บททั้งหมดของ My fiance's uncle's property : บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

Julian."I didn't tell her anything."The words come out faster than I mean them to, too fast. "I only went because Harold had a crisis at the hospital.” My voice steady now “Eveline called me, and…she was scared, she didn't know who else to reach, and I went because that's what you'd expect me to do, isn't it? Show up, be useful. Be the good fiancé." My hands are still cold in my lap, and I press them flat against my knees to stop them from shaking where she can see. "Grant showed up right after I got there. I didn't even get a chance to sit down properly before he was pulling me back into the car."My mother watches me the entire time I'm talking, and I can't tell — that's the worst part. I genuinely cannot tell whether she believes a single word of it, or whether she's simply deciding how useful the lie is to let it stand."Is that so?" she says finally, and there's no warmth in it, no relief, just the flat, assessing tone she uses on contractors who've come in under budget and

Eveline.The first thing I see when my eyes open is Lucian's shoulder, bare, rising and falling with the slow, even rhythm of actual sleep.and the second thing I feel is every single decision I made last night arriving all at once, fully formed, impossible to take back.I lie very still for a moment, staring at the ceiling of a room I've never once been invited into before last night.I feel myself smile, because some part of me is proud of myself. It's not the first time I kissed Lucian, but it’s the first time we had actual sex.And it was good sex.The weight of his arm still draped loosely across my waist, the particular quiet of a house that's never once felt this settled around methe ache low between my thighs has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with choices I don't regret even as panic starts climbing up my throat about what happens the moment he wakes up.I need to be gone before that happens.I can't have him wake up and meet me here, what if it gets awkward be

Eveline.He's already at the counter when I come down, laptop open, coffee steaming beside him, sleeves rolled to the elbow like it's any other morning in this house."Morning," he says, not looking up.That's it. One word. No mention of the front window, or the stairs, or the way he said my name like it belonged to him. I stand in the doorway for a second longer than I mean to, waiting for something, a glance, a flicker, anything to prove last night happened to him too and not just to me.But I get nothing but the sound of his keyboard, steady and unbothered.I pour myself coffee I don't actually want, just to have something to do with my hands, and watch him over the rim of the cup. His jaw doesn't tighten as much. He's reading something on the screen with the exact same clinical focus he brings to a chart, and I could be anyone standing in this kitchen right now — the housekeeper, a stranger, a niece who exists purely for appearances."That's all you have to say to me," I say. "M

Eveline.The city blurs past the window in smears of light, too fast, faster than he's ever driven with me in the car, and some small, drunk, reckless part of me doesn't want him to slow down."You're angry," I say, watching his jaw in profile, the muscle ticking there like a second pulse."I'm furious.""Good." I let my head fall back against the seat, the alcohol still humming warm and loose through my limbs, blurring the edges of everything except him. "At least it's honest. That's more than I've gotten out of you in weeks."He doesn't answer that. His hands stay tight on the wheel, knuckles pale, and I watch the muscle in his forearm flex every time he takes a turn harder than he needs to, like the car is the only thing available to absorb whatever he's not letting himself say.The villa gates open before he's even fully stopped, lights waking section by section the way they always do, and he's out of the car and around to my side before I've managed to work the door handle myself

***Present day.***Julian.I don't sleep after the viewing.Not from guilt, exactly — or not only guilt. I lie in the dark replaying it instead: the buyer's face when the numbers came up on the screen, the ease in the room, my mother's calm, unbothered voice walking through traits like she was reading a wine list instead of a person's worth. I keep waiting for the horror to fully land the way it should. It doesn't, not completely, and that's the part that actually keeps me awake — not what I watched, but how quickly some part of me stopped being surprised by it.I get up sometime past two and stand at my window looking out over the grounds, the same grounds I grew up running across as a boy without once wondering what paid for the gardener, the pool house, the private wing of the hospital with my family's name carved above the door. I always assumed money like ours came from something boring. Real estate. Old investments. A great-grandfather who got lucky in some industry nobody talks