Too Late Mr. Hawthorne I Already Married Your Rival のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 30

Elena’s POVThe question left my mouth before I could stop it.“Who is Kolia?”The silence that followed was worse than any answer.My father’s face changed in a way I had never seen before. The fear I thought I glimpsed earlier hardened into something colder, more deliberate. The color that had drained from his cheeks did not return. Instead, his jaw locked. His shoulders squared as if he were bracing against a physical blow. He looked at me the way a man looks at a door he has already decided to bar shut.“Eh… Elena.” His voice was quiet, but there was no softness in it. “You need to stop asking questions and focus on recovering.”I stared at him.The heart monitor kept its steady, indifferent rhythm beside me. Samantha’s hand still held mine, but her fingers had gone still.“Dad…” I tried again, softer this time. “Why does that name make you look like that?”He said nothing.“Why are you so frightened?”His eyes shifted toward me for a second before he turned toward the window. The

Elena’s POVI came downstairs slowly, the sling still awkward against my side, and paused at the bottom of the steps.Dad and Lucas were in the living room. Dad sat in his usual chair near the window, reading glasses perched on his nose, a folded newspaper resting on his knee even though I knew he mostly used it as an excuse to sit still. Lucas sprawled on the couch with one arm draped over the back, scrolling through his phone. The late-afternoon light softened everything, turning the ordinary room into something quieter than it had felt the night before.I hesitated.Part of me still expected the same closed faces they had worn when I said Kolia’s name. Part of me wanted to keep the application to myself a little longer, as if speaking it aloud might somehow make it less mine. But the confirmation message was already sitting in my email, and the decision felt solid in a way few things had lately.I stepped into the room.“I applied for a job.”Both of them looked up at the same time

Elena’s POVThe first thing I registered was the light.Harsh.Sudden.Unforgiving.“Elena, wake up.”I made a sound that was more complaint than word and tried to pull the blanket higher. The sling made the movement clumsy, and my arm protested immediately.I ignored it.“Five more minutes.”“You don’t have five minutes.”“Then give me ten.”There was a brief silence.Then I heard the curtains being yanked open.Bright morning poured across the bed like an accusation.I groaned and turned my face into the pillow.“Samantha…”“It’s eight fifteen, young lady.”My eyes snapped open.“What?”I sat up so quickly that the room tilted. The sling pulled against my shoulder, sending a sharp flare of pain through my arm, but I barely noticed.“My interview…”“Not an interview,” Samantha corrected, already moving around the room. “Your first day.”The words hit me like ice water.“Oh my God.”I scrambled out of bed, one-handed and frantic. The blanket tangled around my legs, and I nearly fell.

Elena’s POV“My office. Now.”The words hung in the air between us like a blade that had already been drawn.I stared at him.The same man from the plane. The same man who had closed his hand around my wrist when the aircraft dropped. The same man who had pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and looked under the hood of Samantha’s car as if he had all the time in the world. The same man who had known,without being told,that we were going to the Fairmont.And now he stood in front of me on the executive floor of Blackthorne Holdings, looking at me like a stranger who had simply been handed a name and a task.“Your office?” The question came out quieter than I meant it to.He didn’t answer. He simply turned and walked away.Long strides. Unhurried. Absolute.I stood there for half a second too long, the card still clutched in my good hand, the remains of toast somehow still present in the other, and then my feet moved because I didn’t know what else to do.Why did he know m

Elena’s POV“Careful.”The word was low. Calm. Spoken close enough that I felt the faint warmth of it against the side of my face.I stayed frozen for a single, stretched second, the rain still hammering the pavement beyond the canopy, the hand around my waist still holding me upright with effortless strength. My pulse hadn’t slowed. It thudded hard against my throat, against the place where his fingers pressed through the thin fabric of my blouse.I shifted carefully, testing the ground beneath my heels, and turned my head.I expected a security guard. A stranger who had happened to be walking past. Anyone else.Instead I looked up into the unreadable face of Mr. Nik.My breath left me in a short, startled exhale.He was standing so close that the rain misting in under the canopy had already begun to darken the shoulders of his black shirt. No suit jacket. No tie. Just the fitted long sleeves pushed slightly at the wrists, the fabric stretched cleanly across the breadth of his