[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my":3,"chapter-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-277":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","[BL] Bound to My Enemy: The Billionaire Who Took My Girl",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1735711,2219,"Chapter 277: Denial","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-277",277,"\u003Cp>NICK\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My hands gripped the edge of the kitchen counter until the marble felt like it might crack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I kept my eyes fixed on the black tile of the wall in front of me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I did not want to look at the doorway. I did not want to hear if Cyan was eating or if he had pushed the plate away in that quiet, stubborn way he had.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The dining room was silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That silence was heavy. It was a physical thing that pressed against my back, trying to force me to turn around.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I started to organize my thoughts. My mind moved fast. It was a machine. I needed it to be a machine right now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is just exhaustion, I told myself. I had performed two major surgeries yesterday. I had been called in for a midnight operation that lasted six hours. Sleep deprivation does strange things to the brain. It affects your ability to process reality. This was clinical. This was explainable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I refused to name the other thing. I would not let it into the room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But as soon as I pushed it away, it came back with more force. It took so much effort to redirect my brain that I felt the strain in my neck.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That was information. My body was telling me something that my mind refused to hear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The uglier version of the truth arrived anyway.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You are pathetic, I thought. I was a surgeon. I was the best at this hospital. I was a man who worked with sub-millimeter precision.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I did not lose control of my hands. And yet, I had grabbed a stranger’s face twice in one day. I had felt the heat of his skin and the pulse in his jaw.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Get a grip, I told myself. He is just a person. He was just a man in my house. He was wearing my clothes. He had eaten my chocolate. He was a patient I had dragged home because I didn’t know what else to do with him. He was just a person.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I looked down at the counter. My hands were still there, white-knuckled and shaking slightly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I moved to the sink and started washing the few dishes I had used. I needed the mechanical motion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I needed my hands to be busy with something that had nothing to do with the way they had just cupped a man’s chin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I focused on the water, the soap, and the rhythm. I focused on anything that wasn’t the boy in the other room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I went back into the dining room the first time because I needed to check the plate. It was a legitimate task.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I needed to know if he was getting enough nutrition for his recovery.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Did you finish?\" I asked. I did not look at Cyan. I kept my eyes on the ceramic surface of the plate. It was empty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Good,\" I said. I took the plate and went back to the kitchen. I didn’t stay. I didn’t breathe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But ten minutes later, I was back. The second time, it was the blanket. It was draped over the back of the couch, and one corner was touching the floor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It didn’t actually need to be moved, but I found myself standing over it. I straightened the fabric. I smoothed it out with my palms.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I invented the task in real time just so I had a reason to be near him. I needed to feel the air around him. It was a compulsion I couldn’t name.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The third time, It was the remote. It was sitting on the cushion right next to his hip. I picked it up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My fingers brushed the fabric of the blanket he was wrapped in. I moved the remote six inches to the coffee table. It had been fine where it was. It didn’t matter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The fourth time, I didn’t even have an object in my hand. I didn’t have a plan. I just found myself standing in the doorway, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t know why I was there. I was like water finding the path of least resistance. I wasn’t deciding to move; I was just flowing toward him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cyan didn’t look at me the first three times. He kept his eyes on the screen, a flicker of light reflecting in his purple irises. But the fourth time, he turned his head. He looked at me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You keep coming back,\" he said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sentence was simple. It wasn’t an accusation. It was just a fact. He was observing me with the clarity of someone who was only half-anchored to the world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My composure shattered. It hadn’t been real composure anyway; it had been a performance for an audience of one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I’m not,\" I said.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The lie was immediate. It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Then I stopped. I realized how ridiculous I sounded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I had come back four times. The silence that followed was heavy. It was the space where an admission should have been.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Good night,\" I said. I sounded aggressive. I sounded like I was losing an argument that I refused to admit was happening. I walked into my bedroom and slammed the door.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The room was dark, but the quiet of the apartment felt loud. I could feel him on the other side of the wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I knew exactly where the couch was positioned in relation to my bed. I knew he was there, breathing the same air I was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I closed my eyes. I tried to force sleep to come. I tried to think of my surgical rounds or the papers I needed to write. It failed immediately.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The dream didn’t come back. Something worse did. A memory. It was specific and real. I saw his face from twenty minutes ago. I saw his eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They were a specific shade of purple that I hadn’t seen on any other human being. At a distance, they were just a color.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At close range, they were a universe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I started taking an inventory of him without my permission. I thought about his lashes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They were unreasonably long. I thought about the silver piercings in his ears and how they caught the light from the television.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I thought about the way my shirt sat on his shoulders. They weren’t my shoulders. They were narrower, more fragile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And then I thought about his lips. They were a specific, soft pink. I had been so close to them. So close.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling again. \"Stop,\" I whispered. My voice sounded strange in the dark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I closed them again, but the face was still there. The proximity was still there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I felt that same cold drop in my stomach that I had felt in the dining room. I recalled the feeling, and then I felt something else.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Heat.\u003C\u002Fp>",1166,"2026-06-06T16:23:43.455Z",1,"novelbin.me","46ae55c0ad666b8ddbf7a86ebedc62c8b3668a376e16ce41128f27c6d396e8a3","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-278","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-276",307,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fbl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-cover.jpg"]