جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

Two crimson lines on the plastic white strip dictated her sentence; Audrey Sullivan was pregnant with the man who had come to destroy her. Eight weeks had been enough for her night of freedom to transform into an inescapable cell. Standing before the mirror, Audrey felt the luxury of her bedroom was now nothing more than a cheap stage set against the impending ruin of her family name.The crash of the front door snapped her out of her stupor. Descending the stairs, the air grew heavy, charged with an electrical magnetism. There, in the middle of the drawing-room, stood Alessandro Di' Giovanni. Audrey clung to the banister, her stomach lurching; that firm jaw and those broad shoulders were unmistakable. It was him—her accidental lover and now her financial executioner."Don't worry, Sullivan. I only came to meet your daughter," he replied to her father's welcome, his baritone voice vibrating in Audrey's chest. "Though I have a feeling we've met before."The world stopped. Audrey felt t

Audrey fled into the darkness of the night, carrying a double secret that not even the relentless Alessandro Di' Giovanni had managed to tear from her. The medical report she crumpled in her fist before escaping the clinic did not lie; her fainting spell wasn't just from stress, but because her body was working double time to carry twins. They were expecting two babies. That revelation gave her the strength needed to bypass security and flee the city.As the taxi pulled away from the mansion, Audrey watched through the window as the iron gates blurred into thin lines. The knot in her throat uncoiled, allowing tears to fall freely. She felt utterly alone, yet a profound certainty comforted her: she had saved her children from becoming mere clauses in a waiver contract. Her parents would hate her for losing the golden ticket, and Alessandro—her pulse raced with terror just imagining him. The man who thought he had her cornered would go mad discovering his prey had slipped right through

The city asphalt felt like hostile territory beneath the tires of the taxi Audrey had boarded with trembling hands. Following her encounter with Marcus Thorne, a visceral, masochistic impulse had driven her to give an instruction that defied all logic."The Sullivan mansion, please," she had whispered, lowering her gaze so the driver wouldn't catch the shimmering onset of her tears.As the vehicle advanced down the tree-lined avenues leading to the city's most exclusive district, Audrey felt time folding back on itself. The knot in her throat—the one she had tried to dissolve in the chilling mists of Inverness—returned with suffocating force. She had spent five years without exchanging a single word with Eliot and Olivia Sullivan. Severing ties had been a necessary amputation to protect her twins' safety, but the pain of absence remained an open wound that festered in moments of weakness.When the cab finally halted before the imposing wrought-iron gates, Audrey didn't get out. She sa

The silence in the room was dense, almost solid, broken only by the muffled hum of the airport beyond the reinforced glass. Audrey felt oxygen growing scarce; each time Alessandro exhaled, he seemed to strip away a fraction of the air she needed to stay upright. The man's proximity was an overwhelming physical presence, a mix of forbidden magnetism and a peril that prickled every inch of skin."I'm not an object; I have a voice and a vote. Your business is with my father, not me, so leave me alone..." she hissed, forcing the words through a throat constricted by anger.Alessandro didn't flinch. Instead, the corners of his mouth ticked upward by mere millimeters in a gesture far removed from a smile. His long, aristocratic fingers drifted with torturous slowness toward Audrey's face, brushing away a strand of brown hair plastered to her forehead by the restroom humidity. She shivered violently. It wasn't the shiver of desire—though the spark of an old, traitorous passion tried to flare

The Di’ Giovanni mansion was a masterpiece of minimalist design: invisible home automation, soundproofed walls, and a floor-to-ceiling window offering a privileged view of the skyline. Yet, to Audrey, the place possessed all the warmth of a high-security cell. She sank into the silk duvet, feeling the silent hum of the house vibrate in her ears like an irritating frequency. Insomnia was hardly new to her—years of single motherhood had long fractured her rest—but tonight, the culprit wasn't a crying baby, but absolute, paralyzing terror.She couldn't stop visualizing her children back in the small, cozy cottage in Inverness. She imagined Emma crying because her mother hadn't arrived in time to read her favorite bedtime story, and Matthew—always so protective despite his tender years—trying to comfort his sister while staring out the door with a desperate hope she felt she was betraying. Desperation spiked every time her gaze fell upon her phone, dark and lifeless on the marble nightsta