All Chapters of The Man I Shouldn't Love : Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

Stanley’s P.O.VThe violent, suffocating panic that slammed into my chest the moment my phone lit up at the boardroom table with a message about Amy leaving was unlike anything I had ever experienced.I didn't give a damn about the multi-billion-dollar merger contract Hector had just slid across the table. I didn't care about the board members staring daggers at me, or the threat of losing my CEO seat. My entire world narrowed down to the single, terrifying text sent by my estate housekeeper.Amy was gone.My innocent, brilliant, and stubborn ward, the woman whose soft lips I had devoured in a moment of raw desire hours ago, had broken my direct lockdown and run out. Unprotected. Vulnerable. Out on an active criminal bail bond that the courts would revoke the second they realized she had fled my territory.Without a single word of explanation, I violently pushed my leather chair back, stood up, and walked straight out of the boardroom, leaving a stunned, shouting Hector behind.I didn

Stanley’s P.O.VThe doors of my private study clicked shut. Finally, the toxic drama filling the rest of the mansion was locked outside.The moment I was completely alone in the dark room, the detached, unbothered look I wore shattered. Rage exploded through my veins. I violently ripped my tie loose, tearing open the top buttons of my shirt. Walking straight to the liquor cabinet, my hands shook with an unhinged, protective rage. I poured a glass of straight scotch and downed the amber liquid in one burning swallow.Ten million dollars.Quinn’s threat in the foyer echoed through my mind like a death sentence. She had stood there with her over-priced lawyers, thrusting a civil lawsuit straight at Amy. With the power her family yielded, Quinn was capable of ruining Amy's career and her father's appointment.And why? Because Amy; my brilliant, stubborn girl—had dared to step between me and the corporate vultures trying to bleed my empire dry.I needed to come up with a way to save Amy

Stanley’s P.O.VThe second Amy stepped back from the press podium and walked toward the side exit, an overwhelming wave of raw, possessive pride crashed through my chest.I sat at the primary executive table, my large hands anchored to the mahogany, forcing my face to remain unreadable while my insides completely melted. I was utterly whipped by her. Her brilliant mind had just thrown a massive, unexploded grenade right into the center of the ballroom. By publicly welcoming an investigation on live national TV, she hadn't broken her bail conditions, and she hadn't refused to cooperate. Instead, she had used the national media to legally invite the government into the affairs at the Pearson mansion.Across the room, Quinn’s lawyers stood frozen in shock, their tablets trembling. Quinn herself was shaking beneath her white lace dress, her jaw tightly clenched in a feral, unspoken rage. She realized she couldn't execute the ten-million-dollar civil lawsuit without triggering a public cou

Amy’s P.O.VMy mind was completely blank.I froze against the hard edge of the mahogany desk, my hands still gripping the sides of my legal notepad as the sheer, suffocating weight of Stanley's touch completely paralyzed my senses. His large, warm hand was firmly cupping my jaw, his thumb smoothing over the trembling line of my chin. He was towering over me in the dim amber light of the study, his breathing ragged and shallow, his piercing gray eyes turned entirely pitch-black with a raw, repressed longing.He kissed me again.It wasn't a rushed mistake like the hospital room. This was a deliberate, breathless collision right in the center of his dark fortress, down the hallway from a sleeping Quinn. Every single boundary we had built over the last three years—the guardian contract, the twenty-nine-year age gap, my promise to my father in Tokyo—had just been reduced to absolute ash.Slowly, with a heavy, agonizing effort that made his chest heave beneath his unbuttoned white shirt, St