Lahat ng Kabanata ng Caged By His Love: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

MELANIE’s POVJethro can cheat as much as he likes. What matters to me is who is more important to him. He was meeting the woman I had seen him with yesterday, and today was the perfect chance to find out: her or me.I barely slept last night, not with the image of that woman and Jethro weighing on me. Every time I closed my eyes, the sight of them together kept popping up in my head and forced my eyes open again. When I finally did sleep, I woke very early, determined not to let him leave without my knowing where he was going.I couldn’t think of the right way to thwart his plans and stop him from meeting her.Jethro woke up and turned to see me sleeping. He kissed my forehead before getting out of bed and heading to the bathroom.The moment the door shut, my eyes opened and my fingers went to the spot on my forehead where he had kissed me.“I just hope I’m reading this the wrong way,” I whispered. “My heart will fall into pieces if what I suspect is the truth.”It took him a few min

MELANIE’S POVFinally, after a long day yesterday, we were going home today. Jethro had been busy with his phone, though I hadn’t heard a word about the woman since the day before yesterday. I knew he was still in touch with her. Whenever his phone rang, he would look at it and excuse himself, and I hid the tears that came every time he did.“You’ll be accompanying me to the party,” he said, breaking the silence as the plane was about to land.“I’m not going anywhere with you.”“I’ve bought everything you’d need.”“I refuse to go with you.”“You’re not?”“Well, I’m not.”“Okay.” He nodded and brought out his phone. I looked at him angrily. He didn’t even know what today was, and he expected me to go to a party with him. I turned away.I flicked a look at him when I heard the name he used to address her. I hated hearing it, even though I still didn’t know her name.“Yes,” she said, and I frowned. I knew he’d put it on loudspeaker just to make me angry.“Remember that party I told you a

MELANIE’S POVI woke up wrapped around Jethro, the morning after my birthday, still half-drunk on everything he’d told me the night before. His father. Miguel. The years he’d spent hungry and unwanted before Blaise Blackstone found him and gave him a name worth fearing.I traced a slow line down his bare chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing under my palm.“You never told me any of that before,” I said.“You never asked the right way .” He caught my hand and kissed my knuckles, one after the other, like he was making up for four years of silence in a single morning.“I’m sorry about your dad. Aaron, I mean. Not Blaise.”“Don’t be.” His voice went flat in the particular way it always did when he talked about Aaron Tanner, like something in him closed a door before I could see too far into the room behind it. “He gave me the one thing worth thanking him for.”“What’s that?”“He made me hard enough to survive everything that came after.” He pulled me closer, tucking my

JETHRO’S POVBrandon showed up within the hour, hair still damp from a shower he clearly hadn’t finished, jacket thrown on over what looked like the shirt he’d slept in. I appreciated that about him — the man didn’t waste time making himself presentable when I called at two in the morning.“What’s going on?” he asked, following me into the study.“Rodrigo called Lycan Wright.” I didn’t bother softening it, didn’t bother easing him into the shape of the problem. “Last week. Asking about Melanie. I want to know everything you can find by sunrise.”Brandon’s face changed, the sleepy irritation dropping away fast. “You think he’s coming here. To the country, I mean, not just calling from wherever he’s hiding this time.”“I think he never stopped planning to.” I dropped into the chair behind my desk, the leather cold against my back. “I let myself believe, these past months, that Rodrigo understood exactly what would happen if he touched Melanie again. That the message I sent with Alexa’s

MELANIE’S POVMy father called again three days later, his voice tight in a way that put me on edge before he’d even said what he was calling about.“Melanie. I need you to come to the house.”“Dad, what’s going on?”“Just come. Bring Jethro with you.”He hung up before I could ask anything else, and I stood in the kitchen holding the phone for a long moment, listening to the dial tone, my stomach already sinking toward my shoes.Jethro drove us over himself rather than calling a driver, his jaw tight the whole way, one hand resting protectively on my knee at every red light like he needed the reassurance of touching me as much as I needed to be touched.“Whatever it is,” he said, as we turned onto my parents’ street, “we handle it together. No pulling away to protect me from it. No pretending you’re fine when you’re not.”“I know.”“I mean it, Melanie.”“I know,” I said again, softer this time, because I understood he wasn’t really talking about today. He was talking about the two da