Chapter 1551:

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Ever since she’d left Marcus and started dating Barry, she’d never experienced that same dizzying high, that overwhelming release that consumed both her mind and body.

“Novalee?” Marcus’s fingertips skimmed her cheek. “Where’d you go?”

The gentle touch snapped Novalee out of her daze. Her muscles tensed, and she instinctively pressed her thighs together. She couldn’t afford to let that craving get the better of her, not now.

“I—” Her stomach chose that exact moment to betray her, letting out a long, unmistakable growl that echoed through the quiet living room.

Marcus couldn’t help smiling. “That hungry, huh?”

Heat rushed to Novalee’s face. She gave a sheepish nod. “I drank way too much, and I never got around to eating dinner.”

Marcus shrugged off his jacket and draped it over the back of the sofa before turning to her. “Go take a shower.”

She blinked, rooted to the spot.

“The bar wasn’t exactly smoke-free,” he said with an amused smile.

Novalee instinctively lifted a sleeve and sniffed it. The stale mix of cigarette smoke and alcohol hit her immediately, making her cringe. Mortified, she got to her feet and retreated toward the bedroom she’d once called her own.

Her plan was simple: wash up, toss her clothes into the laundry, and hole up in the room until the clothes were dry. But Marcus seemed to have plucked the thought straight from her mind. “Your clothes are still in the closet.”

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘣𝘦ѕ𝘵 𝘳𝗲𝖺𝗱in𝗀 exp𝖾𝘳i𝗲ո𝖼𝘦 o𝘯 𝗀𝘢𝘭ոov𝗲𝗹𝘴.𝘤о𝗆

Novalee stopped in her tracks. She turned slowly, something unreadable flickering across her face. “You didn’t throw them away?”

Marcus looked up, one brow arching ever so slightly. “Why would I?”

The question landed so naturally that it caught her completely off guard. She opened her mouth, only to hesitate before finally forcing the words out. “I just, I thought, since we’re over—”

“I accepted your decision to end things,” Marcus corrected gently. He crossed to the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of red wine, and then glanced back at her over his shoulder. “That doesn’t mean it’s what I wanted.”

Novalee froze again, completely speechless.

Was he saying he regretted letting her go? That if she gave him the chance, he’d still want them, the special relationship they’d shared? But that wasn’t what she wanted anymore.

The future she once longed for now felt hopelessly out of reach. To any ordinary family, hers would look like nothing but a nest of leeches, a liability that had to be avoided at all costs.

Novalee stepped into the bedroom and pulled open the closet doors. More women’s nightgowns greeted her than before. Her old ones were still hanging neatly inside, but someone had added several new ones. She stood there for a long moment, her emotions knotting together until she could no longer tell one from the next.

She didn’t even know what she was hoping for anymore. Not with a compulsion she couldn’t escape and a family that had left nothing but wreckage in its wake.

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