She Was the Treasure All Along novel Chapter 955

Helena loosened her death grip on the duvet, fighting to keep her voice from shaking. "Is there someone else?"

She assumed there must be another woman, even though in all her time working for him, she had never seen him favor any specific female companion.

Morris walked over to the window and pushed it open. The cool night breeze drifted in as he stood bathed in the moonlight, the silver glow tracing the sharp profile of his face.

"There is no one else. You are a very beautiful woman," he stated objectively, his tone gentle. "The way you look draped over the sofa. The way you curl up in bed. How the tip of your nose gets red when you cry. How your toes curl when you climax. I see all of it. I remember every detail. But none of it makes me want to take off my pants."

A lump formed in Helena's throat. "Then why do you help me at all?"

He turned to face her. "I thought I made my reasons perfectly clear on day one."

"Your life is too boring, and you need a plaything like me to spice it up," she replied, her chest aching. She knew this was the truth. He had laid it all out from the start. But over time, her infatuation had spiraled out of control. She had gotten greedy. She wanted more.

That was her mistake.

"I simply enjoy watching you lose control. The fact that there is no genuine suffering in your eyes when it happens… I find that immensely gratifying."

Helena froze.

"When you dig the edge of the measuring tape into your skin, you don't look like you're in agony. You look liberated." Morris walked back and stood over her. "I just like the way that looks."

It was as if watching her break free from the noise gave him a vicarious escape from his own suffocatingly dull reality. But that was all it was to him. An aesthetic pleasure.

He crouched down to meet her gaze. "I have no desire to have sex, and I have no desire to fall in love."

"I'll handle the situation with your parents," he offered before stepping out. "I'll wire a million to your account tomorrow."

"Thank you," she accepted without hesitation. "Consider it my salary advance for the year."

She had absolutely no intention of giving a dime of that money to her parents. She was entirely at the end of her rope with them. Years ago, when they worked for Sybil Seabrook's mother, she had practically sold her own musical compositions to protect her parents and her brother from ruin. And what did she get in return? They had tasted blood, and their demands only escalated. They needed her to pay for her brother's tuition, his living expenses, his down payment on a house, his wedding fund. It was always about her brother.

It was like she was raising a son she hadn't birthed.

If she kept bowing to their demands, they would drain her dry, and she would end up locked in a psych ward.

The next morning, she and Morris drove to the studio together. The second they turned onto the street, she saw it.