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12: The Weight of the Morunaga Name

Author: Pann Ludovica
last update Last Updated: 2025-01-03 07:15:29

POV: Beatrice

I woke to the suffocating realization of my new identity: Mrs. Ryuu Morunaga. The word—wife—clung to my mind like poison, bitter and unrelenting.

I jerked upright, pulling myself free from the arms that had held me through the night. When had I sought their refuge?

The thought made my stomach turn. Weakness. That’s what it had to be—a momentary lapse, born of exhaustion.

The blanket slipped off my shoulders, landing across Ryuu’s sleeping form. He didn’t stir. His chest rose and fell with a calmness that mocked my inner chaos.

The loose pajama pants he wore did little to obscure the sharp, disciplined lines of his physique.

Many women would have envied me, trapped in marriage to a man who embodied power and control so effortlessly.

But attraction, if that’s what this was, felt more like a betrayal.

Ryuu was a man to be feared. His presence was a reminder of everything I despised about this life—its ruthless, unyielding grip.

His body, honed by years of relen
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