Todos os capítulos de My Abusive Ex Watched Me Marry His Stepbrother: Capítulo 61 - Capítulo 70

KYLE'S POVThe drizzle turned into a steady downpour within seconds, the kind of sudden, heavy rain that the city produced without warning. Fat drops hit the pavement and bounced, soaking through Lara's blazer, plastering her hair to her face, turning the sidewalk into a river that swallowed her heels with every step.I got in my car and pulled alongside her, rolling down the passenger window."Get in the car, Lara. You're being ridiculous.""I'd rather be ridiculous and wet than dry and controlled." She kept walking, her arms wrapped around her body, her teeth beginning to chatter."This isn't about control. This is about you catching pneumonia on a suburban sidewalk because you're too stubborn to accept a ride from someone who just saved you from an ambush.""You didn't save me. I was handling it.""You were surrounded by three women screaming insults at you while filming it for the internet. That's not handling it.""Better than being tracked by GPS and dragged out of taxis." She t

I carried her to the car. She weighed nothing, far less than she should have, and the realization hit me with sickening clarity. She had not been eating. The weight loss I noticed weeks ago had continued, accelerated by stress and grief and the war I helped wage against her peace.Marcus drove while I held her in the backseat, her head resting against my chest, her wet hair soaking through my shirt. I pressed my hand against her forehead. Hot. Too hot.Dr. Patel arrived at the penthouse twenty minutes after we did. I had carried Lara to the guest room, changed her out of the wet clothes with my eyes averted as much as humanly possible, though the glimpses of her bare skin that I caught made my chest tighten with a tenderness so fierce it almost hurt.I wrapped her in blankets and sat beside the bed until the doctor arrived.Dr. Patel examined her for fifteen minutes. Checked her vitals, her temperature, her blood pressure. When she finished, she turned to me with the particular expres

"You know now. But you didn't think about it before you walked out the door because you were angry and hurt and running on nothing but adrenaline.""I was running on something more than adrenaline." I looked at him. "I was running on the need to stop being a victim. To stop letting Maxton and Sarah control the narrative while I hide in a penthouse waiting for lawyers to fix my life.""I understand that." Kyle's voice was quiet now, almost tender, and the sound of it did things to my chest that I was too exhausted to fight. "Your anger is justified, Lara. Everything they've done to you, the abuse, the gaslighting, the media manipulation, you have every right to want revenge.""Then why are you stopping me?""Because Maxton wants you angry. He wants you impulsive. He wants you to make decisions based on emotion instead of strategy because emotional decisions create evidence he can use against you." Kyle leaned forward, and his dark eyes held mine with an intensity that made the air betw

"You're right. It was." He held my gaze without flinching. "But I still need to know you're safe. Not because of the contract. Because today when Marcus called and told me those women had you surrounded, and then when you collapsed in the rain, I realized that losing you would cost me something money can't replace."The words landed on my chest like warm hands pressing against cold skin. I wanted to push them away, wanted to dismiss them as another calculated move in the chess game he played with everyone around him.But his eyes were open. Unguarded. The Kyle Morrison who built walls around his emotions like fortresses had left the drawbridge down, and what I saw inside was not strategy or calculation.It was a man who was afraid of losing something he did not know how to hold."I don't want to be controlled anymore," I whispered. "By anyone. Not Maxton, not you, not a contract. I spent months living under someone's thumb, measuring my steps, timing my m

"Your body knew." He pulled me gently, just enough to turn me back toward him. Water dripped from his hand onto my skin, warm trails running down my arm. "You've been tossing in that bed for an hour, Lara. I could feel the heat coming off you from three feet away.""That's not what was happening.""No?" He stepped closer, and the steam wrapped around both of us, warm and thick and smelling like his soap. "Then why are you standing in my bathroom at two in the morning wearing nothing but a t shirt and a blush that goes all the way down to your chest?"My face burned. He was right about the blush. I could feel it spreading across my skin like warm paint, crawling down my neck toward the neckline of the oversized shirt I had been sleeping in."I was going to take a cold shower," I whispered, and even I could hear how pathetic the excuse sounded."Cold showers are overrated." His free hand came up and brushed a strand of hair from my face. His wet fingers left a trail of warmth across my