Chapter 258:

Julie’s POV

I was drowning amidst the sheets, my body feeling a heaviness it had never known, as if every cell in me had finally surrendered to that delicious exhaustion following the storm.

I thought I would open my eyes to find warmth filling the room, but what greeted me instead was a sudden chill that lashed against my face. I slowly raised my gaze toward Robert, and the breath froze in my chest.

This was not the man who had left me moments ago with tender touches and silent promises. He stood there like a statue of cold marble. His features, which had softened for me hours ago, were now as sharp as a blade.

And his eyes... My God, those eyes held a strange look, devoid of any human spark a look I hadn’t seen in him even in his worst moments of rage. I felt a sudden tightening in my heart, as if a heavy stone had crashed down upon it.

I tried to gather my shattered self, my voice trembling and barely audible. "Robert... answer me... what’s wrong?"

The silence that blanketed the room was desolate. Dark thoughts began to gnaw at my mind; had he gone to confront Marcus and something terrible happened? Or had he discovered another secret I was trying to bury? But he gave me no chance to guess; he threw his word like a bullet piercing the stillness of the place: "Get out."

I froze in place, my mind refusing to process the word. I rose from the bed very slowly, and with every movement, pain carved its path through my ass sharp stings that made me clinch my teeth so hard I could almost hear them grind. I pushed through my pain and stood before him with a shaking body, whispering in disbelief, "Robert... go where? I don’t understand what you mean..."

Suddenly, his stillness turned into a volcano of rage. He roared with a sharpness that shook the walls and terrified my very soul: "Get out of my room, now!"

In that moment, I felt the ground shifting beneath me. Was this the same man who was whispering my name just a while ago? Was he the one who possessed me with all that desire? I couldn’t endure this sudden distance. I stepped toward him with faltering steps, my legs nearly betraying me, and reached out my trembling hand to touch his arm hoping to find a crack in his wall of ice, hoping my touch would bring him back to me. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

But he recoiled with terrifying force, snapping my hand away with a swift motion as if I were a coal burning his skin, or a plague he feared catching. Expressions of disgust and loathing etched themselves onto his face, and he spoke in a voice dripping with hatred: "Don’t... you will never touch me again."

Tears froze in my eyes from the sheer shock. What had turned the scales like this? Was all this anger because I hadn’t been entirely honest with him? A bitter lump blocked my throat, and my vision began to blur with the tears carving their path over my cheeks. "I’m sorry... I didn’t mean... I swear to you..."

He cut me off with a cruelty I had never known. He clamped his fingers around my arm and yanked me toward him, a muffled gasp of pain escaping me.

The grip of his hand told me the extent of his current contempt for me. He screamed in my face: "You leave my room this instant, and don’t you... don’t you dare think of crossing this door ever again!"

My heart shattered into tiny pieces scattered across the room. He shoved me lightly toward the door, but to me, that shove was a bottomless abyss I was thrown into without mercy.

I stumbled toward the bathroom with shaky steps and began gathering my clothes strewn in every corner. I dressed while sobs choked my chest, tears streaming down and soaking the fabric of my shirt.

A thousand questions ground through my head: Why did he kick me out? Why did he warn me against touching him as if I were filth? Had he decided to break up with me just like that? Was he angry about the lie, or because he saw my pain during sex and thought I didn’t suit him?

He didn’t even give me the right to defend myself or understand. When I left the bathroom, I tried to meet his eyes one last time, but he instantly averted his gaze, refusing to even spare me a parting glance, as if merely looking at me defiled his sight.

I left the room dragging the tails of disappointment, walking through the cold corridor that seemed longer than usual. Darkness surrounded me from every side, just as it surrounded my heart. I didn’t realize how I reached my room; all I could see was his cold image. I threw myself onto my bed and burst into bitter weeping. The physical pain in my ass and my lower body doubled with every sob, but the agony of the soul was more lethal.

This time, it wasn’t my body being violated it was my soul being torn apart and cast out into the wilderness.

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Robert’s POV

As soon as the door closed behind her, I felt as if the air had completely left the room. I collapsed onto the sofa with a hollow, heavy body, as if my soul had been forcibly ripped from me.

My trembling hand reached for the whiskey bottle on the table, and I poured a glass my hand could barely hold steady. I downed it in one gulp, feeling the stinging burn of the liquid carve its way down my throat, but that fire was nothing compared to the hell gnawing at my vitals and burning every shred of peace left in me.

One thought pounded in my head, a nightmarish idea that refused to leave: Julie is the daughter of that woman. How could fate be this malicious? Despite all the love I harbor for her, and despite her having settled in the depths of my heart, I found myself unable to overcome this truth. I couldn’t treat it as just a passing detail; it was an earthquake that destroyed everything.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, and a special kind of fear haunted me: the fear of myself. Minutes ago, rage had blinded me to the point of pushing her cruelly so what would stop me from committing an even greater folly? Would I turn into a monster that hurts her? I feared my resolve would fail me before her, that I would weaken before those features my father loved madly in the past, only for me to find myself drowning in the love of the very same image.

It felt as if an eternal curse haunted the men of our family; to love the wrong woman, to adore the one who killed us in cold blood. Julie isn’t just her daughter; she is a carbon copy of her, and that is the true torment.

My eyes didn’t taste sleep all night. I remained slumped in my place on the sofa, my eyes fixed on that empty, cold bed which, only hours ago, was a witness to our greatest lie to the moments when I thought I owned the world, only to discover I owned ruin.

And with the rising of a sun that carried no hope, the door opened very slowly and without permission.

I raised my gaze mechanically and glimpsed Julie’s silhouette appearing at the threshold. As soon as her eyes fell on me, she froze in place as if she had seen a ghost. Tension etched itself onto her features, and confusion began to play in her eyes, which were shrouded in fear.

In that moment, the flame of regret that had been blaming me for my cruelty toward her was extinguished, and in its place ignited a raging anger like wildfire. I remembered everything in a second; I remembered she was the daughter of the woman who tore my family to pieces, the daughter of the whore who was the cause of my mother’s death and the loss of everything beautiful.

I rose from my place with terrifying speed, and before she could find a chance to utter a single word or justify her presence, I lunged at her. I clamped my palms over her shoulders with excessive force, to the point that I felt her weak bones creak under my hard fingers.

I shoved her against the wall with a violence that made her body slam into the solid wood, pinning her there like I was cornering my prey.

I pressed my face against hers, my frantic breath hitting her skin, while I panted from the sheer intensity of the emotion and the rage nearly exploding from my chest. I stared into her eyes with a dark gaze and whispered in a low, husky, terrifying voice: "What do you not understand about my order to never enter my room again?! Answer me!"