?Chapter 904:


    Yet, truth remained impossible now, so she offered carefully vague honesty. “A long time ago.”


    Delight colored Cole’s features, spurring another question. “If you’ve carried this feeling through so much time, why didn’t you seek me out sooner? Had youe to me earlier, Wanda never would have entered the picture.”


    Wanda’s name struck Elliana like ice water, jealousy surging through her veins with vicious intensity.


    Despite knowing nothing real had urred between Cole and Wanda, Elliana still burned when she remembered everything—how he had hurried to the Campbell family and proposed to Wanda right after waking, and how that engagement had ended with Wanda plotting to kill her.


    What Elliana felt toward Cole wasn’t simple anger—it was mixed with jealousy. The sharp edge of her fury was nothing more than a disguise for the jealousy eating her alive. As jealousy surged, a childish impulse followed. She and Cole had been kissing only a moment ago, yet now all she wanted was to jab at him, to make him feel the sting she carried.


    Tilting back with a sly little smile, Elliana whispered, “Don’t look so troubled. It’s quite normal to have an ex. I don’t mind that you were once engaged to Wanda—as long as she’s no longer part of your life.”


    Though her phrasing sounded generous, the hidden message in her words was impossible to miss.


    Cole zeroed in on the one crucial detail. She had an ex. The idea hit him hard, flipping his world upside down. His jealousy was about to drown himpletely.


    Sure, he had been engaged to Wanda once, but it had ended quickly, fading into nothing. The question wing at him now was about Elliana—what history did she share with this so-called ex, and how far had it gone? Even if, like him and Wanda, nothing had happened between her and that ex, the notion of her once belonging to someone else was unbearable.


    Find your favorite stories at


    A fierce possessiveness swelled within him, so intense and foreign that he could hardly believe he was capable of it. While jealousy churned violently in him, a fragile hope held on—perhaps he’d misheard, perhaps she was only teasing.


    Fighting to mask his emotions, Cole forced a strained smile. “You had an ex?”


    Elliana knew Cole’s jealous streak all too well. His fakeposure was paper-thin, and seeing through it gave her a quiet thrill of triumph. Jealousy had him by the throat now—in truth, he was boiling with it. Delighted by his reaction, her smile deepened, her eyes curving with mischief. “Naturally,” she said, pretending to be innocent. “I once loved my ex… ex-boyfriend dearly.” The word “ex-husband” nearly slipped from her lips, but she stopped herself just in time. Their marriage records had been erased. On paper, their marriage had never existed, so she smoothed it over with “ex-boyfriend.”


    Her admission shattered his fragile hope, and the jealousy he had tried to contain erupted like fire tearing through dry brush.


    Logic told him she was a woman any man would have admired, that she likely had someone before him, that he shouldn’t care. Yet, reason meant nothing against the raw possessiveness wing at his chest.


    Inside his mind, everything dissolved into a storm of noise and fury. The thought tore through him—how could the woman who consumed his every breath have ever belonged to another man?


    Right then, Elliana remained curled in Cole’s arms, their closeness deceptive. The tenderness was gone, reced by tension that pulsed through his muscles, radiating off him like the searing heat of a forge.


    .


    .


    .<fn27ae> Th?s chapter is updated by findnovel</fn27ae>