkness was all I had. It was dark and Nikolai hadn't come back.I sat on the edge of the bed and turned my plan over in my head for the fourth time since he had left.I was going to soften him, get close, and let him think he was winning something. Then I'll find the gap and move through it.The problem was the part of my brain that kept interrupting the logic with other things.His hands on my waist. The wall cold against my back and him not cold at all. The way he had said ‘admit it’ with his mouth at my jaw and the word had come out like something breaking open.I pressed my palms flat on my knees.The heat that moved through me at the memory was

NIKOLAI POV:I should have kept walking.Noah was in the living room at the end of the hall, sitting in the middle of the large couch with his feet not quite reaching the floor, staring at nothing. He had a small toy car in his hand but he wasn't playing with it. He was just holding it, turning it once, turning it back, his eyes somewhere else entirely.I had a call to make. I had three calls to make, actually, and a report to read and a decision about the move tomorrow that needed to be finalized. I had things to do that were not this.I turned and walked into the living room.He saw me before I reached him. His body changed immediately — shoulders pulling in, spine straightening, the toy car going still in his hands. This was not the reaction of a child who didn't understand what was happening around him. This was the reaction of a child who understood too much of it.I stopped a few feet from the couch."Can I sit?"He looked at me, then he nodded small and careful, the nod of some

NIKOLAI POV My father showed up at nine-thirty without an appointment. That was his way of reminding me he didn’t need one.Lena buzzed me and I told her to send him in. I closed the file I’d been reading, laid my hands flat on the desk, and waited.He walked in staring at his phone, dropped into the chair across from me without waiting for an invitation, then pocketed the phone. He did his usual sweep of the office—taking inventory, checking for anything he hadn’t signed off on."The Ocean City deal," he said."Good morning to you too."He ignored that. "Kallenbrook called me yesterday and said the terms have been sitting on your desk for three weeks.""The terms needed work. I sent notes back to their legal team on Monday.""Nikolai." He looked at me steadily. "That deal should’ve closed by now. Kallenbrook isn’t a patient man, and the price we locked in won’t stay there forever.""I know what I’m doing.""Then do it faster." He shifted in the chair. "You’re distracted. I’ve been w