?Chapter 852:


    “You realize breaking into someone’s home is a crime, right?” Freya warned her, tone clipped and final. “Do it again, and I won’t hesitate to have you arrested.”


    “I was just trying to help you get revenge on him.” Natasha clung to her arm, her smile yful and sly. “After the way he treated you, don’t you want payback?”


    “It’s behind me now,” Freya said coolly, never one to get caught up in the past. “Leave on your own before I make you.”


    “Freya.”


    “Out.”


    “Don’t tell me you’re catching feelings for him again! You’re actually scolding your sweetest student for his sake?” Natasha was nothing if not shameless.


    Freya shot her a freezing re, her eyes sweeping over her face like des.


    And with that one sharp look, Natasha immediately backed off. She lifted her hands in surrender, tongue sticking out. “Alright, alright, I’m leaving!”


    After sneaking a nce toward Kristian, she slipped out of Freya’s home.


    The second she stepped outside, the cold smacked her square in the face, and she shivered violently. She rushed back to her car, yanked on a thick coat, and finally started to feel human again.


    “Tonight, you’ll sleep in a different room,” Freya said as she approached and locked the door, quickly resetting the passcode. “Tomorrow, I’ll have someonee deal with that mess.”


    Natasha had always been a chaotic blend of virtue and vice. Her words couldn’t be trusted. Even Freya couldn’t tell which of Natasha’s ims were real and which were spun out of thin air.


    “I’m scared,” Kristian murmured, his voiceced with a pitiful kind of dread.


    “There’s nothing to be scared of,” Freya replied, her voice calm and steady. “It’s all fake.”


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    Had he been five years old mentally, she might’ve hugged him and said somethingforting.


    But he was seventeen mentally now, and by that age, a person ought to know how to handle fear.


    “Freya.” Kristian tugged on her sleeve, his eyes wide and clear. “Can you sleep with me tonight? I’m afraid to sleep alone.”


    The moment the words left his mouth, Freya’s internal rm red to life. She suppressed her instincts, forcing herself to stayposed as she looked over at him. “Are you really that scared?”


    “Yes,” Kristian nodded.


    Freya’s heart sank, inch by inch. She couldn’t be sure if her suspicions were right, but something told her tonight’s strange events were carefully nned by both Kristian and Natasha.


    He should’ve known better—especially after she’d been so direct about her feelings and her refusal to marry him. And now this?


    The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became. He had always been a skilled actor. Now here he was, faking fear to get close, trying to stay in the same bed—it wasn’t beneath him.


    “Wait right here.” Freya pressed a button, and the sofa unfolded neatly into a bed. “If I need to travel for workter on, we’ll need to get used to this. Let’s deal with your fear together tonight.”


    “How?” Kristian blinked, confused.


    As he puzzled over her meaning, she turned on the TV, flipping through the menu until she reached the movie section. She turned her head, eyes narrowing slightly. “Do you get scared of gore or ghosts?”


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