The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 525

Chapter 258-2

+25 Point

Determined to wash the sterile hospital smell off my skin, I turn away from the nursery and head

into the master bathroom.

I strip off my clothes, wincing as the movement pulls at the healing lacerations across myos.

Stepping into the massive tile shower, I turn the brass handles, letting hot water blast over y

shoulders and down my back.

I grab the soap, but as the steam fills the stall, the scent of almond and vanilla hits me instantly. Or the marble ledge sits a bottle of her shampoo, left behind by Zara in what must have been a

desperate hurry to pack.

I stand there under the cascading water, closing my eyes as the warm, sweet/steam wraps around

1. me. The water runs down my face, stinging the scabbed cuts on my brow, but it can’t wash away

the heavy, suffocating realization of what’s happened.

I turn off the taps, towel off the damp heat, and freeze as I step toward the vanity.

Standing in front of the mirror, I stare directly at my own reflection, and the sight turns my stomach

cold.

Deep, mottled purple bruises spill down my jawline and wrap around my collarbones. Patches of my head are cleanly shaved where thick, ugly black sutures zig–zag across my scalp like jagged

barbed wire.

But it’s my eyes that unsettle me most. The storm–gray irises looking back at me feel hollowed out, strange, and utterly disconnected from the man behind them.

It’s like staring at a stranger wearing my skin.

I sat in Room 412, looked at the woman who’s carrying my baby with those exact empty eyes, and

treated her like an inconvenient stranger.

We aren’t married – the club briefings made that clear. Zara isn’t bound to me by a legal piece of

paper.

Which means that she was here with me because she chose to be, because we built something

raw and fierce together.

And I offered her scheduled visits like a clinical associate, forcing her to pack her bags and flee back into the cold just to escape my blank, obliging pity.

I turn away from the glass, wrap a towel around my waist, and walk out into the master bedroom.

PO7

111

…

Chapter 256-2

I open the heavy oak dresser, pulling out a clean black t–shirt and dark denim. As I reach down i the bottom drawer to look for a belt, my fingers brush against a hard, heavy object tucked

nderneath a stack of sweaters. Beside it rests a small, wooden–framed picture.

I pull them both out into the dim afternoon light.

First, my eyes lock onto the photograph… and my breath catches in my throat

It’s a picture of us. Zara is striking and dark–haired, laughing, her eyes crinkling at the comersa fluffy German Shepherd puppy squirms wildly in her arms. Beside her, with his arm wrapper tot

around her waist, is me.

I stare at my own face in the glass.

I’m smiling.

Not the brief, hard smirk I give the guys at the clubhouse, but a soft, open, unguarded smile…. a look of absolute, terrifying peace that I didn’t think I was capable of wearing. I look entirely undone by her, entirely connected, fiercely protective and utterly at ease all at once.

Who was I when I was with her? Who was this man who looked at this woman like she was the

center of his universe?

Setting the frame gently on the mattress, I turn my attention to the box in my hand. Inside sits a custom–forged steel belt buckle attached to a thick, high–grade leather strap.

It’s softer than my other belts, broken in with the kind of meticulous care someone only gives a gift meant to last a lifetime.

I lift the heavy steel plate, holding it up to the fading light filtering through the blinds.

Stacked neatly on the front, set in dark, clean, striking script, are two sets of GPS coordinates.

I stare at the numbers, my brow furrowing as a wave of intense confusion washes over me. I recognize the bottom line, of course: it’s the exact coordinates for this penthouse high–rise.

But the top line is a complete mystery. Latitude and longitude numbers that mean nothing to my

Where does that point?

The complete lack of context maddens me, a taunting clue to a riddle I don’t have the key to solve.

I turn the heavy steel buckle over in my hand. Engraved neatly into the polished back are four

Always My Safe Haven

The metal bits into my palm as my grip tightens until my knuckles turn white. Surely this was

I sit down heavily on the edge of the mattress, the crushing silence of the empty penthouse

The half–painted nursery and the unbolted crib sit down the hall, silent monuments to a future c

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