All Chapters of Contracted to him: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

I had learned something about peace. It never lasted. The week after Evangeline and I had finally begun acting like... whatever it was we were becoming... things settled into a comfortable rhythm. Too comfortable. She worked. I worked. We came home. We cooked together more often than either of us admitted we enjoyed. Sometimes we'd eat on the balcony overlooking the city. Sometimes we'd argue over whose turn it was to choose a movie. Sometimes she'd steal my hoodies. Sometimes I'd find her asleep on the couch with paperwork spread across her lap. Ordinary. It felt dangerously ordinary. And I should have known life wasn't going to allow that. Monday morning started like every other. I was halfway through a board meeting when Ethan quietly entered the conference room. He never interrupted meetings. Ever. Immediately, every instinct I possessed sharpened. He walked to my side and leaned down. "Sir." "What is it?" "It's urgent." I excused myself without another wor

I woke slowly the next morning, sunlight filtering through the heavy curtains of our honeymoon suite. My body felt different—deliciously sore in places I had never noticed before, a warm ache between my thighs that brought everything rushing back. His arm was draped heavily over my waist, his chest pressed to my back, our legs tangled beneath the silk sheets. I could feel his steady breathing against my neck, the soft rise and fall that told me he was still deep in sleep. Five years of waiting, and last night had been everything I had dreamed and more. The memory of him moving inside me, the way he had looked at me like I was the only thing in his world, sent a fresh flutter through my stomach. I shifted slightly, careful not to wake him yet, and felt the sticky evidence of our lovemaking on my inner thighs. It should have embarrassed me, but instead it filled me with a deep, possessive satisfaction. I was his wife now, in every sense. I turned in his arms, studying his face in the

I stood frozen at the door, fingers still wrapped around the cold knob. My legs refused to take another step. The hallway beyond looked endless and dark, a tunnel that would lead me straight back into the nightmare I had just escaped. My heart hammered painfully in my chest, and fresh tears burned behind my eyes.Theodore sat up slowly behind me. I could feel the shift in the bed, the quiet creak of the mattress.“What’s wrong?” he asked again, his voice low and cautious.I couldn’t answer. The words were trapped somewhere deep inside the raw ache in my throat. I just stood there, trembling, staring at the door like it was a monster waiting to devour me.He sighed — a heavy, exhausted sound that carried the weight of our entire complicated mess. The bed shifted again as he stood up. His footsteps were soft but deliberate as he walked over to me. When he gently turned me around to face him, the faint moonlight from the window caught the tears streaming silently down my face.Panic flas

-Evangeline-The days that followed felt like walking on thin ice — beautiful in moments, but constantly threatening to crack beneath our feet.Theodore kept his word. He came home earlier than usual, and when he did, he was gentler than I had ever seen him. There were no more punishments. No cold silences. Instead, he would find me wherever I was in the house and pull me into his arms without a word. Sometimes we would sit in the library together, him working on his laptop while I read, our legs tangled on the couch. Other times he would cook with me in the kitchen — or rather, he would watch me cook and try (poorly) to help, which always ended in laughter that felt foreign but healing.But the bruises on my body were still fading, and so were the ones on my heart.One evening, about a week after the nightmare, I found myself standing in front of the mirror in our bedroom again. The welts had turned to yellowish shadows, but they were still visible if I looked closely. I ran my finge

Coming home felt strange.The villa on the Amalfi Coast had been a bubble — soft light, salt air, and the kind of quiet that made it easier to believe we could heal. The moment we stepped back into the house in the city, the real world pressed in again. The familiar halls, the weight of expectations, the lingering ghosts of everything that had happened between us.Theodore carried our bags upstairs himself, refusing to let the staff take them. When we reached our bedroom — fully restored now, every broken thing replaced — he set them down and turned to me.“How does it feel being back?” he asked.I looked around the room. The bed was made with fresh linens. The scent of clean cotton and a faint trace of his cologne filled the air. It should have felt like home. Instead, it felt heavy with memory.“Different,” I admitted. “Like everything is the same, but I’m not.”He crossed the room and pulled me into his arms. I rested my head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his h