<h4>Chapter 70: Confession</h4>


    In the hushed opulence of Rafael Vexley’s bedroom, silence wasn’t empty—it was weighted, alive, as though the walls themselves held their breath. The air carried his signature—sandalwood, rich and smoky—yet beneath it lingered something sharper, restless, like a storm pacing the edge of release.


    The room was every bit the fortress of a man who lived behind walls: a four-poster bed draped in midnight silk, art that watched like unblinking witnesses, and a towering window spilling moonlight across the polished floor. Outside, the gardens blurred into shadow, the kind of view meant for royalty—or for a man too guarded to let anyone see him.


    Eliana Bet found herself perched on Rafael’sp, hardly breathing, her body trembling against the solid press of his frame. Her pulse thrashed in her ears as his mouth captured hers, a kiss that came like a storm breaking open the night. Fire and hunger fused in that single moment, his lips moving with urgency, with a need so raw it almost scared her.


    His hands—broad, certain—held her face as though she might shatter if he let go, a startling contrast to the intensity of his kiss. He tasted of whisky, faint but unmistakable, the lingering reminder of the ss he’d abandoned by the fountain earlier. The vor mixed with her own quick breath, something sweet, startled, hesitant. A strand of his dark, wavy hair brushed across her skin, soft against the sharp edges of the moment, and her fingers—she hadn’t even realized she was gripping his shirt—creased the pristine designer fabric into something reckless, undone.


    At first, every muscle in her body screamed to resist. Her lips parted, not just in surprise but in protest. "Rafael... no," she whispered against his mouth, her words shaky, almost drowned by the fire of his insistence. Her palms pressed against the hard line of his chest, trying to push him back, though her touch barely made him budge. She could feel his heartbeat there, fierce and fast, echoing her own, and that terrified her more than anything.


    Because it wasn’t only his heart racing—it was hers too.


    Her eyes, wide and conflicted, closed almost of their own ord. And when the kiss deepened, when his tongue teased the boundary of her restraint, her body betrayed her. She leaned into him, just a breath closer. Her hands that had tried to push him away clung instead to the heat of him. The protest dissolved into a different kind of surrender.


    Her lips moved with his, at first shaky, then surer, until she matched him—heat for heat, hunger for hunger. It was reckless, dangerous, a rhythm building between them like a free fall neither of them had the power to stop.


    What am I doing? The thought spun in Eliana’s mind like a storm she couldn’t outrun, even as her arms looped tighter around his neck. Her curls tumbled forward, spilling between them like a curtain, hiding the world and leaving only him—the man she swore she wouldn’t fall for, yet couldn’t resist.


    <i>’Why am I kissing Rafael Vexley?’ </i>


    He wasn’t just any man. He was her boss, a fortress of power wrapped in immacte suits and dangerous charm. The one who barked orders in boardrooms with that cool, cutting precision that made seasoned executives bow. And yet here she was, lips pressed to his, heat sparking through her veins as if her body had betrayed every boundary she’d set.


    It felt wrong. Every part of it screamed that it was wrong. And yet... it felt right. Too right. The taste of him lingered, dark and intoxicating, and she didn’t want it to stop. Couldn’t.


    Her brown skin flushed with a feverish heat, her pulse tripping over itself as exhration and shame warred inside her chest. Since the moment she stepped into this mansion—this gilded cage he called home—their lives had been colliding in ways she couldn’t exin. Heated arguments that left her breathless, stolen nces across marble halls, silences so thick they hummed with everything unsaid.


    And then... those nights. Two of them. Nights where control slipped and the lines blurred beyond recognition. Nights where she let herself get lost in him—his hands, his mouth, the sheer consuming fire of it all. Nights that ended in tangled sheets, gasping breaths, and the ache of knowing it meant nothing more than what it was.


    Or did it?


    Her mind raced, but doubt gnawed sharper than any pleasure. <i>’What am I to him?’ </i>she thought bitterly<i>. ’Another conquest? A naive girl from the wrong side of town too blinded by power to say no?’ </i>


    The kiss deepened, and her heart clenched. Rafael’s hands roamed with a deliberate hunger, one sliding down the curve of Eliana’s back to pull her impossibly closer, the other tangling deep in her curls as though afraid she might vanish if he let go. His mouth left hers only to ze a path along her jawline, lingering at the delicate curve of her neck. His breath was fire, hot against her skin, and the shiver that rushed down her spine betrayed her resolve.


    Her body arched instinctively, a soft, unguarded moan escaping her lips—a sound that felt like a secret she hadn’t meant to give away.


    "Rafael... please." Her whisper trembled, caught between protest and surrender as his lips brushed her corbone. "Stop... I don’t... I don’t want to be that woman. The kind who keeps... falling into this with her boss when we’re not even..." Her words faltered when his teeth grazed her skin, a spark igniting low in her stomach. "...when we’re not even anything."


    She clutched his shoulder with one hand, the other trembling as it traced the sharp line of his jaw. Her confession spilled out in fragments, punctuated by her gasps. "I’m not... I’m not like this, Rafael. I’ve only ever been with one man before you. Jason. Just him. And now..." Her breath caught as another weak moan slipped free. "...now there’s you. And I don’t even know what this is."


    Her honey-brown eyes, half-lidded with desire, shimmered with conflict. Her slender frame seemed to melt into him, molding against his body like y softened by fire. <i>’Why do I always crumble like this?’ </i>she thought desperately. <i>’This isn’t right. This is chaos... chaos wrapped in silk sheets.’ </i>


    Rafael froze, lips hovering over the frantic beat of her pulse. He could feel it hammering beneath his mouth, wild and fragile all at once. With a low, reluctant growl, he pulled back. His chest rose and fell with unsteady breaths, the echo of their kiss still burning between them.


    She was still perched on hisp, the rough denim of her jeans scraping against the tailored sharpness of his trousers. The wheelchair beneath them—a careful piece of his deception—might as well have disappeared. His steel-grey eyes, veiled as unfocused and distant, were anything but. They drank her in, every detail: her flushed cheeks, her swollen lips, the vulnerability carved into her expression.


    "Eliana," he rasped, his voice rougher than he intended, stripped of its usual armor. "I like you. I’ve liked you since the moment I saw you."


    Eliana blinked, stunned. Her lips parted, but no sound came at first. When her voice did return, it was thin, disbelieving. "What? You... you like me? Rafael, that can’t... that doesn’t make sense. We’re so different. And you’ve been nothing but cold, distant, impossible—"


    He didn’t let her finish. With a sudden tenderness, he gathered her against him, burying his face in the thick tumble of her curls. He inhaled deeply, the scent of her—vani shampooced with the faint earthiness of her day—flooding him like oxygen to a drowning man.


    "I’m telling you the truth," he murmured against her ear, his arms firm around her waist. "I know I don’t make it easy to believe, but you’re different. You see me, Eliana. Even when you don’t realize it, you see through the walls I’ve built."


    She eased back just enough to search his face, her hands steadying themselves on his shoulders. "Then why now? Why say this after everything? The fights, the distance... those nights. They felt like mistakes. Like I was convenient."


    Rafael shook his head, a rare, almost self-deprecating chuckle breaking from his chest. The sound surprised even him—soft, boyish in its vulnerability. "Convenient? No. Never. That night was real for me. More real than anything I’ve allowed myself in years." His thumb brushed her cheek, tracing the soft curve of her face. "I’m not certain what to call it yet, but... I think I’m in love with you."


    Her breath caught. Brown eyes widened, reflecting the dimmplight in molten gold. The words carved into her chest with terrifying force—half joy, half dread. "In love? With me? Rafael, that’s... that’s insane. I’m nobody. Just a woman trying to keep her father alive, living paycheck to paycheck. You’re Rafael Vexley. The recluse. The billionaire. The man who bends empires without lifting a finger."


    A faint smile curved his lips, softening the sharp lines of his jaw. In that moment, he didn’t look like the untouchable king of a shadowed empire—he looked almost human, almost breakable. "Insane? Maybe. But it’s still the truth. You’ve cracked something in me, Eliana. Made me feel again after years of... nothing."


    His hands tightened at her hips, grounding her on hisp, the heat of his body seeping through the thin barrier of their clothes. "If words aren’t enough, then let me prove it. I’ll show you a secret. One I’ve guarded with my life. If I share it with you, you’ll know. You’ll see that I trust youpletely."


    Eliana’s pulse thundered in her ears. Her world narrowed to this moment—the mingling of their breath, the steady tick of the clock on the wall, the depth in his clouded grey eyes that seemed to hold more than she’d ever understood.


    What secret could possibly bridge the impossible distance between them?


    The air crackled like a storm waiting to break.


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