Sweet Hatred Chapter 306: "It’s Over."

He looked exhausted. Remote. Yet sohow still so devastatingly composed that it made my chest ache.

God, he’d always carried the room like this. Even a hallway bent toward him, like it belonged to him.

My eyes dragged over the sharp line of his jaw, the veins corded faintly in his hands where they hung at his sides, the faint crease between his brows. Every detail scread familiarity and distance all at once.

And then his eyes locked on .

Those beautiful eyes I’d spent too many nights dreaming about.

The silence between us stretched... thick, suffocating, like a glass wall that neither of us wanted to break. My lungs burned with the weight of all the things I wanted to say. I opened my mouth, desperate, reckless enough to try...

But his voice cut in first.

"The eting is about to start." His tone was cool. Controlled. That voice that made even walls listen.

His gaze didn’t waver, but it was unreadable, closed off in a way that made my stomach twist.

"Why aren’t you in the conference room yet?"

Just like that, every breath I’d fought to find, gone again.

"I wanted to..." My voice shook, just a little. "See you. Privately."

For a fraction of a second, I swore sothing flickered in his eyes, but then it was gone, replaced with the coldest mask I’d ever seen on his face.

"The eting is about to start." His tone was sharp, clipped, like a blade carving distance between us. "Whatever issues you have with , bring them up later."

And just like that, he stepped past . His shoulder brushed the air where I stood, and then he was already at the elevator, his hand sliding into his pocket as the doors slid open.

He didn’t look back.

I stood there, frozen, breath caught sowhere between my lungs and throat. My pride felt like shattered glass beneath my ribs, cutting with every inhale. But what use was pride? Ego? When Kael had just treated like any other staff mber in this building?

It was almost laughable, how I’d once told him to stay away. And now... now it was him. Not in words, but in everything else. The line he drew was clearer than ink.

I tried to summon anger. To bite down on the humiliation clawing at my chest. But all it lted into was hurt. And guilt. Because what right did I really have?

I forced myself into the conference room before I could fall apart.

Kael was already there, seated at the head of the table, his expression unreadable. The aura he carried made everyone else fade to background noise, but I still found myself slipping glances at him, searching for cracks in that armor. Nothing. Just stone.

The eting began. Numbers. Budgets. Profits. Expansion into new territories. My ears caught phrases like "quarterly projections" and "divisional rgers," but my mind was elsewhere, stuck on the hallway, on the steel edge in his voice.

Still, I had to keep up. I was staff here. One ntion of my na, and I nearly jumped in my chair.

"Aria Thorne will oversee the preparations for the Roman Group’s fiftieth anniversary gala."

I blinked. "Yes. Understood."

A murmur of approval. Pens scribbling. Soone went on about the Roman Empire. A conglorate so powerful it made governnts bend, one of the richest parent companies in the world. The kind of wealth that didn’t need the spotlight; the kind that could pay Forbes itself to keep the Romans’ na quiet. Too big, too dangerous, too untouchable.

And I was supposed to help plan their celebration.

The eting eventually ended, executives filing out in waves. Kael was imdiately swallowed by his people, assistants, advisors, departnt heads, talking at him, handing him files. I waited, heart hamring, until the tide finally dispersed.

And as he stepped away, his presence filling the doorway,

"Kael," I called, my voice catching.

His stride faltered.

I took a step closer. Too close, maybe, but I needed him to see , needed to find sothing, anything, in those eyes.

But all I found was exhaustion. That sa quiet, bone-deep weariness that made guilt pinch in my chest for stopping him at all. For a mont, I almost stepped back. Almost let him go.

But the need for assurance was stronger. Desperate.

His gaze dropped briefly, then returned to mine, steady and guarded. "If this is about work, then you should, "

"It’s not." The words burst out, firr than I felt, trembling with every ounce of dignity I was still clinging to.

I forced myself to keep going, voice cracking at the edges. "I know I told you to stay away. But I didn’t think you’d actually take seriously."

Because in my head, Kael had always done the opposite of what I asked. He lived for my protests, my reactions. He fed off them, pushed to the edge just to watch unravel.

But now... nothing.

No warmth.

No teasing.

No flicker of wickedness in his eyes.

Just exhaustion. Like a wall I couldn’t climb.

And maybe that was the answer I had been looking for all along, screaming right at , but I couldn’t bear to accept it. The questions burned in my throat: about him, about , about her. That girl whose mouth he didn’t push away. But none of them ca out.

Instead, I whispered, "Are you alright?"

He scoffed softly. The sound cut through , sharp and humiliating.

My face heated. "What’s so funny?"

But he didn’t answer. He turned and started for the door, leaving stranded in the silence.

I followed before I could think better of it. "Kael, "

He stopped, his back to . When he finally spoke, his voice was low and cold, each word asured like a blade.

"You don’t need to worry about anymore Aria." He glanced over his shoulder, his expression unreadable. "Just focus on your work. On getting better."

My chest tightened, breath caught sowhere between anger and panic.

And then his voice dropped, final and rciless.

"As for the contract... the leash I’ve had on you... that twisted arrangent between us..."

He faced fully this ti, his eyes a storm I couldn’t enter.

"It’s over. You’re free now."