Love Beyond the Mask by Adelaide Sinclair

Chapter 615

In a darkened room filled with the ambiguous fragrance of scented candles, the sheets whispered secrets as bodies tangled, spilling a chaos of strawberries and whipped cream in their wake. Whitney, her energy sapped by too much bourbon, couldn't muster the strength to fight anymore.

But her spirit remained unyielding, her beautiful eyes wide open, staring at the moonlight outside the window, tears streaking her face.

"Please, Ludwik, I can't do this to Bryce..." Her hands were captive in his.

His gentleness was as fleeting as his patience was thin.

Those dark eyes, wild and relentless, ensnared her completely.

Whitney sobbed, "You've branded me, and I'll hate you for all my days, never forgiving..."

He pulled off his tie, no longer wanting to see her face twisted in remorse, softly blindfolding her.

His heart ached, so he masked it with a smile, insisting, "Then hate me. At least you'll never forget me, not in this lifetime or the next."

"Whitney..."

"Darling...I'm sorry, I love you too much.

I can't lose you."

His words, hot and desperate, echoed in her ear, surrounding her with pain.

All night long, his whispers, his sighs, his frenzy, shifted her gaze from resistance to resignation, slowly sinking into despair. Bourbon betrayed her resolve, leaving her with nothing but endless resentment. Towards herself, towards him!

Only when she finally succumbed to exhaustion did he relax his embrace, changing the bed linen, carefully tending to her before tucking her back into the warm covers.

Ludwik rose as the moon traveled westward.

The pale moonlight caressed his sculpted back, etched with startling scratches.

He admired his reflection, then glanced at her flushed face, a deep smirk playing on his lips.

He kissed her forehead, smoked a couple of cigarettes.

the room, extracting a complete video from the camera

turned icy as he clipped a particularly intimate segment, sending it

a humiliation on his wedding

He felt no guilt.

your doing, your

video, I don't believe, you can pretend nothing happened

used dirty tricks to win Whitney,

take her from

-

was breaking,

a suite at

night's worth of cold winds chilling his bones, cigarette butts piling up beside him. Behind him, the wedding room was draped in red, an atmosphere

was adorned with symbols of fertility, red dates, and peanuts scattered

at the decor he had painstakingly placed, believing

their wedding night, yet Ludwik had taken

Where could she be?

means to

she doing? Could it be... Bryce couldn't stay calm at

arrived, Bryce slowly picked up the

bed barely visible in the darkness, but the figures under the covers, and... Whitney's familiar voice!

AQUAS

a man of the world,

fixed, his heart felt as though it had

towering rage twisted his features

wasn't a fool; he knew

clung to hope, unwilling to

dreamed for how long? When he first saw Whitney three years ago in his mother's hospital room, her

told her, at her 18th birthday gala,

mother's name to commission

encounters, he fell for this

met with rejection, only then did he

went to South City to help Ludwik escape legal troubles, their paths crossed again. He

Whitney suffered greatly at Ludwik's hands. Bryce was there, helping, comforting, aiding her escape abroad. Returning after three years, she spoke of no love,