Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 191 - Chapitre 200

Scarlett POVLiving in a city of steel and concrete left little room for actual nature.Delaney’s itinerary in hand, I ended up in J City.This wasn’t some three-day tourist sprint.I was staying for a full month.For convenience and safety, I booked a suite in a downtown five-star hotel and rented a car so I could go wherever the hell I wanted whenever I wanted.Nobody here knew my name.No grind, no drama, no people I actively wanted to avoid.For the first time in what felt like forever, my shoulders actually dropped.The ease was something a city had never given me.Even that stretch in H Country hadn’t come close; e.g., back then I’d talked Allen into going for his advanced program, tagged along to look after him, and still handled work remotely. It was never an actual break.I was genuinely happy here.Gary Hirsch noticed I was gone from A City pretty fast.He showed up on the executive floor of Great Vision, saw my desk empty and everything stacked neatly like I’d cleaned out m

Ryan POVThe girl looked up at me with an apologetic smile that was pure sunshine and mild panic.“I’m so sorry, really. Your clothes… are they okay? I can grab some napkins, or I can Venmo you for dry cleaning?”“Don’t worry about it. Go eat.”I could tell from one glance she wasn’t rolling in cash.No point in making her feel worse.I had closets full of shirts, and the hotel offered free laundry service anyway.But the second she offered to send money, something shifted in my head.Was that her way of fishing for my number?“Okay. Thanks. Seriously, I’m truly sorry.”She still looked guilty as hell.She’d caught my attention, though.While I ate, I kept stealing glances. She never once looked back.Fully locked in on her plate, focused as if the rest of the room didn’t exist.Sending money didn’t require adding someone on WhatsApp; she could’ve just pulled up a payment code.Whether she was calculating or not didn’t actually matter.I wouldn’t be in J City longer than a week.And m

Thomas POVI hung up with Natalie Brooks and just sat there for a long minute, staring at the dark windows of my office like the night outside might give me answers.My nephew. Gary. Twenty-something and somehow pissing off both Scarlett and Jaxen Hale at the same time.That took talent.Or a death wish.Natalie had laid it out clean; Scarlett wanted nothing to do with him, and Jaxen’s wolf was already showing teeth over the whole mess.Which told me Gary wasn’t just being a little shit.He was being a dangerous little shit.Priority was simple: keep him the hell away from Scarlett.But the second thing wouldn’t leave me alone. Scarlett didn’t like the kid. Not even a little.The odds of those two ending up in any kind of relationship were lower than a desert creek in August.Jaxen had to know that. Scarlett was his ex-wife, for Christ’s sake.His childh

Scarlett POVThat flight attendant was lying through her teeth.What the hell did she want? What was she hiding?I didn’t stick around to find out.The second the plane doors opened, I was off, weaving through the terminal like my life depended on it, straight to baggage claim.Ryan was already there, leaning against a pillar, phone in one hand, waiting for his bag.He spotted me, and his eyebrow twitched up, half-amused, half-warning. “You keep your guard up?”No one else was close enough to hear. He was talking to me."Always," I shot back.Not everyone out there is a saint.Some people smile while they size you up for the kill. You learn that the hard way, or you don’t learn it at all.I opened my mouth to thank him, but he was already gone, bag in hand, cutting through the crowd like he had somewhere else to be.Fine by me. This airport already felt wrong,

Ryan POVThe girl on the next balcony was basically screaming at the ocean.I scratched the back of my neck, feeling secondhand embarrassment creep up my spine.I wasn't here to listen to some stranger's emotional breakdown.I was here to make sure the crew wasn't slacking and that the ship's facilities were actually up to code.I turned away from the railing and headed back inside, almost running into Jack Louise, the floor manager.He'd just wrapped up his chat with the head of guest services and fell into step beside me, all crisp professionalism.“Mr. Parker, it's lunchtime. If you're hungry, I can take you to the dining room.”“Yeah. Let's do that.”Jack led the way down the corridor.As we passed the room belonging to that girl, the one I'd bumped into twice now, I caug