When Love Finds Its Way Back (Cassienne and Dreston) novel Chapter 243

Chapter Two Hundred And Forty–Three: I said I Trust You.

When Dreston walked back into the house, the silence felt different. It was heavy, vibrating with the unspoken questions he knew were coming. The drawing room remained exactly as he had left it–the same expensive furniture, the same soft lighting–but the atmosphere had shifted from peaceful to suffocating.

Cassienne was still on the sofa, her tablet resting in her hands. At a glance, it appeared she hadn’t moved an inch, but Dreston could see the tension in the set of her shoulders. She wasn’t reading. Her eyes were fixed on the screen, but they were vacant, her mind clearly miles away.

He paused for a heartbeat at the edge of the room before approaching her slowly, trying to project a calm he didn’t feel. When he finally sat beside her, Cassienne looked up. Their eyes met, and the

intensity of her gaze felt like a physical weight.

“What is going on?” she asked. Her voice was calm–dangerously so.

Dreston sat close, but he could feel an invisible barrier rising between them. “Nothing you need to worry about,” he replied, his own voice sounding hollow to his ears.

Cassienne didn’t blink. “That woman walked into this house like she owned the place, Dreston. You took her outside to hide the conversation, and now you’re telling me it’s nothing.”

Dreston exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand across his face. “It’s a business matter. A complication I need to resolve privately. That’s all it is.”

She studied him then, her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to read the truth behind his skin. She was measuring his words, searching for the gaps in his story.

“Does it involve me?” she asked.

“No,” Dreston said. The answer came too fast, too sharp.

Cassienne’s expression flickered. She had caught the tell. “So it has nothing to do with me. And nothing I should be concerned about.”

“Yes,” he lied.

A thick silence followed. Cassienne nodded once, a sharp, final gesture. “Alright,” she said. She turned her attention back to her tablet, effectively ending the conversation.

But the air remained charged. Dreston watched her, knowing that her compliance wasn’t a sign of belief. There was no relief in her face, only a growing, quiet distance. He knew that look; she was retreating into herself, building a wall that he was now on the outside of.

Cassienne tried to focus on her work, scrolling through a document, but the words were just a blur of black ink. Her mind kept looping back to Tina–the proprietary way she had moved through the mansion and, more disturbingly, Dreston’s lack of surprise. He hadn’t looked shocked enough. He looked hunted.

After a while, Dreston stood and poured a glass of water, bringing it over to her. “Drink this,” he said

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Chapter No huidred And Forty–Three: I sold Trust You

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softly, placing it on the table. “You’ve been working too long. You should rest.”

“Thank you,” she replied. Her tone was polite, the kind of courtesy one shows a stranger. She took a sip, but her eyes never left the screen. Dreston felt the gap between them widening by the second.

He reached out, his fingers brushing her arm in a silent plea for connection. “Cassienne.”

She looked at him, her expression unreadable. “Yes?”

He hesitated. He wanted to tell her everything–to warn her about the folder and the threats–but the risk was too high. If he let her in now, he might put a target on her back before he could neutralize Tina. “It’s nothing serious,” he repeated. “Trust me to handle it.”

“I said I trust you,” she replied. But there was a tremor of restraint in her voice, a hint of the hurt she was masking with logic.

The afternoon dragged on in a state of armed neutrality. They worked side by side, but the easy rhythm of their partnership was gone, replaced by a careful, measured performance of normalcy. When it was time to leave for the arena, Cassienne stood up and moved with a new, rigid efficiency.

“I need to get ready,” she said.

“I’ll come with you,” Dreston insisted.

She paused at the door. “You don’t have to.”

“I know. But I will.”

Cassienne didn’t argue. She disappeared into the bedroom and returned a short while later, dressed and composed. She looked like the professional gamer the world knew as NULLWRAITH–controlled, cold, and impenetrable.

As they reached the front door, she stopped suddenly. “Dreston, does this have anything to do with Tina

beyond what I already know?”

The question was a landmine. Dreston’s brief hesitation was all the answer she needed. He stepped closer, trying to bridge the distance. “It’s something I have to handle myself. That’s all you need to know

for now.”

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