บททั้งหมดของ The Bride They Tried to Erase : บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

Liana's POVI froze at the doorway, my fingers tightening around the edge of the half-open door as my heart pounded against my chest. Standing inside the room...was Xavier Kane and standing before him...was Freya Morgan.For a moment I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Xavier gently brushed a loose strand of hair away from Freya's face. God No… this couldn't be real. The same gentle gesture, the same smile, the same eyes that had always looked at me but now they were looking at her."You worry too much," Xavier said softly.Freya looked into his eyes. "And Liana?"Xavier's expression turned cold. "By tomorrow, she won't be a problem anymore."Freya didn't answer with words. She just laughed — the same laugh I'd heard across a hundred birthdays, a hundred sleepovers, now aimed somewhere I never thought it could go.Xavier gently cupped her face. "I promised you, didn't I? Soon, it will just be the two of us."Without another word, he leaned down and kissed her. Freya wrapped her arms aro

Liana's POVFreya stepped out of the car first, her heels sinking slightly into the dirt at the road's edge. She smoothed the front of her dress like she had all the time in the world. Xavier came around from the other side a moment later, standing beside her — not rushing to me, not even glancing at the cliff, at the driver, at any of it. Just standing there, like this was a scene he'd already rehearsed.For a moment I couldn't make my mouth work. My knees had given out somewhere on the walk here, and the gravel bit into my palms where I knelt.Then it came out of me in a rush. "Freya? Xavier?" My voice cracked in half. "What did I do to deserve this? Why?!""So you already know." Freya's mouth curved, unbothered, like I'd asked her something mildly inconvenient. She glanced sideways at Xavier. "Well. The cat's out of the cage."She tilted her head, studying me the way you'd study something whose ending you'd already decided. Her eyes moved over the torn hem of my dress, the missing

Liana's POV It still felt like I was walking through a maze on the second day of campus. My schedule was creased from being refolded too many times, and twice already I'd trailed the wrong hallway before doubling back, watching where other students went so I could pretend I knew where I was going too. At one point I pushed open a door that turned out to be a supply closet, and a guy passing by laughed under his breath before I could shut it fast enough. I kept my eyes down after that, counting building numbers instead of asking anyone for help. Freya caught my eye across the courtyard. We both smiled, and I finally let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding.Our first class was literature. The professor spent the morning on poetry, how poets describe things without saying them outright. If you want to call someone beautiful, he said, you don't just say beautiful. You say her eyes are like the moon, because the moon has its own kind of light. He asked for examples, and a boy n

Liana's POVGraduation day arrived wrapped in gold light and the smell of fresh-cut grass, the whole quad filled with gowns and flashing cameras and parents hugging their kids like they hadn't seen them in years instead of a semester. Somewhere a speaker system was still playing the tail end of the ceremony's closing song, and someone kept throwing their cap into the air over and over for a photo that wasn't landing right. I found Freya in the crowd almost immediately, her gown half-unzipped already, and we screamed and hugged like we hadn't just seen each other that morning.We were taking pictures with people whose names I'd forget by fall when Xavier came through the crowd. He kept running a hand through his hair. Wouldn't quite look at me — looked at the group instead, then at his shoes, then back at the group."You okay?" I asked him. "You look like you're about to throw up.""Na I'm fine," he said, which is what people say right before they are extremely not fine.“Our friends h

Adrian's POVThe boardroom went silent the moment I walked in.Twelve men who thought their family names and their fathers' fortunes made them untouchable sat around that table. Every one of them straightened when I took my seat at the head of it."Mr. Blackwood." One of them slid a folder toward me, not quite meeting my eyes. "About the shipping contract—""You went to Kessler last week." I didn't touch the folder. "Tried to renegotiate my rates through him instead of through me. Did you think I wouldn't hear about it?"The color left his face before he could arrange it into something calmer. "It won't happen again.""No," I agreed. "It won't."Nobody spoke for the rest of the meeting. Nobody ever did, once they understood I already knew whatever they'd hoped I didn't. I had learned that silence gave me more leverage than threats ever could. My father never understood that.They filed out one by one, folders clutched a little too tight. I stayed at the window after the last of them l