جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 8

The second Nadia stepped out of the hotel, the cold bit straight through her scarf. She paused at the top step, her boots planted in place as she tried to make sense of the mess in her head.Calling it bad luck felt ridiculous. She had shown up to her best friend's wedding looking for a night of celebration, only to walk away with a permanent, life-altering mistake she couldn't undo or hand back. One blurry night. One stranger who couldn't read room numbers. One morning she already knew she wouldn't be forgetting anytime soon.*I'm twenty-four,* she reminded herself, giving her shoulders a sharp, internal pull. An adult. It was a horrific, absurd oversight, and she was going to bury it, move on, and never speak of it again.She stepped onto the pavement and started walking.She had barely cleared half a block when the massive electronic billboard towering over the square flared to life. Nadia tried to keep her eyes glued to the pavement, but a sudden surge of noise from the crowd made

Nadia stumbled back two steps before she managed to catch her balance.The car window was already gliding down smooth and silent. She froze on the pavement because, out of all the black Bentleys in the city, of course it had to be his.Caiden barely glanced her way before his attention shifted to Cullen, who was already pushing the passenger door open with the eager energy of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment."Get out," Caiden said flatly.Cullen stepped onto the pavement and swept his arm toward the open rear door with a theatrical bow. "Miss Verne. My brother would like a word."Nadia didn't budge. She looked right past Cullen, eyeing the shadowy interior of the car. "About what, exactly?""My studies," Cullen replied, flashing the distinct smile of someone who knew he wasn't being convincing but had decided to lean into it anyway.She let out a slow, controlled breath. Academics. Fine. That was a subject she could actually handle without her pulse doing whatever

Nadia didn't breathe. She didn't move. She just stood frozen in the entryway with the overturned bin clattering at her feet, the suffocating silence pressing in from every corner of the room while one humiliating realization kept looping through her mind.This was the second time.The second time she had walked straight into a room that didn't belong to her. The second time she'd caught herself standing somewhere she absolutely shouldn't be, with no logical explanation and no clean exit. The first time, it had been a strange hotel room with a man she didn't know. This time, it was his apartment, and she recognized the deep voice echoing through the wall with terrifying clarity.The sudden sound of heavy footsteps tracking down the hallway broke the standstill.Cullen appeared first. His shirt was untucked, his hair disheveled, looking exactly like someone who had been dragged out of bed mid-sentence. He skidded to a halt the moment he saw her, his eyes dropping to the mess on the floo

The campus library was, in fact, perfectly open on Wednesday.Nadia arrived first, setting up at the corner table she had secretly started to think of as theirs. She had her notes and reference sheets neatly organized before Cullen strolled through the double doors at exactly the agreed time, wearing the proud expression of a student who had absolutely completed all his assigned reading.He had not done the reading.She knew this the moment she handed him a brief comprehension quiz to kick off the session. The answers he produced over the next ten minutes had the distinct, shaky quality of someone working entirely from a skimmed online summary rather than the actual text. Close, but entirely missing the mark.Nadia tapped her pen against the desk. "Did you actually read the chapter, or did you just memorize a synopsis?"Cullen looked up from his paper, totally unbothered. "The chapter.""The entire chapter?""The whole thing," he confirmed, with the absolute confidence of a man who ha