Lahat ng Kabanata ng From Rejected to Rafael's : Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 45

**Chapter 41****RAFAEL'S POV**I hadn't slept.Every time I closed my eyes she was there, Connor's arms around her, her head against his chest, her eyes closing like she trusted him enough to stop fighting. I lay in the dark and watched it again and again, the way you can't stop pressing on a bruise even when you know it will hurt.I wasn't supposed to feel like this over a girl. Not like this. Not over anyone. But Meris was never just a girl, and lying there in the dark I understood that better than I wanted to.Gael paced somewhere under my skin, restless, snarling low. ‘You let him take her. You just stood there.’I know.‘She should have come to you.’I told him that too, more than once, but the moment I said it out loud in my head, something colder answered back, something that felt less like Gael and more like the truth.‘How exactly do you want her to do that? You're Rafael Belmont. Everyone fears you. She isn't excluded. She's just been pretending to be brave enough to stand

**Chapter 43****MERIS POV**Rafael's arms were tight around me, steady in a way my own body wasn't. I felt his heartbeat against my side, quick, not as calm as his face probably looked. The hospital lights slid past overhead, one after another, and I let my eyes follow them because it was easier than thinking. My legs had stopped working somewhere back in that room. Now they just hung there, useless, while he carried me down the hallway and stopped in front of the surgery room doors.He lowered me into the waiting chair across from them, slow, careful, like he thought I might break if he moved too fast.I couldn't stop looking at those doors.My fingers twisted together in my lap. My foot wouldn't stay still. Every time someone in scrubs walked past, my whole body went rigid, waiting for it to be someone coming to tell me something, and every time it wasn't, the air went out of me a little.Rafael noticed. He always noticed. He reached over and squeezed my hand once, then got up wi

Chapter 45MERIS’S POVRafael paid anyway, and he kept quiet about it.That was what I couldn't stop thinking about.He hadn't done it because a contract forced his hand. He had done it when he could have walked away, and he hadn't even waited around to see whether I would thank him.For someone who had every reason to keep our relationship within the lines we had agreed on, Rafael had done something he didn't have to do.And suddenly, I wasn't sure what scared me more: that I might have been wrong about him, or that I was starting to believe him again. “I didn't do it so you would thank me.”Rafael tilted his head, and one corner of his mouth lifted.“Besides, you already thanked me. You hugged me first. Remember?” Heat rushed to my face. I looked down.I had been so overwhelmed earlier that I hadn't thought before throwing my arms around him. It felt so embarrassing thinking about it now.“Don't make it a big deal.”“I wasn't planning to.” His smile softened. “And you don't have to