Time-Limited Love: A Contract Expired, Not Renewed novel Chapter 83

Those crimson eyes seemed even darker now, burning with something she couldn’t quite name.

For a moment, it was as if he thought she’d betrayed him.

If their marriage wasn’t bound up in a contract, Zinnia might have actually believed she was guilty of something, seeing the look on his face.

But reality was far less romantic. She glanced at Landon, thinking of the less-than-two-months left on their agreement.

“Fine. Understood.”

She nodded.

But now that all her old tenderness for him had faded, she found she simply couldn’t bring herself to call him “Landon” in that familiar, intimate way.

Landon’s expression softened just a little.

Yet the faint trace of her perfume—patchouli, lingering on her skin—was still needling his nerves.

He rubbed his temples, fighting to tamp down the flare of irritation, and the uneasy restlessness simmering beneath it.

“Then say my name. Let me hear it.”

Annoyance flickered in Zinnia’s eyes. She didn’t want to play games with him anymore, so she cut straight to the point:

“Do you have a problem with me?”

Landon was caught off guard by her bluntness.

“What?”

“If you don’t like me, just say so. There’s no need to keep picking fights,” she continued.

Suddenly, the meaning of her words clicked for him.

He stared at Zinnia for a long, silent moment, shadowed eyes unreadable. Then out of nowhere, he laughed—a sound sharp and humorless.

“Having you say my name is ‘picking a fight’?”

Sensing his rising temper, Zinnia fell quiet. She didn’t want to argue over something so trivial, so she forced herself to swallow her own irritation and said softly,

“I just think… calling your name for no reason feels strange, that’s all.”

“I mean—did you need something?”

He leaned back, gazing at her, his eyes lingering on the way the loose robe hung off her shoulders. The neckline dipped low, revealing glimpses of bare skin in the quiet room, an unexpected intimacy thickening the air.

Landon’s pupils dilated, gaze growing darker.

Realizing how exposed she was, Zinnia hurried to pull the robe tighter around herself.

But just then, Landon stood, striding toward her.

Zinnia wasn’t short—five-foot-seven, tall by most standards. But with Landon towering over her at six-foot-three, his presence felt almost suffocating.

She instinctively stepped back—only to bump into the bathroom door behind her.

It hadn’t latched all the way, and as she leaned into it, the door swung open.

She stumbled backward, scrambling for balance, hand shooting out to grab something—anything—just as a sharp click echoed through the room.

The unmistakable sound of a belt buckle coming undone.