?Chapter 1368:


    Ste paused at the study door and knocked. No answer. She steadied herself, turned the handle, and slipped inside.


    The room was dimly lit. William hadn’t turned on the main lights, only themp beside his desk, while the window curtains remained open. The neon lights from outside flickered in, dancing across his silhouette.


    Ste swallowed hard, bit down on her lip, and took a step inside. “William… happy birthday. I brought you a gift.”


    He’d been sitting with his head lowered,pletely lost in thought. Her voice cut through the silence. He looked up slowly.


    She’d actually gotten him something?


    William stood, his movement unhurried, and walked toward her. His tall frame edged into the dim pool of light, casting a shadow that seemed to stretch right over her.


    Ste instinctively stepped back a little.


    He stopped about half a yard away, voice low and even. “Don’t you hate me? Didn’t you wish I’d die so you could be with Marc? Yet now here you are, giving me a birthday gift?”


    She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Her gaze dropped to the telescope clutched in her arms. “I never said I wanted you to die,” she said softly.


    And she meant it. Even if she hated what he’d done to her, death had never once been part of the wish.


    Rather, it was he who’d wished her dead rather than forgive what he thought was her betrayal.


    William didn’t answer. He just stared at her, studying her face like he was trying to dig past the words and find something else underneath.


    After a while, he finally spoke. “You don’t hate me?”


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    Ste hesitated. “I do,” she said, steady but quiet. “But since it’s your birthday today… I can put that aside.”


    William’s heart lurched hard enough to hurt. He kept his gaze fixed on the wall, but inside him a hurricane roared.


    He had not been ready for her soft, almost shy promise that she wouldn’t hate him—not today, because it was his birthday.


    When his eyes flicked to the gift box she’d carried in so carefully, a treacherous warmth tried to rise in his chest. He crushed it.


    “Get out,” he said, voice t and lethal.


    Ste blinked, the words slow to sink in.


    Had she misstepped again?


    When she stayed frozen, he lifted his stare—cold, cutting. “Do I need to repeat myself?”


    She jolted. “I’ll go, but… could you at least open it first? I chose it for you. If you hate it, toss it the second I’m gone, just… open it.”


    The proud, defiant woman he knew had vanished; in her ce stood someone small and pleading. The change scraped at him like broken ss.


    William’s eyes narrowed to shards of ice. He rose, each step deliberate, until the air between them crackled with the chill rolling off him.


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