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Chapter 039: Weight of pretending
publish date:
2026-02-04 23:53:10
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A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 103: The package
Leon's POV I drove to the office with the radio off.The building was quiet because of the holiday. The lobby had a skeleton security team and two of the lifts had been turned off to save power. I took the one that worked and I went up to my floor and James was already in the hallway outside the lift when the doors opened."He left it with the receptionist," James said. "He said it was from Mr Veil. He said Mr Veil was sorry to disturb us on Boxing Day. He said Mr Veil hoped it would be read by close of business.""What is it.""A folder."He led me to my office. The folder was on my desk. It was a plain manila folder with my name typed in a small label stuck to the top right corner. The label was crooked. Someone had stuck it on in a hurry.I did not sit down. I opened the folder standing up.Inside the folder was a copy of my contract with Anastasia.Not the original. The original was in the grey filing cabinet behind me, in the second drawer, under lock. This was a photocopy, clea
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 102: The lift down
Leon's POV I caught up with her at the lift.She did not look at me when I came up beside her. She pressed the button twice. The lift was somewhere on the floor below. The small light above the doors said 3. We watched it change to 4."Anastasia."She did not answer."Anastasia.""Not in the lift," she said."Alright."The doors opened. We got in. We rode down to the ground floor without saying anything. The lift was empty except for the two of us and a cleaning cart in the corner. A piece of tinsel had been taped to the control panel at some point before Christmas and had not been taken down. It swung as the lift moved.The doors opened onto the lobby.She did not go toward the main doors. She went left, down a corridor I had not noticed before, past the chapel, and out through a side exit I did not know was there. I followed her. The side exit opened onto a small courtyard with two benches, a fountain that was not running, and a view of the back of the hospital's generator building
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 101: Closed door
Anastasia's POV Eleanor did not ask me what had happened in the corridor.She looked at me when I came back in. She did not need to ask. The whole hospital had probably heard. The nurse at the station had probably been given an outline. Margaret, who had slipped out when Lucas's voice first came down the hallway, had come back in with two plastic cups of water from the dispenser and had set them down on the tray without saying anything.I sat in the chair beside Eleanor's bed and I folded my hands in my lap."Dear.""Yes.""Your face is doing something.""I know.""Would you like to tell me what you just heard."I shook my head. I did not trust my voice.She did not push. She reached across the blanket and took my hand. The photograph was still face down under her other hand on the blanket. The small white gift bag was still on the window sill. The water Margaret had brought in sat in its plastic cup on the tray and the ice in it had not even started to melt yet.Eleanor turned my ha
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 100: in the corridor
Leon's POV I was already moving by the time he said her name the second time.He had come up the stairwell at the far end of the ward. I had seen the fire-exit door swing shut behind him before I had seen him properly. He was wearing the dark coat from last night and he had not shaved and his eyes had the particular bright wrong look of a man who had decided, somewhere between last night and this morning, that reasonable was not going to work for him any more.The nurse at the station was already on her feet. "Sir. Sir, you cannot be on this floor."He walked past her like she was not there."Lucas."I did not say it loud. I said it the way you say a name to someone who has walked into the wrong meeting room by accident, calm and even and faintly amused. In my experience that worked on men like Lucas better than a shout.He stopped. He turned.He looked at me the way a man looks at a wall he intends to walk through."Where is she?""She is with my grandmother. My grandmother is in be
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 099: What she told her
Anastasia's POV I thought about lying for exactly one second.I thought about saying he is my ex-husband and he was not important enough to mention. I thought about saying we were divorced before I met Leon. I thought about laying out a tidy version of the story that would make it fit inside the shape of the woman Eleanor already believed me to be.Then I looked at her face.She was holding the photograph flat under her hands on the blanket. She was not crying. She was not angry. She was looking at me the way a doctor looks at an x-ray, like she was trying to work out what she was seeing before she said anything about it.She deserved more than a tidy version.She had deserved more than a tidy version for weeks."His name is Lucas Crawley," I said."Yes, dear.""I married him three years ago. We flew to Vegas. It was fast. My parents had been dead for four years and his were a long way away and we did not want a wedding we would both have to pretend about. We got married by a man in
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 098: what was in the bag
Anastasia's POV Leon came back into the room ten minutes later.Dora was no longer in the corridor. I had not heard her leave. Leon's hands were in his coat pockets and his coat was still buttoned and he had the look of a man who had been standing outside in the cold for part of the conversation."She is gone," he said."For good?" I asked."For today."Eleanor made a small sound that was not quite a laugh. "That is a lawyer's answer, dear.""It is the only one I had for her. I told her she was not to come to the hospital again. I told her she was not to come to the house. I told her she was not to come to the office. I told her if she tried, we would file for a restraining order and I had James's name ready to put at the top of it. She said she understood. I believe her for approximately as long as it takes her to get on the lift."Eleanor's eyes went to the window sill. "Leon.""Yes, grandma.""I have asked Anastasia not to open the gift bag."Leon looked at the small white bag. He
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 088: Eleanor collapses
Anastasia's POVI saw it before it happened.Eleanor was standing at the drawing room sideboard, telling the housekeeper where to put a vase. She had been moving it back and forth all day, an inch this way, an inch that way, and I was sitting on the arm of the sofa watching her with the particular
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 082: Planting seeds
Leon's POV The office I used for meetings like this one was not my main office. My main office was on the fourteenth floor, glass walls, city view, my name on the directory outside the door. This one was on the third floor, small and unremarkable, used by visiting consultants and anyone who needed
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 002: Three years
Anastasia's POV For a second, nobody moved.Lucas stood there with coffee dripping down his face and chest, his mouth hanging open in shock. Jennifer froze on the bed with the sheet clutched to her chest and her eyes went wide. I stared at my empty hand, at the coffee cup that had slipped from my
A Contract With My Billionaire Ex 001: The perfect lie
Anastasia's POV I heard them before I saw them.The sounds coming from my bedroom made my stomach drop and I stood frozen in the hallway of my own apartment. I was holding a box of gingerbread cookies in one hand and a cup of latte in the other, listening to sounds of very intense moans coming fro
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