Chapter 65: Chapter 65: Reconciliation

Lila’s POV

“No,” he cut me off immediately. His voice was firm, yet held a strange tenderness. “Lila, don’t.”

He raised his hand, not to touch me, but to gently cover my clenched fist. His palm was scorching hot.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice low and deep, as if every word was being painstakingly squeezed from the depths of his chest. “Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for choosing to trust me. And thank you… for coming back to me.”

His thumb brushed with incredible gentleness against the back of my hand.

That faint touch of warmth was like an electric current, instantly shattering all my defenses.

I looked at him—at the bottomless exhaustion and tenderness in his eyes, at the cut on his arm split open by the spine of a book, now slowly beading with blood.

I suddenly understood.

He didn’t need my pity.

What he needed was simply my presence, my trust, my… taking my place.

“Go on,” I heard myself say. My voice was as faint as a sigh, yet it held an unprecedented, strange softness. “Go take a cold shower.”

The light in his eyes flared, then gently subsided, settling into a deeper, more serene gratitude.

He said nothing more, only gave me a deep look, a gaze that seemed to want to etch my very image into the depths of his soul.

Then, he released my hand, turned, and strode toward the study door.

The moment he pulled the door open, he paused. He didn’t turn around, but his low voice drifted back to me.

“Lila.”

“Yes?”

“Tonight,” he said, his voice filled with a frankness so direct it was almost childlike in its earnestness, “I want to sleep with you.”

The door closed softly.

I was left alone in the study.

I stood rooted to the spot. The warmth of his palm still lingered on my fingertips, and the memory of his scorching touch felt branded onto my lower abdomen.

————

The bedroom door was ajar, a sliver of warm, yellow light spilling out. It was the color I knew best from Moon Hidden Villa before I left—not a cold white or a harsh glare, but a warm yellow, the color of old book pages, of dying embers in a fireplace, of the old lamp in my mother’s art studio.

I gently pushed it open.

The room looked just as I had left it: the wide, four-poster bed with its dark gray velvet coverlet, the reading chair by the window draped with a cashmere blanket, and on the wall, the original Monet oil painting whose “gentle light and shadow” I had once casually praised.

And yet, it was different.

On the nightstand sat a small celadon vase holding a few freshly cut lilies—white and slender, carrying the crisp scent of morning dew. They were my favorite flower, and the source of the fragrance that often clung to me.

The desk drawer was open a crack, revealing a corner of deep blue velvet. I walked over and pulled it open gently. Inside, a silver pocket watch lay quietly. The cover was engraved with incredibly fine lines depicting two overlapping wolf heads. On the inside of the cover, a line of tiny script gleamed with a soft luster in the light:

“For Lila. Always.”

Not “From Jasper.”

Not “With love.”

Just “For Lila. Always.”

My fingertips traced the words. The metal was cool to the touch, yet it sent a searing heat through me that made my hand tremble.

The wardrobe door was half-open. I went over, intending to change into my sleepwear.

When I pulled the doors open, my breath hitched.

Inside, there were several new pieces of sleepwear.

It wasn’t intricate lace or ostentatious silk. Instead, there were pieces made from a high-quality silk-cotton blend, all crisply tailored in muted shades of misty blue, smoke gray, and oatmeal white. The necklines were all perfectly modest, while the cuffs and hems had an effortless, languid drape. They hung there silently, like a cluster of docile butterflies waiting to be awoken.

I reached out, my fingertips brushing against a misty-blue silk slip dress. It felt cool and smooth, with a delicacy that was almost decadent.

But the instant my fingertips touched the fabric, the scene from the study crashed into my mind without warning—his forehead pressed to mine, his breath scorching, and that hard, searing pressure against my lower abdomen, pushing against me again and again through the thin layer of my clothes.

I snatched my hand back, my cheeks instantly burning.

’I can’t wear this.’

’Absolutely not.’

I rummaged frantically, my gaze skipping over the exquisite pieces with their subtle, almost imperceptible allure, until it finally landed on the very bottom of the pile.

There, lying quietly, was a pure white cotton pajama set with long sleeves and long pants. It had a high collar, and the cuffs and ankles were snugly fitted. It didn’t even have buttons, only the plainest hidden snaps.

It looked like something fresh from a hospital supply, a sterile gown meant for a post-operative patient.

I took it out.

It was soft and thick, carrying the clean scent of sun-dried cotton.

The warm yellow light in the bedroom was still gentle. I changed into the cotton pajamas, so conservative they were almost clumsy. The wide sleeves and pant legs enveloped me completely, leaving only my face and my sleep-reddened eyes exposed.

I climbed into bed and sank into the familiar, yet strange, softness.

In just a few short days, my world had been turned upside down.

My body was more honest than my mind. From barging into my uncle’s house, to being held by Jasper, to our confrontation under the moon, and then the conversation in the study about the “Destined Mate” that nearly split my soul open… All the information, all the images, all the sensory shocks converged in this moment, crashing down on me as an immense wave of exhaustion.

Outside, the night wind whispered, making the leaves rustle.

I sank uncontrollably into darkness, falling into a pure, bottomless sleep.

Until a strange, warm weight settled gently onto my back.

Not the weight of the blanket.

It was the weight of a living thing.

The weight of something with body heat, a heartbeat, and a presence that was impossible to ignore.

I snapped my eyes open.

The lights in the room had been dimmed to their lowest setting, with only a small bedside lamp left on, casting a hazy halo.

Jasper was lying behind me.

He wasn’t wearing any clothes.

His naked chest was pressed firmly against my back. His skin was scorching, like a branding iron pulled from a forge, radiating a heart-stopping vitality. His arm snaked around my side, holding my waist gently but with unshakable firmness. His chin rested in the hollow of my shoulder, and his every breath was a searing wave of heat that ghosted across my neck, provoking a fine, uncontrollable shiver.

All the blood in my body rushed to my head, then drained away just as fast, leaving only my ears and cheeks burning feverishly.

“You—!” I hissed, my body instantly going taut as a drawn bow. “I thought you said you were going to be abstinent?!”

He didn’t move, only nuzzled his chin deeper into the hollow of my shoulder. The gesture was one of childish dependence and suffocating intimacy.

“Mm,” his voice was both innocent and alluring in the quiet of the night. “I just took a cold shower.”

“And?” I was tense all over, my mind poised to refuse him, even as I seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

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