Obsession His Runaway Bride (Noelle and Adrian) novel Chapter 122

Chapter 122: Grace

Chapter 122: Grace

+15 BONUS

“And I’m not making the same mistake twice,” he continued in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not walking away without saying it. Not when I almost lost you before I ever got to tell you.”

There was silence in the room the moment he said those words.

Grace turned her face slightly as her eyes drifted toward the window where the light slipped in soft and pale across the white sheets. But it wasn’t the light she was seeing. It was her own memories… shadows that never left her. The past had a way of clinging to her skin, staining even the brightest moments before they could reach her heart.

Keegan’s hand was still warmly and steadily wrapped around hers.

But it terrified her.

She wanted to believe him. God, how she wanted to. But belief required something she had long lost, and it was the ability to trust what didn’t hurt.

All her life, love had been a ghost. She had been born into a world that never once made space for her, handed from indifference to cruelty with a ribbon of silence tying it all together. Affection, when it came, always had sharp edges. Kindness arrived only to vanish. And love – love never existed. Not from her real parents, nor the ones who raised her. Not even from Marco whom she had loved in silence for years, who had seen everything in her sister and nothing in her.

And now this man… this stranger who had only just stepped into her life… was holding her hand like it meant something. Like she meant something. Speaking the word love with a certainty that sounded like he’d been carrying it long before they even met. As if he had chosen her in a way no one ever had.

But it didn’t feel safe.

It felt like standing barefoot at the edge of a cliff, with nothing but wind beneath her and no promise she wouldn’t fall. Because the moment she leaned in and if she dared to believe… everything she’d built to survive might shatter.

After all…

How could he love her?

How could anyone?

She was a mess stitched together by survival, not softness. She wasn’t delicate or gentle, not in the way girls were loved in fairy tales. She didn’t know how to be held without the need to brace for pain. Her body carried scars… some visible, some buried under skin and memory. But her heart was worse. Fractured too many times to remember where it first broke.

1/3

Chapter 12 Grace

415 BONUS

And deep down, no matter how she tried to silence it, the voice still lived in her… the one that told her she wasn’t enough. That she was too much. That she was too loud, too cold, too hardened, too complicated. That she was wrong in the way she walked, in the way she looked, in the way she loved. That she was undeserving.

Not pretty enough, not soft enough. Not… good enough.

So when he looked at her with those eyes full of tenderness, it didn’t feel like a gift. It felt like a cruel illusion. Something meant for someone better and someone whole. Not her.

Because in her mind, she was made of flaws. Her skin, her silence… Her rage. Her grief. Her need. Her shame.

And maybe he saw none of that.

But she did.

And that was now enough for her to fear the idea of being loved.

“You…” Her voice cracked with uncertainty, and drew in a shaky breath before letting it go in a Haugh that felt more like a shield. “Hah… you only pity me, Segen.” She spoke and slowly

looked at him.

“Please… I’m begging you… don’t get it wrong. You… don’t mean it… So please don’t say it.”

Because if he did, and it wasn’t real, she wasn’t sure she’d survive it.

Grace gently let her fingers slip from his, like releasing something she had barely held in the first place. Not because she didn’t want him.

But because she no longer know how to believe him.

Because no one ever meant it when it came to her

And Keegan could see all the doubts in her eyes.

“Grace…” he said gently. “I won’t ask you to say anything you’re not ready to say. I’m not here to force you into feeling something just because I do.”

He leaned back slightly, just enough to give her space, but his gaze never wavered.

“I know you don’t believe me right now. And maybe you shouldn’t… that’s alright. Maybe you’ve been given too many reasons not to.”

“But I’ll wait.“.

Grace blinked, startled by how calmly he said it. As if waiting for her was the easiest decision

in the world..

“I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to feel safe. For you to believe that someone can mean it. That I can mean it. Not because you owe me anything. But because you deserve that kind of love… the patient kind. The real kind. And I want to be the one who gives it to you.”

2/3

Chapter 12 proce

+15 8CHUS

Keegan exhaled and scratched the back of his neck, suddenly looking a little sheepish and entirely endearing.

“So…” he said, glancing at her hand for a moment, then back up to her eyes with a crooked smile. “Let’s start from the beginning, hm?”

He extended his hand, open and gentle, like he wasn’t just offering a shake.

“Hi, beautiful,” he said with mock seriousness while his grin was growing. “I’m Keegan Sergeyev. You can call me Segen… Only you can call me Segen. It’s a very exclusive honor, I’ll have you know.”

Grace blinked at him, stunned into stillness… then her lips parted as a laugh escaped, soft and caught off guard, like something inside her forgot to be afraid for just a second.

She looked at his hand, still waiting there between them. And before she could talk herself out of it, she reached out and placed hers in his.

“Hi,” she simply said. “…I’m Grace.”

Keegan hummed in satisfaction and squeezed her hand.

“Grace,” he said, uttering her name in a gentle, almost reverent whisper, “You know what your name means, don’t you? ‘A gift freely given. I never understood the true depth of it until now.”

He paused, his eyes never leaving hers, as if she were the only thing in the world that mattered.

“You are my Grace,” he continued in a steady voice, yet filled with a reverence that made her heart race. “In every way, you are my Grace. And if life, in all its chaos and brokenness, has decided that I get to have you… then I would be a fool not to accept it wholeheartedly.”

His thumb brushed over the back of her hand in a simple, tender gesture that spoke volumes more than words ever could.

“I know it’s not easy for you to believe it,” he added, “but I’m not going anywhere. And if you’ll let me, I’ll spend every day showing you that I’m worthy of the gift that is you. My Grace.”