Chapter 22 Why Did You Leave Me?

Chapter 22 Why Did You Leave Me?
The first thing Skylar felt was weight. The kind that settled deep into her bones, as if her body had been dragged through something it hadn’t yet recovered from. Every breath stretched tight across her chest, shallow and careful, like even the air might hurt if she took too much of it at once.

She didn’t open her eyes immediately. For a moment, she let herself exist in the quiet—the faint rustle of fabric, the distant hush of movement beyond walls she couldn’t yet place. Then memory returned. Her eyes snapped open and the ceiling above her was familiar.

The realization didn’t bring relief. It tightened something in her chest instead, something conflicted and unsteady, like she had been dropped back into a place she no longer knew how to stand in. She shifted slightly, and pain followed immediately—sharp, spreading through her limbs, her shoulders, her ribs. A quiet gasp slipped from her before she could stop it.

“Stay still.” The voice came from the side of the room. Skylar’s gaze moved slowly, her vision still adjusting, until it found him.

Liam stood near the window, his back partially turned, the light behind him outlining his figure in a way that made him look more distant than he already felt. He wasn’t looking at her at first. His attention seemed fixed somewhere beyond the glass, somewhere far removed from the room itself.

But he had heard her. He turned then, his expression already set—calm and unreadable, untouched by the chaos that had led them both here. Skylar swallowed, her throat dry.

“You brought me back,” she said. Liam didn’t move closer when he answered her in short.

“Yes.”

The space between them stretched. Skylar pushed herself up slightly despite the pain, her fingers tightening against the sheets as she forced her body to respond. Sitting felt like a mistake the moment she did it, but lying there—vulnerable, still—felt worse.

His gaze moved over her briefly, taking in the way she struggled, the tension in her shoulders, the faint tremor in her hands. “You should’ve stayed in bed,” he said.

Skylar let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh, though there was nothing amused in it.

“I tried that,” she murmured. “Didn’t work out well.” The words hung there. Liam’s eyes sharpened slightly.

“Is tat what you think this is?” he asked.

“What?”
“A situation you can walk in and out of whenever it suits you.”

The shift in his tone was subtle, but it carried weight now—something colder, something edged. Skylar’s fingers curled tighter into the sheets.

“I didn’t—”

“Do you think I’m a joke?”

The question cut her off cleanly. Liam moved then, finally stepping away from the window, his presence filling the space between them in a way that made the room feel smaller. Skylar’s breath hitched slightly, meanwhile his gaze didn’t soften.

“Do you think my demands are something you can ignore?” he continued, his voice low but steady, “That you can disappear, break a contract, and return as if nothing happened?” Skylar shook her head faintly, but the movement was weak, uncertain.

“I didn’t return,” she said. “You brought me back.”

“Because you ran from me, Miss Miles. What do you think am I going to do? Let you do as you please and ignoring the contract I’ve been fucking signed with you?”

There it was. The word landed harder than anything else, as if that was all it had been. Skylar’s chest tightened.

“You don’t understand—”

“Then explain it.”

The sharpness in his voice made her flinch before she could stop herself. Silence followed. Skylar looked down briefly, her vision blurring again—not from weakness this time, but from something else pressing at the edges.
“You took Jesse,” she said quietly. Liam didn’t react immediately, but then a deep sigh escaping his mouth.

“If you were scared because you think I would harm him or let him suffer his illness to threat you, then you intoxicating your own thougts. I’m not that kind of person who do that, except you really left me with no choice other than that,” he explain.

“You didn’t ask me. You didn’t tell me. You just—took him. Like I didn’t have a say in it.” Her voice shook slightly, but she didn’t stop. Liam’s expression didn’t change, but something in his gaze darkened.

“You didn’t have a say,” he said. Skylar looked up at him, something raw flashing across her face before she could hide it.

“I know that,” she said, her voice tightening. “I know exactly what I signed, Alpha Liam. I know what I agreed to. I know what you can do if I don’t follow it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to feel anything about it.”

“I gave you the best offer and you still think you could get to decide what matters?” he asked. “Do you think I brought you here because I care how you feel?” he asked, his voice dropping lower, quieter in a way that felt more dangerous than before. “Do you think any of this exists because I have some kind of attachment to you?”

Skylar didn’t answer, because part of her already knew the answer. Liam stepped closer, not enough to touch her. But enough that she could feel the weight of him there.

“Do you think my demands exist because I like you?” he continued. “Because I want you?” His gaze locked onto hers, sharp, unyielding. “Or because your body is useful to me?”

The words landed like a blade. Skylar’s breath faltered.

“No. It all because you need this job. You need me, Skylar. I have lower my guard because you met my expectation, but that doesn’t mean you could hit and run and get me chase you like you some kind of what? A main character?"

Her fingers loosened against the sheets, her shoulders dropping just slightly as something inside her gave way—not loudly, not dramatically, but quietly, in a way that felt harder to recover from.

“I didn’t think of myself like that,” she said, barely above a whisper. Liam held her gaze for another second. Then he straightened. The distance between them returned as suddenly as it had closed.

“Good,” he said. Silence settled again. Liam turned away from her, his expression already shifting back into something controlled, distant, as if the conversation had never happened.

“You’ll stay here,” he said. “Until you recover. I’ll deal with the rest later.”

The door opened before she could say anything else. He didn’t look back. The sound of it closing behind him echoed softly through the room, leaving the air strangely empty in his absence.

Skylar gaze fixed on nothing, her chest rising and falling unevenly as the weight of everything settled in. She tried hard to hold her tears as she just sat there, quiet, like she was trying to hold herself together with whatever remained.

Minutes passed or maybe longer. The room stayed still, until the door opened again. Skylar’s head turned to deal with whatever made Liam back to the room, but she was wrong. That wasn’t Liam.