Chapter 230 Chapter 230

Chapter 230 Chapter 230
Violet

"The boss isn't here," I said quickly, my voice coming out higher than normal, too fast. "I came to meet with him but he's out. I was just... waiting."

It was a terrible lie but I had never been good at lying.

"I see. I also needed to speak with him. Do you know when he'll be back?"

"No idea. Sorry." 

He nodded slowly, and smiled. "I'll come back later then. Thank you, Miss Violet."

"Of course," I managed, my hands clenching into fists at my sides to hide their shaking.

He turned and left, andI let out a shaky breath, my hands trembling a little. 

My pulse throbbed painfully against my throat as I hurried toward the door, gripping my bag tighter with every step.

“Violet?”

The sound of his voice stopped me so abruptly that my knees nearly buckled.

I turned slowly to see Elijah standing at the doorway with his phone pressed against his ear, his broad shoulders still half angled toward the hallway like he had only just arrived, but whatever conversation he had been having clearly no longer existed to him.

He was looking at me the way starving people looked at food after days without eating.

For one terrible moment, neither of us spoke.

The office suddenly felt too small and suffocating.

His expression shifted slowly as if he could not quite process what he was seeing. Surprise flickered first, followed by confusion and then something so painfully hopeful that my chest tightened despite myself.

Hope was a dangerous thing, yet it was alive in his eyes, restless and hungry as they searched my face like he was terrified I might disappear if he blinked.

“I’ll call you back,” he muttered distractedly into the phone.

“You could have called me,” he continued, walking toward me slowly. “Or told my assistant to come over to your cabin. You didn’t need to come all the way here yourself.”

His gaze moved over my face carefully, almost greedily, as though he had spent weeks trying to remember every detail and was now checking if memory had failed him.

I hated that my body still reacted to him, the way my stomach tightened when he came closer and the way my pulse became uneven under that dark, relentless stare.

Most of all, I hated that some traitorous part of me had missed him just as violently.

“I want you to stop.”

The words escaped before I could soften them.

Elijah halted immediately, the warmth draining from his expression happened so fast it physically hurt to watch.

“Stop what?”

“This.” I gestured around vaguely, my voice unsteady despite my efforts. “The flowers. The elevator. Rearranging an entire office building because I got stuck once. Sending gifts to my cabin every morning like...” I swallowed hard. “Like we are something.”

His jaw tightened.

“You’re angry because I made sure you were safe?”

“I’m angry because you keep doing things that confuse me,” I snapped. “You don’t get to hurt me and then act like some devoted lover afterward.”

Something flickered across his face then, quick and brutal, cracking straight through his carefully controlled composure before he forced it back down.

“Violet,” he said softly, “I am trying.”

I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

“You need to stop trying.”

His breathing changed slightly after that. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but I noticed it because I had spent months learning every dangerous thing about this man.

Elijah inhaled slowly through his nose as though steadying himself against something.

“Why?” The single word sounded rough.

“Because it’s too late.”

He took another step closer anyway.

“Why can’t I care about you?” he asked, his voice dropping lower. “Why can’t I make sure you’re protected? Comfortable? Safe?”

“Because I don’t want it.” The lie tasted bitter.

His eyes searched mine so intensely that it almost felt physical. “You don’t mean that.”

“You don’t get to decide what I mean.”

His hand lifted instinctively, probably intending to touch me, but the second I flinched backward his entire body went rigid. His fingers curled slowly into his palm before dropping back to his side while something raw and devastated flashed across his face.

Elijah looked away for one brief second, jaw flexing sharply like he was trying to regain control over himself. That should have satisfied me but it didn’t.

"Violet, please." His voice broke slightly on my name. "Just give me a chance to explain. To make you understand that everything I've done, every choice I've made since I met you, it's all been..."

"No." The word came out sharp, final, cutting through whatever he was about to say. "I learned everything I needed to know at that wedding. Everything I needed to understand about who you are and what I mean to you. Courtesy of your girlfriend laying it all out for everyone to hear."

"Nicole is not my fucking girlfriend." The profanity came out harsh, almost violent, his control slipping for just a moment. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, knuckles going white with tension. "She's not my girlfriend"

I let out a laugh, the sound completely devoid of humor, bitter and sharp enough to cut. "Yeah, sorry. Your fiancée then. Does the semantics really matter, Elijah? Does it change anything about what you did?"

"She means nothing." He took another step forward, his voice rising with desperation. "Whatever she was to me years ago, whatever history we had, it's dead. It's been dead since long before I met you. You have to believe that, Vi!"

"My name is Violet!" The correction came out as a shout, louder than I'd intended, sharp enough to echo off the walls of his office. "Not Vi,Violet."

He flinched like I'd slapped him, his entire body recoiling from the force of my rejection.

"Violet," he corrected immediately, his voice rough and strained. "Yes. Of course. Violet. But please, just listen to what I'm trying to tell you. The bet and the way it started, it wasn't—"

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“You’re not even letting me speak.” His voice sounded raw. “She means nothing to me. Nothing!”

“Apparently I didn’t either.”

That really hit him.