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SEVENTY FIVE
publish date:
2026-09-05 22:51:33
最新章節
A BABY FOR THE BILLIONAIRE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR
Leslie's POVThe weeks after that were full of paperwork.I had never known there could be so much of it. There were statements for the police and statements for the coastguard and statements for a very tired prosecutor who took the memory stick from Genevieve and went pale as he read it. There were hearings and delays and lawyers on the telephone at midnight. Max signed everything with his left hand while his right shoulder healed, and complained about it only twice.In the end, it came out clean.Dorian Kell pleaded guilty to kidnapping, armed assault, and conspiracy. He was given thirty years. Anselm Crowe, who had hired him, was convicted of eleven different crimes, including the murder of a chemist in Zurich that Genevieve's files had finally explained. They gave him life. The newspapers called him the Chairman of Poison. When the verdict was read, he stared across the courtroom at Max, and Max looked back at him without hate."I do not want him to suffer," Max told me afterward.
A BABY FOR THE BILLIONAIRE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE
Leslie's POVThey took Anselm Crowe away in handcuffs at midnight, wrapped in a grey blanket and shivering like a child.His men gave up one by one. Julian stood on the beach counting them as they came out of the dark with their hands on their heads. A tall coastguard captain with a kind, tired face took statements at Tobias's kitchen table. Marcus sat on the stone step outside with a cut over one eye and a smile that would not go away."We held the landing," he told anyone who would listen. "Twelve men and we held it. I have not had this much fun since I was a boy.""You were shot yesterday," Maya said."That was the fun part," said Marcus.Max sat in the lamp room while a medic stitched up his shoulder for the second time in two days. He looked pale and grey and perfectly calm. When the medic finished, he stood up, nodded his thanks, and went across the room to where my mother lay in her narrow bed."Aunt Clara," he said. It was the first time he had used the word aloud. "If you are
A BABY FOR THE BILLIONAIRE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO
Leslie's POVI have never heard such a noise in my life.It was a deep, endless, bellowing groan that shook the stones of the tower and rattled every pane of glass. I clapped my hands over my ears. The sound rolled out across the dark water, then bounced back from the cliffs, then rolled out again. Down on the grass, Crowe's men were staggering and clutching their heads. The man with the long ugly tube fired too early. A burst of orange flame shot past the tower and hit the sea.Three blasts. A pause. Three blasts again."Tobias!" Clara was laughing in her chair, with her hands over her ears. "That magnificent old goat!"A great crash sounded from below. The iron door was giving way."Mama." I seized the teapot from her lap, because it was the heaviest thing in reach. "I am going to the top of the stairs.""Leslie, no.""I will not go out. I will just look."I ran to the head of the stairwell and peered down. The spiral was full of smoke and shouting. I saw Julian at the bottom, firin
A BABY FOR THE BILLIONAIRE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE
LESLIE'S POVI counted the steps. It was the only way to stop my heart from coming out of my chest.Twenty. Forty. At sixty, my legs began to ache. At a hundred, I had to put my hand on the cold curved wall to steady myself. I could hear the others behind me, their boots scraping softly, and far above I could hear the wind in the glass.At a hundred and forty-four, I saw light.It was a soft gold light, falling through an open door at the top of the stairs. A smell drifted down with it. Lavender and tea and warm wool.Hundred and forty-five. Forty-six.I stopped on the last step. I could not go any farther. My whole body felt like water."Go on," Max said softly, from just behind me.I walked through the door.The lamp room was round, with windows on every side, and a great glass lens in the middle that threw the evening light across the walls in long slow rainbows. There was a narrow bed against one wall, covered in patchwork quilts. A table with two cups. A shelf of worn books. And
A BABY FOR THE BILLIONAIRE HUNDRED AND FIFTY
Leslie's POVThe village of Saltmere was nothing but a few slate roofs, a stone harbor, and a pub with a crooked sign. A thin mist had begun to roll in off the water. Fishing boats bobbed at their ropes, and nobody was on the street. Julian parked the truck behind a net shed, and we walked the last mile along the cliff path on foot.The wind was strong and cold. It pulled at my hair and made my eyes water. Below us the waves crashed against black rocks, and the sound was like a giant breathing.Up close, the lighthouse was much bigger than I had imagined. The white paint was cracked and peeling. The red band had faded to the color of old brick. A low stone cottage leaned against its base, with a lopsided chimney and a green door that had once been painted bright blue.At the foot of the tower was a second door, small and black and made of iron."That is the one," Marcus said. "The key opens it."I pulled the brass key from my pocket. My hand was shaking so badly that I could not get it
A BABY FOR THE BILLIONAIRE HUNDRED AND FORTY NINE
Leslie's POVWe were loading the cars when Genevieve found us.She came across the gravel in her grey coat with her nurse trailing behind her, and she was carrying a battered leather notebook in one hand and a small black memory stick in the other. She looked like a student who had stayed up all night to finish her homework."I have something for you," she said. "Two things, actually."Julian stepped in front of her. He had not stopped glaring at her since sunrise. "Say it from there.""Julian." Max touched his arm. "Let her speak."Genevieve held out the notebook. "This is my father's. Every page of it. The records about the well, the seed, the greenhouse. There are some notes about the lighthouse, too. I do not know if they will help." She held out the memory stick next. "And this is something else. It is every email, every bank transfer, and every phone recording that I could find about the man who paid Dalton Reeve.""Paid Reeve?" I said. "Reeve worked for you.""Reeve worked for m
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