The Billionaire's Dangerous Obsession (Nivera) novel Chapter 124

Chapter 124

It didn’t make sense.

He hated being compared to his father.

And why would someone hate that unless they hated their father?

Nivera shot upright in bed as her breath caught in her throat as realization crashed into her.

Miguel Garcia.

That name was the one thing that tied Marceline and Alejandro together. Alejandro looked like him. Too much, in fact, it explained everything.

Now she understood Marceline’s odd behaviour that moment in the kitchen when she had attacked him with the knife.

It wasn’t that she didn’t recognize her son. It was that she thought he was someone else. Someone dead. And someone who must have made. her life a living hell.

She must have thought he was Miguel, standing there in the flesh.

Alejandro had left the house shortly after, his face unreadable. Now, it made sense.

He wasn’t trying to be cold to his mother. He was trying to protect her from being further triggered. So she wouldn’t have to relive her nightmares while staring at the man who looked like the very source of them.

“Alejandro,” she whispered, the name catching in her throat as her chest tightened.

All this time, she’d assumed he was a cold son who didn’t care for the woman who birthed him, which was why he froze whenever she hugged him and why he always tried to avoid her.

But that was just another mask. One of many. He

Ore it so convincingly she had believed it too.

He was protecting Marceline – the same way he’d protected her.

Alejandro’d always been protecting people. Even when he looked cold, or distant, or uncaring. It was never just black or white with him. It was always more complicated than that.

He was a good son.

A broken, traumatized son trying to shield a broken, traumatized mother.

Miguel had been dead for years, but his shadow still lingered–twisting itself around the lives of those he left behind like a ghost refusing to go quietly.

And Nivera knew then, with certainty, that the tabloids had gotten it wrong. Just like they’d gotten Alejandro wrong. Miguel Garcia wasn’t a great man who left behind a successful legacy

He was the kind of man whose memory made a grown woman scream in terror and attack her son. The kind of man whose name could silence Alejandro could make him flinch.

She remembered back in the elevator and how terrified he had been. What were the odds that it had been caused by his father?

God! Her chest hurt for him.

For both Marceline and Alejandro.

What kind of boy had he been? How old was he when he first realized his father wasn’t a hero but a monster? Had he cried? Had he fought back? Did he still carry the sound of his mother’s sobs in his memory?

She didn’t want to just know the man he was now.

She wanted to understand the boy he had once been.

Because Alejandro had no one. Not really. He couldn’t find comfort in his have friends.

not when even his face reminded her of trauma. He didn’t

He was alone, and he’d built thick walls around himself just to survive. She couldn’t blame him for keeping to himself. The person who was supposed to love him unconditionally had made his life a living hell.

The thought of Alejandro–alone in a room just across the hall, pretending he didn’t need anyone, pretending he wasn’t hurting–stirred something fierce and protective in her.

She couldn’t take it anymore.

The need to see him, to touch him, to tell him she understood–even if he didn’t want her to–overwhelmed her.

Before she could reason her way out of it, her legs swung over the bed and touched the cool floor.

Her heart thudded in her chest with every step as she crossed the hallway to the room

opposite hers.

Alejandro’s room.

She raised her hand to knock. Seconds ticked by, and there was no response.

Her heart sank a little, and she turned around, embarrassed that she’d let her emotions control her. It was late anyway, so he would be asleep.

Just as she took her second step away, the door creaked open behind her, and she froze in her steps.

Slowly, she turned back… And there he was.

Alejandro stood shirtless in the doorway, sweatpants slung dangerously low on his hips. His eyes, shadowed and tired, locked onto hers.

Her breath caught in her throat. There it was again–that flicker she always felt whenever she saw him. She had finally put a name on it.

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