[{"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-285":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},1735719,2219,"Chapter 285: a piece of glass","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-285",285,"\u003Cp>NOAH\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The dream felt so real that for a second, my lungs didn’t know how to work without the heat of him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the dream, Cassian was holding me. His arms were solid, and his chest was a steady drum against my ear. It was warm. It was safe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the only place in the world that made sense. Then the light from the window hit my face, and the heat vanished.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The reality of the morning came back, heavy and cold. He was still in that bed. He was still lost in a sleep that didn’t have an end date.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I forced myself to get up. My body felt like it was made of lead, but I pushed through the haze. On the walk to the station, I saw other couples.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They were holding hands or sharing coffee, their lives moving in straight, simple lines. I looked away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I went to the office first. The building was the same as always, a tall glass box full of people pretending to be important.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I sat at my desk and looked at the emails that had piled up. I started working through them. I did it with a strange kind of speed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the skill of someone who has learned how to do their job without actually being there. My hands moved, my brain processed the words, and I sent the replies, but I was miles away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My colleagues gave me those looks. You know the ones. Cautious. Polite. They stood at a distance, like they were afraid my bad luck might be catching.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They knew something had gone wrong, but they didn’t have the words to ask about it. I made it easy for them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t say a thing. I kept my head down and did my job.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The query letter was still sitting on my desk. I saw it there, a piece of paper that used to matter a lot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I signed the form to say I had received it. I put it in the right folder. I moved on to the next task.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The weight of it felt small now. It was buried somewhere deep under the weight of everything else that was actually happening.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t stay long. I couldn’t.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The building was too full of people who wanted things from me. They wanted my time, my focus, and my presence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t have any of those things to give. I wasn’t really there. Not today.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As soon as I could, I left. My body only knew one direction to move in once I stopped pretending to work. I headed for the hospital.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The guards at the entrance recognize me now. One of them gave me a short nod as I walked toward the elevator. It’s a nod that said he now recognized me, which is a thought that shouldn’t feel normal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It should feel wrong to be a regular at a place like this, but I didn’t have the energy to fight it. It just was what it was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I walked through the ward and opened the door. The room was quiet. It was always quiet, except for the soft sounds of the machines keeping him with us.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cassian looked the same. The white bandaging was clean, the edges perfectly straight. I could see that the gauze had been changed recently.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The nurses were being good to him. His body had that stiffness that comes from resting for too long. It was the look of a man being kept still against his very nature.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cassian was never still.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even when he was sleeping back at the house, there was a sense of motion about him, a coiled energy. Now, that energy was gone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The word that came to my mind was fragile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was the wrong word for him. Cassian was a force of nature, a mountain, a storm. But looking at him wrapped in white, held together by tubes and tape, it was the only word that fit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was being carefully maintained like a piece of glass.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And yet, the room still felt like it belonged to him. It’s a thing I’ve noticed about Cassian.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The world adjusts itself to fit him, even when he isn’t awake to see it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He has a pull, a gravity that doesn’t change just because his body is broken. He was still the center of the room. He was still pulling me toward him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I felt it the moment I stepped inside. I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. It was the breath I had been carrying since I walked out the door yesterday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I pulled the chair over and sat down. I opened my laptop as usual, but I didn’t really intend to use it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I tried to work. I really did. I opened an email from before and read the first sentence. Then I read it again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The words were just marks on a screen. They didn’t mean anything.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the third try, I gave up. I closed the laptop and just sat there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I reached out and adjusted the blanket over his chest. It didn’t need to be moved. It was perfectly fine where it was, but I needed to touch something.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I needed to do something that felt like I was helping. I smoothed the fabric down and tucked it in at his side.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then I looked at the monitor. The lines were steady. The numbers were the same as they had been ten minutes ago. I checked them anyway.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I watched his chest rise and fall. It was a slow, rhythmic movement. I stared at it until I was sure he was still breathing. It was my own little ritual.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I needed the proof of his life before I could let my own heart slow down. I would get a few minutes of peace, and then the worry would creep back in, and I would have to look again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I started talking. It was quiet at first, just a low murmur in the empty room. I didn’t even decide to do it; the words just started coming out.\u003C\u002Fp>",1023,"2026-06-06T16:23:43.455Z",1,"novelbin.me","0d4c5319b56db832462583c2da6f1a75146fff447af0c2bfa3a91d215f9c27c8","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-286","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-284",307,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fbl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-cover.jpg"]