Semua Bab RECLAIMING MY LIFE FROM THE UNTOUCHABLE CEO : Bab 101 - Bab 110

Hazel's POV "It is addressed to you," Julian said, studying the elegant envelope with visible confusion. "Hazel, this is from your old university."I took the letter carefully, my hands trembling slightly as I recognized the university seal pressed into the wax, the same institution where I had rebuilt my entire life years earlier under my maiden name."Open it," Mara urged gently, having stayed later than planned to help settle Grace back into her nightly routine.I broke the seal carefully, scanning the elegant script inside, my breath catching sharply as the words settled fully into meaning."Julian," I whispered, tears filling my eyes rapidly. "They are offering me a position. Visiting professor, specializing in art theory and conflict resolution. They want me to return, even briefly, to teach the program that saved my life."Julian's expression shifted through surprise, pride, and something more complicated, a flicker of old fear quickly smoothed over by genuine happiness for me

Hazel's POV"How does a stranger already know what to call me," I whispered, staring at the screen until the letters blurred, my pulse loud enough to drown out the rain against the glass.Julian took the phone gently from my hand, his jaw tightening as he read the message twice before setting it face down on the table between us. The clock on the mantel ticked louder than it should have, filling the silence neither of us seemed ready to break."We agreed," he said quietly. "Tomorrow.""That was before it happened twice," I said. "Julian, nobody outside the university board knows about the offer yet. Nobody except us, and whoever sent that.""Diane will trace it," he said. "By morning we will know exactly who is testing us.""Testing us," I repeated. "Is that what this is? A test?"He did not answer right away, and the silence told me more than words would have. I set my hand over his, feeling how cold his fingers had gone despite the warm room around us. Outside, the storm pressed har

Hazel's POV"Say it was a mistake," I said, my voice shaking before Julian had even finished reading the unsealed file Diane had couriered to the house that morning. "Tell me this is wrong."Julian did not look up from the pages. "I cannot tell you that, Hazel. I wish I could.""A second passenger," I said. "Five years, and nobody thought to mention there was a second passenger in the car that hit me. Five years of birthdays and anniversaries and quiet dinners, and this whole time there was a piece of that night neither of us actually understood.""The report was buried before I ever saw it," Julian said. "I paid to keep my name out of the papers that week. I never asked what else got buried alongside it. I was so focused on protecting you from the headlines that I never once considered what I might be missing."I paced the length of the study, my arms wrapped tightly around myself, the old ache in my leg flaring the way it always did when fear crept back into my body uninvited. I rem

Hazel's POV"Get away from the window," Julian said sharply, already moving between me and the glass before I fully understood what I was looking at, the sleek black car idling at the edge of our driveway like a held breath."Who is it," I asked, my heart pounding against my ribs, every instinct in my body suddenly alert to danger."I do not know yet," he said. "Stay here with the children. I mean it, Hazel.""I am not hiding upstairs while you face whoever that is alone," I said. "Not after everything we promised each other about facing things together. We agreed, Julian. No more pieces kept from each other."He hesitated only a second before nodding once, and together we watched the driver's door open slowly. A woman stepped out into the porch light, tall and composed, wrapped in an expensive coat that did nothing to soften the coldness in her expression, her heels clicking with deliberate precision against the wet stone path."Penelope," Julian said, his voice flattening into somet

(Hazel's POV)"You should not have come here without telling him," Marcus said, stepping out from behind the parked delivery van before I had even reached my own front gate, close enough that I could smell rain still clinging to his coat. "Julian does not control every part of your life, does he."My pulse spiked, but I forced my voice to stay even, the way I once forced my body through a fourth encore on a torn ligament, smiling through agony because the audience could never know what it cost me. "You called my lawyer, Marcus. You demanded a meeting. This is not me sneaking anywhere, and I would rather you not pretend otherwise.""I wanted to see you first," he said, glancing over his shoulder at the empty street behind him. "Before Diane's people script every word out of your mouth."I studied his face, searching for the resemblance to Mara that I had missed the first time we met, the same sharp cheekbones, softened in her and hardened in him, the same restless energy that seemed to