CHAPTER 41.

ISLA'S POV A week had passed since the dinner at the Blackthorne estate, and somehow, working in the same office as Dare, I hadn't seen him once. Not in the corridors. Not near the lifts. Not even the flicker of his shadow through the glass walls of his office, which had stayed dark and empty every time I passed it, blinds drawn like he'd vanished entirely from a building he owned. I told myself it was a relief. Most days, I almost believed it. The wedding was in one week now, and the list of things I still needed felt endless — shoes, undergarments for the gown Irena had insisted on having custom-altered, a hundred small errands that made the whole thing feel suffocatingly real every time I checked one off. "You've been quiet all morning," Thea said, looping her arm through mine as we crossed the busy shopping street, bags already swinging from her other hand. "More quiet than usual, I mean. Even for wedding-dread quiet."

CHAPTER 42.

ISLA'S POVI didn't sleep well after the boutique incident. I kept replaying it — Serena's voice, Dare's silence, the way he'd thrown my own words back at me like a shield he was grateful to finally have. 'You told me to stay out of your business.' He wasn't wrong. That was the worst part. I'd handed him the exact sentence he needed to justify doing nothing, and now I didn't know who to be angry at more — him, for using it, or myself, for giving it to him in the first place.By Monday, the wedding was six days away, and the office had become a minefield I had no choice but to keep walking through."Conference room, in ten minutes," Dare's assistant informed me flatly, not looking up from her screen. "Mr. Blackthorne wants you there for the Voss follow-up."I nearly asked which Mr. Blackthorne, since apparently half my week now involved being summoned by one or the other, but I already knew. Dare had taken to requesting my presence in meetings that

CHAPTER 43.

DARE'S POV"The marquee goes on the east lawn," Irena was saying, spreading a folder of vendor photographs across the drawing room table like she was planning a coronation rather than an engagement dinner. "White and gold, obviously. I won't have anything that clashes with the family colors.""It's an engagement party, not a state visit," I muttered, though nobody at the table seemed inclined to agree with me."It's the finalization of my nephew's future," Irena corrected, not even glancing up. "There's a difference, Darian, and I'd appreciate you treating it with the appropriate weight."Victor sat at the head of the table, reviewing a guest list with the same focus he usually reserved for acquisition terms, occasionally striking a name with his pen and murmuring something to Julian, who sat beside him nodding along with practiced enthusiasm."The Ashworths should be seated near the front," Julian said, tapping the page. "Their fami

Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 41 - Chapitre 43

CHAPTER 41.

CHAPTER 42.

CHAPTER 43.