?Chapter 1598:
That evening, he returned home and immediately sequestered himself in the study, remaining there well into the night. Ste had grown familiar with this pattern, so she slipped into the kitchen to find Tasha. “Tasha, could you prepare some soup? William’s burning the midnight oil again.”
Tasha understood immediately. The soup came together quickly, and once it was ready, Ste carried it to the study herself. Knowing he likely wanted to avoid seeing her, she set the bowl gently beside the door and knocked twice, softly. “Tasha prepared soup for you. Please try to eat some. I won’t disturb your work.”
She retreated from the doorway without waiting to see whether he would retrieve it.
By the following morning, the soup she’d left outside his door had vanished.
The pattern repeated itself for several days running, and Ste maintained nearly the identical routine each morning. She no longer imprisoned herself in her bedroom. William frequently encountered her curled up in the living room with a book, or tossing a ball for Felix in the garden. He resisted acknowledging it, but the vi had undeniably grown more vibrant with her presence filling its spaces. Felix’s cheerful barking only amplified the effect, injecting warmth into rooms that had felt cold for weeks.
Over the course of two full weeks, Ste made no deliberate attempts to approach William. She initiated no physical contact and never once raised her voice at him. Instead, she demonstrated through silent, persistent action that she was granting him whatever time he needed to believe her love was real.
William registered every detail. Initially, profound agitation churned through him — unsettling, invasive — and instinct screamed at him to push her further away, which exined his continued refusal to engage in conversation. Yet gradually, something else began stirring beneath the surface. Catching sight of her quiet silhouette sent his heart into an inexplicable flutter. Familiar scents drifting from the kitchen left him standing dazed in hallways. Even Felix — constantly weaving around his feet — suddenly seemed infinitely more endearing.
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But just when William started questioning whether he might actually be epting Ste back into his life, those corrupted memories would surge forward at the most critical moments, shattering whatever fragile hope he’d begun constructing. Theyunched vicious counterattacks during the darkest hours, relentlessly insisting that Ste embodied nothing but deceit and maniption.
William felt like a wire pulled taut to its absolute limit — vibrating with tension, ready to snap at the slightest additional pressure. Insomnia and migraines intensified with each passing night. He spent hours staring at the ceiling in the dark, sleep stubbornly out of reach. He buried himself beneath crushing workloads in an attempt to exhaust the irritability and anxiety he couldn’t otherwise suppress, leaving before dawn and returning after midnight specifically to avoid encountering Ste — all because he feared what might happen if his control finally shattered.
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