The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 614

**Chapter 614: Unsettled Accounts**

He had never once uttered a figure, a silence that gnawed at Laura’s insides more than the bruises marring her skin. It was an unspoken debt, heavy and suffocating, lingering between them like an unwelcome specter.

Weston lifted his gaze, his eyes narrowing as they scrutinized her. “Are you in such a hurry?” he asked, his tone a mix of curiosity and challenge.

“I just can’t stand unpaid debts,” Laura replied, her voice steady, but the tremor in her hands betrayed her.

“So, to keep your conscience clear, you’d even climb into my bed if I demanded it—am I right?” Weston’s voice dropped to a low, gravelly whisper, each word laced with a challenge that hung in the air like a charged storm.

Laura bit down on her lower lip, the taste of iron filling her mouth, and said nothing in response.

A wry smile tugged at the corners of Weston’s lips, a mix of amusement and bitterness. He snapped the lid onto the porcelain jar of ointment with a decisive clink, placing it on the coffee table before leaning in closer, invading her space until the delicate strands of her hair trembled beneath the shadow he cast.

“W-What are you doing?” Panic flared in her eyes, bright and unguarded, a wild animal cornered.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t want to owe me anything? That you’d even share a bed with me? What’s the fear now?” His words dripped with a teasing edge, daring her to confront her own feelings.

She glared at him, her breath hitching in her throat. “Even if that’s the price you want, at least wait until these bruises fade. Don’t tell me you plan to collect right this second.”

The bitterness at the corner of Weston’s mouth deepened, dark like the clouds before a storm. Other women sought him out to bind themselves to his name, to weave their lives into his. Yet Laura, in her desperation, would offer the same, not to draw closer, but to create distance, hoping that a single night could sever the ties that bound them.

“Laura Wentworth, do you truly see me as that low and shameless?” His question slipped from his lips, a gravel-soft murmur that seemed to echo in the stillness between them.

Instinctively, she recoiled, searching for the air that seemed to thin around them.

His hand found the small of her back, denying her retreat, anchoring her in place.

“I’m no saint, but I don’t kick someone I once loved when she’s already down,” he stated, his voice steady, a rock in the turbulent sea of emotions swirling around them. “If all I craved was a woman’s body, I could have one with a mere snap of my fingers.”

What he desired had never been so trivial.

“You asked for a price. Very well. Here it is.” He leaned in so close that their noses nearly touched, their breaths mingling in the narrow space, creating a fragile intimacy.

“Weston—” The name scraped from her throat as she attempted to turn away, but his warm breath brushed against her cheek, unbearably intimate. She tilted her head back, but his fingers tightened around the base of her skull, holding her precisely where he needed her to be.

“From this moment on,” he declared, each syllable measured and deliberate, “stop drawing lines between us. Stop treating me like a stranger.”

She paused, the weight of her words heavy in the air. “I can’t fall in love with you again.”

She insisted on laying the boundary bare, convinced it needed the clarity of daylight to shine through the murky waters of their past.

“I know.” Weston chuckled softly, though his eyes betrayed the hurt he tried to mask. He pretended the admission cost him nothing, but inside, it burned like a brand.

Yes—how could he not understand? The confession seared in his chest, each syllable igniting the memory of the pain he had caused.

Her voice echoed in his mind when she had invited him to her mother’s grave, the earnest hope shining in her eyes, and the careless, cutting refusal he had given in return. That single wound, layered atop countless others he had inflicted, had drained the last drop of tenderness she might have harbored for him.

He had hurt her, once, twice—too many times to count. Each scar he left behind echoed back at him like footsteps in an empty hall, a haunting reminder of his failures. So if, by some grace, she would allow them simply not to be strangers, he considered that a fortune greater than anything his wealth, power, or cunning schemes could ever procure.

“Relax, I won’t force you to love me. I know far too well that fruit picked before it’s ripe can never taste sweet,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, like the rustle of leaves in the twilight.

He possessed the influence to secure anything he desired—the kind of discreet methods that left no trace, the kind of favors traded in hushed tones where sunlight dared not venture.

Yet when the prize was her freedom, every strategy crumbled into dust, slipping through his fingers like ash. He was terrified—terrified of meeting her gaze and finding only disgust reflected there, of watching love curdle into hatred because he had tried to cage what was meant to soar.