[BL] Bound to My Enemy: The Billionaire Who Took My Girl-Chapter 120: Good man

NOAH

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"I am selfish," he said, the words falling like lead weights. "I am heartless. I am manipulative. I use people and I throw them away when the friction becomes too much. I’m toxic. I’m controlling. I’m a piece of shit criminal who doesn’t know how to exist without a target."

Each word was sharp, precise. He wasn’t just confessing; he was stabbing himself with the truth of my accusations. He was stripping himself bare, showing me the rot he believed lived inside him.

"You weren’t wrong," he whispered, his eyes blazing with a terrifying intensity. "Not even a little."

I opened my mouth, a "no" forming on my tongue. I wanted to tell him I was just angry, that I didn’t see him that way anymore, that the man carried me out of that bar drunk or looked after Cyan couldn’t be all those things. But he didn’t let me speak.

"So stay the fuck away from me."

The command was raw. His eyes were burning now, but underneath the anger, I saw a flash of something else. It was a flicker of profound, agonizing pain.

"That distance you wanted? It’s a good thing, Noah. It’s what you need. It’s what you deserve, actually."

"Cassian... "

"You think Alex is the better option?" he cut me off, his voice laced with a bitter, self-loathing sarcasm. "Fine. He probably is. He’s kind. He’s genuine. He actually cares about the people around him. He’s everything I’m not."

He was throwing my comparisons back at me, mocking the way I had praised another man to hurt him.

"So go to him," Cassian growled, his voice cracking with a sudden, unexpected vulnerability. "Work for him. Let him treat you like you actually matter. Because I can’t."

He stepped even closer, so close I had to tilt my head back just to keep his eyes in view. "I can’t be what you need, Noah. I can’t be good. I’ll just ruin you. I’ll just break you until there’s nothing left but a reflection of me."

The tension in the suite was suffocating. It felt like the air was saturated with electricity, thick and heavy, ready to ignite with the slightest spark.

"You don’t get to decide that for me," I said, my voice trembling but certain.

Cassian let out a dark, bitter laugh. "Don’t I? I own you, remember? That was the whole point of the contract."

"You fired me," I reminded him.

"Exactly," he snapped. "So you’re free now. Free to leave. Free to be with someone who won’t destroy you."

I stared at him. I looked at the jagged cuts on his forehead, the way his hauntingly beautiful blue eyes were rimmed with exhaustion and something that looked like heartbreak. He was swaying again, his body reaching its limit, yet he refused to sit. He refused to show a single crack in his armor that wasn’t forced.

And then it hit me. A realization so cold it made my skin crawl.

He actually believes this.

He isn’t being cruel to be mean; he thinks he’s being merciful. He truly believes I’m better off without him, that he is a plague and I am the victim he’s finally decided to release. He’s pushing me away to save me from himself.

"Maybe I don’t want... "

"It doesn’t matter what you want," he barked, his eyes flashing dangerously. "This is what’s best."

"For who?" I challenged.

"For you."

"Bullshit," I spat. "This isn’t about protecting me, Cassian. This is about you being too scared to... "

"To what?" his voice was sharp, a challenge. "Say it, Noah. To what?"

I couldn’t do it. The words stuck in my throat like shards of glass. Because what was I trying to say? That he was scared to care? That he was scared of me? That I didn’t want him to leave? Every time I tried to form the thought, the sheer weight of our short history crushed it. I couldn’t admit that this distance hurt more than his presence ever had.

Cassian stepped back, putting several feet of cold, dead air between us. "Stay away from me, Noah. For both our sakes."

He didn’t wait for a rebuttal. He picked up his briefcase, his face returning to that impassive, marble mask. He walked past me, his shoulder intentionally avoiding mine this time. He didn’t look back.

"Cassian... "

The door closed with a soft, final click. I was left standing in the middle of the sprawling, luxurious suite. Alone. The silence was louder than the argument had been.

I sank onto the couch, my legs finally giving out. I buried my head in my hands, the scent of him still lingering on the fabric of the cushions. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

His words replayed in my head like a torturous loop. Everything you said about me was fucking correct. Stay the fuck away from me. You deserve better.

He really believed he was doing me a favor. And maybe, logically, he was right. Maybe I was better off without a man who used contracts as leashes and silence as a weapon. Maybe I was finally free.

So why did it feel like I had just lost a limb? Why did my chest ache with a hollow, throbbing pain that made it hard to breathe? Why did every instinct in my body want to throw open that door and run down the hallway after him?

My phone buzzed on the coffee table. I reached for it, my thumb tracing the spiderweb cracks on the screen. Alex’s name was there.

Alex: "Hey, you okay? Still waiting to grab that drink."

I stared at the message for a long time. Alex was the safe choice. Alex was the "good" man. He was the one who offered breakfast and kind words. He was the one Cassian told me I deserved.

I started typing a response. Yeah, I’ll be down in...

I stopped. I deleted it. I started again. I deleted that too. Finally, I typed:

"I’m not feeling well. Rain check? Sorry."

The three dots appeared almost instantly. They hovered there, dancing, as if Alex were trying to find the right words to coax me out. Then they disappeared. Then they came back.

Alex: "Of course. Feel better. Let me know if you need anything."

I didn’t respond. I tossed the phone aside and watched it slide across the table. It felt like trash. Everything felt like trash.

I dragged myself to my bedroom... the room I had been afraid to sleep in because it felt too empty. I closed the door and leaned my back against it, the cool wood pressing against my spine.

The silence in the suite was deafening. It was the sound of a life being dismantled.

I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest just like I had the night before. But this time, it was worse. The replay in my mind wouldn’t stop. Cassian’s face. The way he looked at me before he walked out... not with hatred, but with a weary, tragic kind of finality. Like he was saying goodbye for good.

And I realized something terrifying. Something that made my blood run cold and my heart skip in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

I don’t want this distance. I don’t want this freedom. I don’t want him gone.

I want him. Here. Even if he’s broken. Even if he’s a manipulative, toxic mess. Even if he ruins me just like he promised he would.

I want him. And that realization scares me more than the accident, more than my father, and more than anything Cassian Wolfe could ever do to me.