The Billionaire's Intern (Maya Thompson) novel Chapter 310

Chapter 145: A Bitter Sunrise-1

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The first light of dawn crept over the horizon, washing the sea in soft strokes of gold and rose. The resort still slept, wrapped in silence save for the rhythmic hush of waves kissing the shore. It was the kind of morning that promised peace-yet to Nicholas Ashcroft, peace felt like a foreign

concept.

He stood on the balcony of his suite, shirtless, the breeze whispering against his skin. In his hand, a glass of whiskey-amber and gold-caught the newborn sunlight, glowing like fire in the quiet

dawn.

Below, the waves rolled in slow, lazy folds toward the sand, their calm rhythm mocking the storm

that churned inside him.

The wind carried the faint scent of salt and jasmine, but all he could think about was her-Harper. Her eyes, glassy and guarded, that look that cut straight through him. It had followed him into his dreams, and now, even in the fragile light of morning, it refused to let him go.

He hadn’t slept much. Every time he closed his eyes, the cave replayed in fragments-the sound of her breath, the warmth of her skin, the moment she’d looked at him like he was both danger and

escape.

And then the hallway. The door closing between them like a sentence he couldn’t finish.

Down below, the early morning staff began setting up the beach loungers and umbrellas. Life moved on, indifferent to the mess in his chest.

He needed to get his head straight. Whatever happened last night-it couldn’t happen again. He told himself that. Over and over.

But even as he said it, his eyes drifted toward the horizon. Her voice echoed in his head, clear and

inexorable.

“Let’s be friends with benefits. Let’s make some rules: you satisfy my heat, I’ll satisfy yours. No strings attached. But it stays our little secret. After three months-once the engagement is final-we stop. I may be crazy and wild… but I am faithful.”

The memory made his jaw tighten. Faithful.

The word shouldn’t have hit him the way it did.

He should’ve laughed at the absurdity of it-her making rules for something that had already spiraled far beyond control. But the truth was, that offer-that challenge-had unsettled him more than he cared to admit.

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Chapter 145 A Bitter Sunrise-1

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At first, he thought it was just lust-a convenient distraction between two people who understood the game. But last night, the look in her eyes when she said stop…. the tremor in her voice when she told him to leave her alone-it didn’t feel like a game anymore.

And that bothered him. More than it should have.

Nicholas Ashcroft didn’t do attachments. He didn’t need to. He built his life on control-on never

giving anyone the power to shake him.

But Harper Lin? She was chaos wrapped in elegance. Fire in silk. The one mistake he couldn’t

seem to stop making.

He exhaled sharply, raking a hand through his hair. “Three months,” he muttered under his breath, the words bitter on his tongue. “We’ll see about that.”

He tipped the glass to his lips and downed the remaining whiskey in one long swallow. The burn hit hard-sharp, clean-but it did nothing to dull the edge twisting in his chest.

He set the empty glass on the counter and turned back into the suite. The morning light bled through the curtains-pale, cold, and unkind-illuminating the wreckage of a sleepless night: a half-empty bottle, half-drawn curtains, and a bed he hadn’t touched.

He strode into the bathroom and turned the shower on cold. The first rush of water hit his skin like ice, dragging a hiss from his throat. He welcomed it-the sting, the shock, the bite of clarity. Anything to drown out the heat that shouldn’t still be there… and the woman who’d put it there in

the first place.

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