Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 8

POV: ELENA The next four days passed like a slow, heavy countdown.I barely left my room. Victor knocked once on the second morning, left a tray of food outside the door, and walked away without speaking. I ate because my body demanded it, not because I had any appetite. Most of the time I sat on the edge of the bed with my phone in my hand, refreshing the same three articles about Damian Sterling until the words blurred.He had been twenty-nine when the accident happened. The reports were carefully vague. A late-night drive along the coastal highway. Wet roads. One passenger dead. Damian left unable to walk. After that, the Sterling family had closed ranks so tightly that almost nothing new had leaked.On the third night I finally slept, but only in short, restless stretches. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the photograph from the contract—those cold grey eyes, the controlled mouth, the quiet power that seemed to radiate even from a still image. I hated that I noticed. I hated tha

POV: ELENAI closed the door behind me. The soft click sounded final.Damian's grey eyes never left my face as I stood there, heart beating hard against my ribs. The room smelled faintly of clean linen and something darker—his cologne, warm skin, controlled power. A single lamp burned on the nightstand, throwing long shadows across the turned-down sheets."I said slowly," he repeated, voice low.I made myself walk toward him instead of away. Whatever came next, I would not give him the satisfaction of watching me shake. My legs felt distant, like they belonged to someone else's decision rather than mine, though I supposed that was the truth of it. Four days ago they had been.He watched me cross the room the way he'd watched me sign the contract—unhurried, assessing, giving nothing back."Come here." He locked the wheelchair brakes with a practiced motion I imagined he'd repeated a thousand times since the accident, then transferred himself onto the bed in one controlled shift, arms

POV: ElenaI left the office on Damian’s second command.The hallway outside felt colder than it should have. Floor-to-ceiling glass showed the city spread out far below, indifferent and bright. I leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed tightly over my chest, and tried to slow the hard beat of my pulse. Voices rose behind the closed door—Damian’s low and controlled, Sebastian’s sharper, cutting. I couldn’t make out the words, only the tension that seemed to press against the wood.A few minutes later the physician stepped out first, face carefully blank, leather case in hand. He didn’t look at me as he walked toward the elevators. Sebastian followed. He paused when he saw me still standing there.“You would do well to remember which side of this family holds the power,” he said quietly. “My son’s sentimentality is temporary. The need for an heir is not.”He didn’t wait for a reply. He strode past me and disappeared around the corner.Only then did Damian appear. He rolled into

POV: Elena I stared at the screen until the words stopped being words. We can reach you inside the room too. Damian's hand left my hip. "Give me the phone." I passed it to him. He read the message once, and the muscle in his jaw moved. He pressed the panic button on the bedside console with two fingers. Caleb was in the room in under a minute, followed by two men who swept the walls, the vents, the lamps, and the underside of the bed without a word. They found nothing. "The number is a dead burner," Caleb said, handing the phone back to me after he had copied everything from it. "Activated an hour ago, already off the network. They wanted you to know they could reach you. They didn't need to be in the room to do it." "That is not comforting," Damian said. "It wasn't meant to be, sir." When they left, Damian pulled me back against his chest. Neither of us slept much. Sebastian did not wait for the day to begin properly. At 8:10 the next morning, Ms. Renner knocked to say that