All Chapters of The World Under His Fist : Chapter 21
- Chapter 30
39 chapters
CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE
Chapter 21 : Old Rival "I apologize, I know that's not professional but it was difficult enough to get him to allow you in." He stated, eyes scrunched with disapproval at the women gawking at the both of them. He knew it would not take long before the truth of their relationship was discovered and that they were married. As if on cue, a hand wrapped around his torso. Lara stared at him as a beautiful woman she recognized from the internet materialized. "Hey, baby! What are you doing here?" She said, her voice sweet and tiny. Her attire was so stunning and fitting, so much better than anything of the sort she owned. From the moment they met, she had been so perfect. Everyone in the room looked on in awe as she glided into the room, her flowing red gown clinging to every curve and edge. Her hair cascaded in glossy waves, passionately styled and illuminated with lights, while her makeup enhanced her striking features. She moved toward him with delicate hands clasped over his. A s
CHAPTER TWENTY -TWO
Chapter 22: Dance with meThe tension in the air grew thick. Lara held her breath. Sophia's eyes darted back and forth between the two men. Ansel's gaze remained fixed on Paul. His voice finally cut through the silence, soft, smooth, but deceptively dangerous. "Not really..." The words fell like a shard of ice in the heart of the opulent ballroom. A couple of reporters fumbled their cameras. Several investors suddenly seemed deeply absorbed in the floral arrangements. Paul Bryant's smile finally cracked. Not enough to disappear completely, but just enough for everyone to know that the blow had landed. Lara's stomach twisted. Ansel always got calm when he was angry; that was how he made it so much worse. If he had shouted, if he had railed and bellowed, they could have argued back. If he grew silent, that meant they were suffering. Paul stared at him for a long moment. Then, a short laugh, utterly humorless, burst from his throat. "Still blunt, I see." Ansel said nothing in res
A Year
He glanced down, only then did he seemed to realize.The wound itself was nothing but the shattered glass had left a small path of blood smeared across his palm.He didn't bother with it and wrapped the napkin around his hand. His eyes scanned the ballroom once more.The towards Lara and towards Paul. They were both sharing a a laugh.Sophia watched him closely, analyzing every expression he made, his gaze were fix, and then she leaned in close enough that nobody else could possibly hear.A little smile tugged at her lips. The smile of somebody who finally understood."You're jealous."The words whispered softly in the space between them.Ansel did not respond nor even glance at her but his silence was fleeting and it felt like an eternity to Sophia.Because in that silence she received her answer and it terrified her somehow.the first time since she met Ansel Yorke, Sophia Blake knew with a horrible certainty that she would never truly have his heart.The dance was over but the te
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Lara's breath hitched because she was expecting a response. There was none. The man who'd loved her enough to spend a whole year hoping she'd come back.Her lips parted and then closed.There was no response. Paul was watching her and in the silence...He understood, and across the ballroom, Ansel Yorke looked up. His gaze fell immediately on Lara and then on Paul.Then the silence between them. A shadow crossed his eyes because even at this distance.He could feel that whatever had just happened...It mattered.The ballroom pretended to be perfection cast in architecture; a gilded cage. Chandeliers suspended like frozen galaxies, gold filigree pillars that reflected the muted candlelit gleam, and guests clad in muted silk, navigating the flow of conversation which sounded like laughter, but never quite reached their eyes. Every aspect whispered of comfort and affluence and control.But Sophia had started to detect something else lurking beneath the surface of this illusion.Anxiety.
CHAPTER TWENTY- FIVE
Ansel did not reply. A pause, too long to be comfortable, stretched between them, taut like thin glass under strain. Sophia watched him closely, waiting for a denial, a clarification, something to ease the pressure in her chest. Ansel offered a small, precise nod, once. That was all. It was not a defense. It was not a contradiction. It was not even discomfort. It was a confirmation. Something in Sophia cracked violently, as if the solid ground beneath her certainty had crumbled without a sound. She gasped, but held it tight. Not now. Not here. Her voice dropped, but burned underneath. "You brought your ex-wife to my father's party?" Ansel's expression did not shift, if anything growing more remote, as though he had already stepped out of the conversation. "She is my employee. There's a difference," he said, evenly. The words did not fall into the air. They struck it too neatly. Too much like they had been rehearsed. Sophia blinked once. "Employee?" she repeated, slowly, letting
CHAPTER TWENTY -SIX
Sophia hadn't moved an inch since Ansel had left her, as if her body had already forgotten how to respond while her mind continued to burn away all that it had just experienced. The ballroom around her gradually slipped back into its faux rhythms: the music's lulling tenderness, the discreet peals of laughter that still fell in careful bits, the clinking of glasses once again. Still, nothing seemed to shift into place in Sophia's mind; as if that one tiny crack had already split through the facade of the entire evening and nothing would ever hold it together again.Her eyes never strayed from the receding figure of Ansel even as he melted into the departing crowd, and the weight of that figure moving further away without even a single look back at her carried an irritating, unyielding burden on her chest. He hadn't denied it; not at all, not really, not in the way she’d needed him to. He had simply given that one nod, precise and economical and completely devoid of hesitation and emot
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The second Lara shut the door to her apartment, it felt like she had been released from a space she hadn't realized she was held in. The silence that enveloped her wasn't the expectant, vibrating quiet of the banquet hall; this was a deeper, more intimate kind of silence that only the noise she'd escaped could hide. She stood perfectly still for a moment, letting her breathing slow, until she could recognize it as her own again. Then she walked into the room, and sighed, a deep, exhausted sound that felt like it held a week of tension.She kicked her shoes off one by one, lining them up by the bed-an unconscious gesture of order against a night that had offered none. She sat down, letting her hands rest loosely in her lap, replaying the night in her mind: the mocking smile of the investor, the sudden chill in the air, the way Paul had stepped in with that surprising assurance, the unexpected, overwhelming presence of Ansel in the center of everything, like a storm that didn't give any
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
The morning light filtering through the dining room windows was gentle and almost disarming, as though the world outside hadn't already taken a sharp turn without any of them noticing. Lara stepped into the dining room quietly, the soft sound of her heels on the hardwood announcing her arrival before she said a word. Her family was already seated at the breakfast table, the collection of plates, cups, and the morning's routine forming an ironic illusion of normality in light of the previous night's events. She stood in the doorway for a moment, observing them without interrupting, then let out a small breath. "Good morning, mom, dad" she said softly, "good morning Grandma" her voice tinged with the weariness that had not allowed for proper sleep.Her father looked up first, followed by her mother, and then her grandmother, their gazes holding that same inherent sense that something about Lara wasn't quite settled. Jeremiah, lounged easily in his chair, an advantage that always see
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lara was driving without any particular destination in mind. Where she was going or how she would get there did not matter to her. She heard still the voices from breakfast echo in her head; with unnerving clarity, they replayed themselves. The disappointment in her father's voice. The anger from her grandmother. The silence from Jeremiah. And most importantly, her own voice. It was loud and frustrated. For years she had suppressed her feelings of betrayal because someone in her family had to stay strong and moving while the rest of them seemed happy to sit amidst the rubble of the one prosperous and once respectable Cree Family.But something had snapped in her that morning, perhaps earlier in the day, or maybe since the moment she watched Sophia wrap herself around Ansel at the banquet, or even three years ago when she signed her divorce papers and reassured herself it was the right thing to do. Cars whizzed by the car window, buildings with steel frames, concrete and sunlight flew
CHAPTER THIRTY
"Mr. Yorke!" Lara blurted out the words before she could stop them. The construction workers paused, the drilling and hammering seemed to momentarily die down at the sound of her sudden outburst. Ansel had stopped walking. For a second, that was all that happened. He just stood there with his back still to her and offered neither a sign that he knew she was there nor bothered to look around. He reached one hand casually into the pocket of his slate-grey trousers, the other hand fell limply to his side. Morning sunbeams cut long shadows through the half-finished floors of the headquarters building entrance. Lara hurried after him, the sharp clicking of her heels against concrete amplifying as she followed him into the building. The instant she was through the doorway, her stomach dropped. The room felt… off. The lobby she had known her whole life was completely gone; the marble reception desk where she had greeting guests after school had vanished. Even the huge Cree Corporation log