Chapter Thirty Seven

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• Accidental Surrogate For The Ruthless Billionaire    Chapter Forty Two.

  Dante. The air shifted the moment the door opened. I was sitting at Eloise's bedside, elbows on my thighs. Watching her chest rise and fall like it was the only thing keeping me sane. Her skin had regained a whisper of color, her eyes fluttering in and out of sleep. But the moment that door creaked open again, something cold and jagged cut through the warmth. Boots on linoleum. Murmured voices. Then I saw her. Claudia. Dragged between two officers, wrists cuffed, face wet with smeared mascara and shame. Her white blouse was wrinkled, hair frizzled at the edges like she'd been tearing at it. She looked smaller than usual. Not like the housekeeper I'd known for years. Not the woman who'd made my coffee, folded my shirts and hummed while cleaning the damn windows. No. This woman looked like guilt wrapped in skin. My body went still, every muscle locking. Into place. Eloise stirred beside me. “Claudia?”Her voice was faint. Confused. She blinked again, trying to sit up, but the

• Accidental Surrogate For The Ruthless Billionaire    Chapter Forty One.

  DANTE. She looked like a ghost under the hospital lights. Still. Too still. I sat beside her bed, elbows on my knees, hands braced against the weight if my own uselessness. That sickly beeping from the Montour carved into my head like a knife. Every soft breath she took from the oxygen tubes felt borrowed. Fragile. I had her hand in mine–small, cold, bruised at the knuckles. And all I could do was hold it tighter, like that would tether her to this world. To me. Her lashes fluttered, heavy with the effort. She blinked slowly, lips barely parted. “Dante…”That voice, soft, broken, lodged itself straight into my ribs. I gripped the bed Rail, I didn't breathe. I just watched her eyes try to focus on mine like she was waking up from underwater. She was alive. Christ. I dipped my head to her arm, forehead pressed to her skin like I was grounding myself to the one thing in the universe that mattered. A faint scent of antiseptic lung to her–but underneath that, still her. Lavender and

• Accidental Surrogate For The Ruthless Billionaire    Chapter Forty.

  Dante's Pov. My phone rang. Then again. Then again. Three missed calls in under a minute–all from home. I frowned, irritation curling low in my gut. I was standing in the middle of a boardroom downtown, half-listening to some suit talk numbers and projections, but something about that phone made my stomach twist. Claire knows better than to call me over and over unless something was wrong. I stepped out without a word. By the time I picked up, I was already walking fast, heat building under my skin. “Claire?” I barked. “What is it?” There was a pause–but not silence. No, I heard things in the background, shouting. Static. Movement. Then her voice, strained and breathless. “Sir–its Miss Eloise. She's–she’s been poisoned. She's on the way to the hospital. The world stopped. Literally. Everything in me seized. And then the blood rushed to my ears, so fast and loud I thought I might black out from the force of it. A roar like thunder behind my eyes, drowning out everything exc

• Accidental Surrogate For The Ruthless Billionaire    Chapter Thirty Nine.

  Eloise’s Pov. After Dante left, the silence was immediate. Not quiet—silence. The kind that presses in too close. That clings to your skin. That reminds you, too abruptly, that you are alone. I sat there for a while, listening to the last echoes of his footsteps fade down the hallway, feeling the way the door clicked shut behind him like a slow exhale. I told myself it was fine–i needed space. Time to reset. To breathe. But God, it was getting harder to breathe around him. Dante. The man who didn't touch me unless I asked–had somehow touched me more than anyone ever had. A presence that wrapped around me without even trying, like gravity. Like he didn't have to reach for me because my body was already leaning towards him, hungry without permission. I hated how safe I was with him, or the way the air in a room shifted when he entered. Or how the heat in my chest never really faded after he left–just settled into a full, pulsing ache. He hadn't kissed me. Not yet. But he fed me

• Accidental Surrogate For The Ruthless Billionaire    Chapter Thirty Eight

  Dante's POV.I closed the door behind me, the soft click echoing louder than it should've. For a moment, I just stood there. Breathing. Thinking. Eloise had no idea what she looked like when she was trying to hide how affected she was. The blush crawling up on her neck. The way her fingers twisted in her lap like she didn't know what to do with the heat I'd left behind. The flush that bloomed on her cheeks like she had been caught doing something she shouldn't. Christ, she was beautiful when she squirmed. And I hadn't even touched her yet. Not properly. I adjusted the cuffs of my shirt slowly, rolling them back down to hide the way my hands still itched to trace the curve of her thighs again. To feel the way her body arched when I do much as whispered too close. It was a game I'd set in motion the night I made that promise–and it was working. But this wasn't just about teasing her. No, this was restraint. A controlled burn. Because Eloise Laurent wasn't the kind of woman y

• Accidental Surrogate For The Ruthless Billionaire    Chapter Thirty Seven

  Eloise’s Pov. “LEAVE HIM OR I'LL MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR TOO.” The message flashed across my screen in a sharp burst of light,the bold letters almost glaring at me like a curse. No sender. No trace. Just those eight words. I stared at them for a moment, my thumb hovering over the screen as if expecting it to vanish on its own. My heart stuttered for a second, a chill creeping up my spine like ice water dripping down vertebrae. I swallowed hard, locked the phone, and tossed it into the couch beside me like it had burned my fingers. My chest rose and fell as I stared blankly at the marble floor, thought twisting, spiraling. Who the hell would send that?My mind flipped through possibilities–an enemy? A bitter ex of Dante’s? A possessive fan? That seemed more likely. He was well-known. Beautiful. Untouchable. Of course, someone would be obsessed enough to send a threat to the woman seen beside him. Still, something about the message unnerved me in a way I couldn't explain. Make me disap