Chapter 30 I want to be with you
After breakfast ended, Eva and Madam Richard engaged each other in conversation. General Richard had asked to see Maverick.
In the General’s study, his uniform hung neatly by the side, the flag of Ivory City spread across his table.
Then came the line of pictures, one with Boyle smiling and Maverick unsmiling beside their mother, a full family portrait. And beside it, a photo of the Edwards and the Richard’s proof of how far back the families’ alliance went.
The General’s eyes lingered on another photo Boyle in uniform, grinning beside Anderson Edwards.
“You think your brother was destined to die, and the timing was just delayed?” he asked quietly.
“If he was meant to die then, he would have,” Maverick replied evenly. “What happened later was human error.”
General Richard’s gaze softened briefly for his dead son before hardening again.
“You can’t back out on this,” he said, voice steady with authority not just as a father, but as a commanding officer.
He watched his son from across the study cold, still, unreadable wanting to be sure that time hadn’t made Maverick forget.
Maverick sat in silence, posture composed, though Heaven’s reaction still lingered in his mind, the way her eyes had fallen, how she had brought down the hand with the bracelet.
“I never planned on backing out,” he said finally, his lips set in a thin line. His eyes gave nothing away, though his fists remained clenched on his lap.
The oath had been made years before a sworn alliance between Richards and Edwards.
It had to be honored, no matter the cost.
Their friendship ran deep, bound by a debt that could never truly be repaid.
The Edwards only Anderson had saved Boyle in an accident that same one that made him impotent but it claimed the life of Anderson.
The marriage had been arranged between their children to restore what was lost. A life for a life. Their children had to give birth to heal the wound.
It was signed by both families.
And Maverick, ever dutiful, knew it was a commitment he must uphold like a last order.
General Richard studied his son closely. Maverick was his mirror proud, unyielding, dangerous when provoked. He knew he couldn’t force him into anything he didn’t want, but he needed to be certain they were on the same page.
“Take some time off work until the wedding is done,” the General said finally.
Maverick only hummed in acknowledgment, before he rose to leave.
“You moved the yacht,” his father remarked, voice edged with curiosity.
“I needed some alone time,” Maverick replied flatly.
He didn’t wait for a response. The door closed softly behind him.
As he walked away, his expression stayed calm but inside, Heaven pulsed beneath every heartbeat he made.
After Heaven left the breakfast table, she went straight to her room. The silence there pressed against her chest until she couldn’t breathe.
Her fingers trembled as she unclasped the bracelet and set it down on the vanity table. The mark it once hid was gone but the memory of his hands fastening it around her wrist wasn’t.
She didn’t know what hurt more the guilt, or the sharp twist in her heart when she learned he had a fiancée.
What did that make her then?
A cheat.
She was betraying her dead husband, the man whose picture still stood by the altar, and Maverick… he was betraying his fiancée with her.
It was too much too tangled, too wrong.
Her gaze drifted to the gift box Eva had given her at breakfast. The irony is a bit deep.
His fiancée had handed her a gift with smiling lips, never knowing she had been sharing the same man’s touch.
Whatever she and Maverick were doing… it was wrong.
She had told herself that a thousand times, and still.
When he touched her, all her rules burned away like paper in flame.
She rubbed her bare wrist. It felt naked, cold. She hated how much she missed its weight.
After some time, she left her room. The walls of the mansion felt stifling, so she went to the one place she thought he wouldn’t follow Boyle’s altar room.
The corridor was quiet, her footsteps soft against the marble. But then she saw him.
Maverick.
He stood at the end of the hallway, his presence dark and arresting. His gaze found hers sharp, unreadable before it dropped to her wrist.
The bracelet was gone.
Heaven saw the shift in his eyes, the faint flicker of coldness that made her heart stutter. She swallowed hard, her fingers curled nervously at her side.
He began walking toward her, his steps unhurried but predatory, each one deliberate heavy with restrained anger.
She took a step back. Then another.
Her pulse pounded in her ears.
“Why did you take it off?”
His voice was low, but it crawled beneath her skin.
Heaven’s lips parted, but no words came out. She had a thousand things to say that it was wrong, that he had a fiancée, that she needed to stop feeling this way but she couldn’t. Not when his eyes were on her.
“Second young master,” a servant’s voice cut through the tension.
Maverick’s attention flicked sharply toward the sound. Heaven took the chance and she slipped past him quickly.
The servant froze under Maverick’s gaze cold, lethal, as if she had ruined something sacred.
“M–Madam asks for you,” the girl stammered.
Maverick said nothing. He just turned his head back toward the direction Heaven had gone, toward the closed door of Boyle’s altar room. His jaw tightened, and the muscle in his cheek twitched
Maverick sat gracefully in the boutique, one of the most exclusive in Ivory City. The faint scent of perfume and expensive fabric lingered in the air.
He leaned back on the couch, his posture effortless, composed. The few buttons undone on his shirt revealed the hard lines of his chest. Every attendant who passed stole a glance at him, whispering quietly among themselves.
But Maverick’s face remained unreadable, cold, distant, as though his thoughts were far from the glimmering gowns around him.
His mother had insisted he take Eva to pick a dress for the dinner that night.
Eva stepped out from the fitting room, radiant and flushed with excitement. “Bro….” she caught herself mid-word and tried again softly, “Maverick.” The sound of his name in her voice was shy, eager.
“I think I’ve found my favorite,” she said, spinning once before the mirror. The beige dress clung to her frame, ending just above her knees. It shimmered faintly under the warm lights, drawing attention to her figure.
Maverick’s gaze lifted to the mirror but not to her. Beyond Eva’s reflection, his eyes caught on a mannequin at the far end of the boutique. Draped on it was a dress unlike the rest: simple, elegant, with soft fabric that seemed to whisper against the light.
It reminded him of her.
Heaven.
His lips barely moved. “Beautiful,” he said at last.
Eva’s face lit up instantly, her cheeks glowing. She thought the word was meant for her.
When she disappeared back into the fitting room to change, Maverick stood and gestured subtly to one of the attendants.
“Pack that one,” he said, his eyes still on the mannequin.
The women at the counter whispered as they folded the fabric into the signature ivory box.
“I think he wants to surprise his fiancée,” one murmured.
“She’s so lucky,” another sighed.
But the truth sat quietly between Maverick’s steady breaths the dress wasn’t meant for Eva.
It was meant for the woman he wasn’t supposed to think about.