Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 81 - Chapitre 90

Ava’s POVThe trip back home was exciting.After everything that had happened in the hall—the offer, the refusal, Vanessa’s smile—leaving Dubai felt like stepping out of a room that had grown too small. I sat down with Corren in the quiet of the mansion’s entrance while the last of our bags were brought down. My body still carried the deep residual ache of the shower, a private reminder that the evening had belonged to him long before the business and the threats. I kept my hands in my lap and my face composed.“Are the bags ready?” Corren asked one of the staff.“Yes, sir. Everything is in the car.”“Good.”Before we entered the car that took us to the plane, I saw Dhaki and Corren talking.They stood a short distance from the main doors, close enough for me to see their faces but too far for the words to carry. Dhaki’s posture was measured, almost patient. Corren’s was controlled, unreadable. I could not hear what they were discussing, but I could see the eyes of Corren’s stepmom an

Ava’s POVThe next morning came so fast.I had barely closed my eyes around the annoyance and the half-formed prayer before light was already pressing through the tall windows of the west wing. For a moment I lay still, the residual ache of Dubai still present in my body, the memory of Maya’s call still sitting on the nightstand in the dark shape of my phone. The sheets felt ordinary again after the mansion and the jet and the shower. I had prayed she would not spoil anything. The morning had arrived anyway. Then I stretched and got up.When I came downstairs I saw her—Callista, Sybil’s daughter—and Sybil. They were already at the dining table.The sight of them landed with the exact weight I had expected and still had not been ready for. Sybil sat with the composed ease of a woman who belonged in the house on paper and in history. Her posture was perfect. Her clothes were carefully chosen. Everything about her announced that this was not a guest visit so much as a return to ground sh

Corren’s POVAs she left me, I received a call from Dhaki.The door had not fully settled into its frame behind Sybil before the phone began to vibrate in my pocket. I knew the number. I almost let it ring out. Then I answered, because refusing the call would only delay a conversation that had already followed me from Dubai into my own house.“Corren.”“Dhaki.”“Have you thought about it?” His voice was calm, almost courteous. “Will you accept the marriage?”I walked to the window and looked out over the grounds without seeing them.“No.”“You are still refusing.”“She is not for sale.”A short silence moved across the line. When he spoke again, the courtesy remained, but the steel under it was clearer.“Five hundred million dollars is not a small gesture. Neither is the access in Dubai. Men in that room heard you refuse both. Some of them will take it personally.”“That is their concern.”“And Vanessa? She has already given her blessing in public. That kind of support does not come f

Ava’s POV“You are starting school tomorrow.”The words left Corren’s mouth and settled over the sitting room with the same quiet finality he used for every decision that rearranged other people’s days. Callista’s face lit with something between surprise and pleasure. Mine did not move at all.What? She is going to school with me?The question formed complete and sharp behind my eyes. Same campus. Same corridors. Same cafeteria where Sebastian had once set a tray down across from me and asked if he could join. Same halls where Owen had grabbed my arm and Maya had stood at my back. Callista in that world meant another pair of eyes, another set of reports that could travel home without my knowledge, another soft complication layered on top of everything I was already carrying. I didn’t say anything. I just held myself still, knowing what it would later cost—the careful distance I tried to keep at school, the secrets that already lived too close to the surface, the pregnancy I touched on

Ava’s POVI stood up so fast my chair scraped the floor.Maya looked up from her tray. “Ava—”“Come.”I was already moving. The cafeteria blurred around me—trays, voices, the bright ordinary noise of break—while I crossed toward the windows where Callista sat with Sebastian angled toward her like he had all the time in the world. Maya followed without another question. That was her way. Present when the temperature changed.Sebastian saw us coming.I expected him to shift, to make space, to put some distance between himself and Corren’s daughter. He didn’t. He looked at both of us and smiled, easy and unbroken, as if the weeks of silence between us had been nothing more than weather.“What’s up, Ava?” he said.That was the first thing out of his mouth. Casual. Familiar. Warm enough to sound harmless.I stopped at the edge of the table and set my hands on the back of the empty chair across from him.“What are you doing with my sister?”Callista’s head turned sharply. “Ava?”Sebastian l