บททั้งหมดของ NEVER YOURS TO LOSE : บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

"I want a divorce."Stellan did not look up from his phone when he said it.He was seated at the head of the breakfast table, jacket already on, coffee untouched, the morning light cutting a clean line across the marble surface between them. Three words. Delivered the way he might dictate a memo to his assistant. Flat. Certain. Final.Corinna's hands stilled over the stove.She did not turn around immediately. She needed a moment — just one — to make sure her face was ready. To make sure the thing cracking open inside her chest did not reach her eyes before she was prepared for him to see it.She turned the burner off. Set the wooden spoon down. Smoothed the front of her dress with both palms even though it did not need smoothing.Then she turned around.Stellan was typing something. Still not looking at her."Did you hear me?" he said."I heard you."Her voice came out steady. She was quietly grateful for that.He looked up then — those pale grey eyes finding her face with the same e

The papers arrived on a Thursday.Stellan's lawyer was efficient. The documents were clean, precisely worded, and delivered to Corinna's new office by courier at exactly ten in the morning. No personal note. No phone call. Just a sealed envelope with the Rhys Capital legal team's letterhead pressed into the corner like a stamp of finality.Corinna's assistant set it on her desk without a word.She finished the call she was on. Signed off on the Northaven amendment her team had been waiting for. Poured herself a glass of water. Then she sat down, broke the seal, and read through every page with the same focused attention she gave contract proposals.It was generous. Unreasonably so.The apartment. A settlement figure that made her jaw want to tighten. A clause releasing her from any claim on Rhys Capital assets — as though she had ever wanted them.She understood what it was. It was guilt dressed as generosity. A man paying a price he had set himself because it was easier than sitting

The Meridian Industry Forum arrived on a Tuesday.The kind of Tuesday that felt like it had been building toward something — cool morning air, a sky that could not decide between grey and blue, the city moving with a particular sharpness that came with the start of something significant.Corinna arrived at seven forty-five.The forum did not begin until nine. She knew that. She had come early deliberately — not out of nerves but out of the particular discipline she had relearned over the past three weeks. Preparation was not anxiety. Preparation was respect for what you were walking into.She stood at the registration desk in a deep navy suit that her mother had said nothing about and therefore approved of completely. Her hair was up. Her heels were the kind that announced each step without apology. She collected her lanyard, exchanged brief pleasantries with the event coordinator, and walked into the main hall with the unhurried ease of a woman who had spent three years learning to b

He was already outside when she arrived.Not at the entrance — further back, leaning against the building's stone pillar with his jacket open and his tie loosened and his eyes on her the moment her car turned into the street. Like he had been watching for her specifically, and had been standing there long enough to get cold and had decided not to care.Corinna stepped out of the car and the night air hit her all at once.She had changed out of the charcoal suit. She didn't examine why.Stellan pushed off the pillar and walked toward her and stopped two feet away — close enough that she could see the exact quality of his expression. Not the boardroom composure. Not the careful distance she had spent three years navigating. Something rawer than that. Something that looked, uncomfortably, like a man who had been thinking very hard and hadn't reached a comfortable conclusion."You said tonight," he said."I did.""You didn't say where.""You found me anyway."A pause. His jaw shifted slig

Stellan was already on his feet before Corinna could react.He turned the phone over, face down, like hiding the photograph would undo the fact that someone had been standing outside that window four minutes ago watching both of them through the glass. His jaw was tight. His eyes moved to the window immediately — scanning the street beyond it with the focused attention of a man running calculations he didn't want to be running."They're gone," Corinna said quietly. She hadn't moved from her chair. "If they wanted us to see that photo, they're already gone.""You don't know that.""I know Roland." She picked up her water glass and took a slow, deliberate sip. Not because she was calm — because she had learned, a long time ago, that the most dangerous thing you could do when someone was trying to frighten you was let them see it working. "He doesn't confront. He observes. He collects. He wants us rattled and second-guessing every move we make." She set the glass down. "So we're not goin