REBORN My Second Life I Became The Villianess (Nyxara) novel Chapter 136

He reached across the small laminate table and took my hand, his fingers wrapping around mine. There were no secret messages, no hidden motives, and no dark calculations behind it. He just wanted to hold my hand in a diner while we ate greasy fries.

A few days later, I came back to our room after spending the morning reviewing system updates with Eli on my laptop. When I walked into the bedroom, there was a heavy wooden box sitting in the middle of our bed. It was made of polished dark walnut with a silver latch on the front.

I stopped, looking around the empty room. "Dario?" I called out, but there was no answer. He was probably down in the gym or meeting with my dad in the study.

I walked over to the bed, sitting on the edge, and pulled the wooden box onto my lap. The wood was smooth and cool under my fingers. I flipped the silver latch open and lifted the heavy lid.

Inside, resting on a bed of dark grey velvet, was a compact, customized leather-bound notebook with a heavy silver pen tucked into the side loop. Beside it lay a small, sleek black device no bigger than a thumb drive, marked with a tiny silver crest.

I picked up the notebook first. On the inside cover, in Dario's sharp, clean handwriting, was a short note:

For your real thoughts. Not for Cipher Core, not for revenge, not for the family. Just for you. The drive has encrypted cloud storage connected directly to my private server, nobody else has the key. Write whatever you want, whenever you want. You don't have to keep everything locked in your head anymore.

I stared down at the dark ink on the cream-colored page, my fingers tracing the lines of his writing. It wasn't a diamond necklace or a luxury car. It was an acknowledgment that he understood how much heavy stuff I carried around in my head every single day, and he wanted to give me a safe place to put it down.

My throat felt a little tight as I closed the notebook and he it against my chest. A moment later, the bedroom door opened and Dario walked in, wiping his face with a small white towel around his neck. He paused when he saw me sitting on the bed with the box open.

"You found it," he said, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe.

"What is this?" I asked, though my voice was softer than I meant it to be.

"A gift," he said simply, walking over and sitting on the edge of the mattress next to me. "You're always working, always calculating, always carrying the weight of everything you do. I wanted you to have something that was just yours." he said.

I looked at him, taking in the faint sweat on his collarbone, the messy hair, and the gentle, completely unguarded look in his eyes. The dangerous CEO who had spent years treating the world like a chessboard was sitting here trying to give me peace of mind.

"Thank you, Dario," I said, leaning over and resting my head against his shoulder.

He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me tight against his side and pressing a warm kiss into the top of my hair. "Anytime, kitten. Anytime."

The morning air outside the estate had a crisp, cool edge to it that signaled autumn was rolling in. I stood near the floor-to-ceiling glass doors of our private balcony, holding a mug of warm tea between both hands and watching the guard patrols complete their morning rotation around the eastern lawn. Everything felt orderly, calm, and quiet.

Dario came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling my back flush against his broad chest. He rested his chin on my shoulder, his breath warm against my neck as his hands settled flat over my stomach.

"You're awake early," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep.

"Couldn't sleep," I said softly, leaning back into his hold. "It's too quiet. I keep expecting someone to crash through the front gates or for Jax to break down the door with emergency news."

He chuckled softly, the vibration buzzing warm against my back. "Get used to the quiet, kitten. We earned it. Besides, Jax isn't breaking down any doors today unless I tell him to."

I turned slightly in his arms to look at him. "Speaking of Jax, where is he? I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon."

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