The Love I Begged For Was Never Real novel Chapter 127

Nora stopped in front of the heavy mahogany door.

In her memory, this door was always kept firmly shut. Every single servant knew it was his absolute private sanctuary, and anyone unauthorized was strictly forbidden from stepping within ten feet of it.

Giselle was the sole exception. She was the only one allowed to completely bypass all rules and waltz in whenever she pleased.

When Nora used to visit Silas Hayes, she would occasionally pause at the top of the second-floor stairs.

She often saw Giselle twist the doorknob and run straight inside without even bothering to knock.

Soon after, Giselle's bright laughter would echo from the room, accompanied by Gideon's incredibly rare, gentle responses. Back then, Nora could only stand at a distance, staring at that slightly ajar door, her eyes brimming with intense envy and the bitter ache of an unrequited dream.

Now, Nora was the only person in the corridor. The manor was completely silent. Gideon was in his study working, and Giselle was half a world away.

Nora stood outside, staring fixedly at the door. When Gideon had brought her back tonight, he hadn't explicitly forbidden her from entering any specific areas.

Taking a step back, she was the legally recognized, socially acknowledged wife of the Hayes family. She was his spouse.

Under any normal circumstances, a wife walking into her husband's childhood bedroom wouldn't be seen as stepping out of line.

Nora reached out, her fingers wrapping around the freezing metal of the handle.

Nora had been one of them. She buried her crush deep in her heart, surviving for days on the sheer joy of catching a glimpse of him playing basketball from afar.

In that dark, damp alleyway, he had stepped in to defend her from a group of thugs, wielding a metal pipe. The sight of his broad, unyielding back had permanently rooted itself in her soul.

She exhausted herself trying to catch up to him, pushing herself to be exceptional, fighting to get into the exact same university, and majoring in jewelry design—all just to edge slightly closer to his world.

When she visited the Hayes estate with her parents, she would always spot the teenage Gideon reading quietly by the window. Though he was aloof, he never felt as impossibly out of reach as he did now.

She had stolen glances at his profile beneath the shade of the trees, but never in her wildest dreams did she imagine she would one day intrude on his private sanctuary like this.