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The Letter in the Drawer
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2026-07-13 19:20:50Chapter Four: The Letter in the Drawer
Three weeks went by.
Olivia lived in the town of Millfield. It was three hours away from the city. She rented a room above a bakery. The landlady was really kind. Did not ask her any questions. Olivia paid her rent in cash every week. She told everyone that her name was Liv.
She worked in the mornings at the bakery. She cleaned tables and packed bread. In the afternoons she rested. The baby made her very tired all the time. She had morning sickness sometimes.. She still had not told anyone about the baby.
She kept her phone turned off. She wrote letters to her mother. She never sent them. She was scared that Marks people would find out where she was.
Every night she talked to her stomach. "We are safe here baby " she said. "No one knows us. It is you and me."
She thought she was finally free.
In the city Mark was not free.
He did not sleep much. He did not eat either. His office looked like a war room. There were maps and photos and notes over the wall. Olivias face was in the center of it all.
"She is gone " Daniel said one night. "We checked every bus and every train and every small town nearby. We did not find her. She is good at hiding, sir."
Mark looked at the photo of Olivia on his desk. Her eyes looked at him. They were calm but sad. "She is scared of me " he said quietly. "That is why she ran away."
"She does not trust you yet " Daniel said carefully. ". She will. If you give her time."
Mark nodded. He would give her all the time she needed. He would give her forever if she asked.. He needed to know that she was safe. He needed to know that the baby was safe.
He stood up. Walked to the window. The city lights looked cold that night.
"Keep watching her mother " he said. ". Do not follow her too closely. If Olivia contacts her I want to know. I will not take her by force Daniel. Not again."
"Yes, sir " Daniel said.
Meanwhile Olivias life in Millfield was simple. She woke up she worked she ate bread and soup. She slept. She talked to the baby every night.
One morning the landlady knocked on her door. "Liv, dear this came for you " she said. "There is no return address."
It was a letter. The envelope was plain white. Olivias hands shook when she took it.
She opened it after the landlady left.
Inside there was a sheet of paper. There was no name and no signature. Some typed words:
We know who you are Mrs. Sinclair. We know about the baby. The Sinclairs do not share what is theirs. You can run,. You cannot hide forever. Come home. We will bring you home.
Olivia dropped the letter. Her blood went cold.
Someone knew who she was. Someone had followed her. It was not Mark. This felt different. It was cold and threatening.
She picked up the letter again. Read it three times. The Sinclairs do not share what is theirs.
Was it Mark? No Mark never threatened her. He stayed across the street. He sent her soup. He gave her space.
Then who was it?
Her first thought was Sophia Bennett. Sophia was Marks ex. She hated Olivia for existing.
Her second thought was worse. Marks father, Victor Sinclair. He was the man who cared more about the family reputation than people.
Olivias hands shook hard that she had to sit down. She pressed her hands to her stomach. "Baby are we safe here?" she whispered.
She looked out the window. The street looked normal. People were. Kids were playing.. Now every stranger looked dangerous to her.
That night she could not sleep. She packed her bag again. Just in case. She would leave Millfield in the morning. She could not risk the babys safety.
At the time in the city Daniel burst into Marks office without knocking. His face was pale.
"Sir " Daniel said. "We found something. In Olivias apartment. It was hidden in a drawer under the floorboards."
Mark stood up fast. "What is it?" he asked.
Daniel held up a notebook. It was old. Had a broken lock. "It is Olivias diary " he said. "We almost missed it. She hid it before she left."
Mark took the notebook with hands. His heart was beating fast. A diary. Her private thoughts. Three years of being his wife. She never said a word to him.
He opened it slowly. The first page said: If anyone ever reads this I hope it means I am not alone anymore.
Marks throat felt tight. He turned the page.
The first entry was from three years ago the day she signed the marriage contract.
Today I became Mrs. Sinclair. I have never met my husband. I do not know if I will ever meet him. My dad says this will save our family. I said yes. I always say yes.. Tonight I cried in the bathroom so no one could hear. I am scared. I am 21. I just want to be loved for who I'm not for my last name.
Mark closed his eyes. Pain hit his chest like a knife. She was 21. A child.. She gave up her whole life for her family. While he was overseas counting down the days to divorce.
He turned another page. Then another. Each entry was short and simple and honest.
Year one: I saw his photo in a magazine today. He is handsome. Cold. I wonder if he hates me too.
Year two: My mom is sick. I sent her my paycheck. Mark does not know. He does not need to know. I am a name on paper.
Year three two months The contract ends soon. I should feel free.. I feel empty. Is this all my life will be?. Hiding?
Mark kept reading now. His hands shook.
Then he stopped at the entry. It was dated the night before she came to the mansion.
My dad says we need help again. I have to go see Mark tomorrow. I am terrified. Three years. He still does not know my face. What if he thinks I am just begging? What if he is cruel? I just want him to see me. Once. As a person. Not as a contract.
Mark closed the notebook. His chest hurt. He finally understood her. She never wanted his money. She never wanted to trap him. She just wanted to be seen.
"Where is she?" Mark whispered. "Where is my wife?"
Daniel shook his head. "We do not know, sir.. This diary... It proves she never planned to ask you for anything. She came that day because her father forced her."
Mark stood up. Walked to the wall of maps. He stared at all the pins. All the dead ends.
He put his hand on Olivias photo. "I see you now " he said quietly. "I see you Olivia."
He turned to Daniel and his eyes were no longer cold. They were burning. "Find her " he said. "Not with force. Find her. Tell her... Tell her I read it. Tell her I am sorry. Tell her I am not the man she thinks I am."
Daniel. Left fast.
Mark sat down. Opened the diary again. He read the page one more time.
I just want to be loved for who I'm
Outside the city was quiet.. Inside Mark something broke and rebuilt itself.
He would find her. He would make her believe she was loved. For her. Not for a contract. Not for a baby. For Olivia Hart.
He did not know that while he read her diary someone else was reading it too.
Sophia Bennett sat in a car holding a copy of the diary pages. She had paid someone to break into Olivias apartment before Marks men did.
She. Dialed a number.
"Mr. Sinclair " she said sweetly when Victor Sinclair answered. "I think you should see what your daughter-in-law wrote about your family. She is pregnant.. She is hiding. If the press finds out before we do..."
Victor was silent for one second. Then he said, "Send me everything."
Sophia hung up. Looked out the window.
Olivia was not safe. Not even, in Millfield. Mark had no idea what was coming.
Pinakabagong kabanata
BOUGHT BY THE COLD BILLIONAIRE Chapter Twenty Four
The study was the one room in that house she had not gone back into.She had walked past the door eleven or twelve times in three weeks, and she had never once put her hand on the handle, and Mark had noticed that and had never once mentioned it, and by the third week in January it had become a thing they were both being careful about.She went in on a Thursday morning at the end of January because Priya Raman needed the insurance schedule for the Carlisle Street lease, and Mark had left it on the desk, and he was in the city until seven.Olivia opened the door and stood in the doorway for a moment.Dark wood walls and a fireplace and books on every shelf. A desk with a lamp on it. The chair she had sat in on the tenth of September with her heart going and a folder of her father's company reports in a bag on her knees.There had been a glass of whiskey on the desk that afternoon, and she had looked at it for twenty minutes.She went in and got the insurance schedule, and it was exactl
BOUGHT BY THE COLD BILLIONAIRE Chapter Twenty Three
They left Ashgrove on the second of January in the dark, at half past six in the morning, because Olivia did not want anybody on Marsh Lane watching her go.She said goodbye to Ethan Cole in the back office of the clinic on the last day of December, and it took about four minutes, and both of them were extremely careful about it."Your notes are going to Coleby under your real name, and I have already sent the referral," he said. "You will have a midwife by the middle of January, and the number is written on the front page. If anybody in that hospital gives you any difficulty at all about the gap in the record, you telephone this clinic and I will write them a letter that will end the conversation.""You have been very good to me, and I do not know how to say it properly," she said."Then do not say it at all, because I will handle it badly," Ethan said.He gave her an envelope with six weeks of wages in it, which was more than six weeks of wages, and she looked at the amount and look
BOUGHT BY THE COLD BILLIONAIRE Chapter Twenty Two
Ethan found her at twenty past twelve when he came back from Coleby, and he did not ask her one single question. He locked the front door, put the "closed" sign up, made her sweet tea that she did not want, and made her drink it anyway, and then he sat on the floor of the back office beside her with his back against the filing cabinet until she stopped shaking.Then he telephoned the flat above the launderette, and he did it without asking her permission, and it was the only time in their entire acquaintance that he ever went over her head.Mark was in a meeting on the twenty second floor of a building he no longer had a seat in, presenting to a shipping firm that had known his mother.He walked out of it at the fourth slide.He drove the three hours in two hours and twenty minutes, and Daniel, who was in the passenger seat and who had got in without being asked, spent the entire journey saying nothing at all in a very loud way.The clinic door was locked when he got there, and the si
BOUGHT BY THE COLD BILLIONAIRE Chapter Twenty One
Victor Sinclair came to Ashgrove on the twenty second of December, and he came on a Tuesday, and he came at eleven in the morning because he had established that his son was on Carlisle Street on Tuesdays.He did not bring nine men with him. He brought one car, one driver, and one lawyer named Coombes, who had worked for the family for twenty six years and who carried a leather folder under his arm and looked as though he would rather have been anywhere else in the world.They found her at the clinic, because a man who has spent eleven weeks looking will eventually find anything.Ethan was out on a house call in Coleby when the bell over the door went, and Olivia was at the front desk covering the telephone for an hour, which she had not done since November, and she looked up and knew exactly who he was before he had said one word.He had Mark's height and Mark's shoulders and none of Mark's face at all."Good morning to you, Mrs. Sinclair," Victor said.The waiting room had two peopl
BOUGHT BY THE COLD BILLIONAIRE Chapter Twenty
ChaMark took the flat above the launderette on Marsh Lane on the Monday morning, and he paid six months in advance in cash because the man who owned it wanted references and Mark did not have any that he could give in that town.It was two rooms and a bathroom with a window that did not shut properly. There was a hob with two rings on it, which he was aware was exactly one more ring than his wife had, and there was a boiler in the corner that came on at unpredictable hours of the night with a sound like somebody being hit.It was forty one feet from her door, and he had counted it, and he had not told her that he had counted it.Daniel came down on the Tuesday with two boxes of files and stood in the middle of the front room and looked around it for some time."May I say something completely out of turn, sir?" he said."You may say it, and you may as well sit down while you do.""There is nowhere to sit down.""There is a box by the window, and it has got books in it," Mark said.Dani
BOUGHT BY THE COLD BILLIONAIRE Chapter Nineteen
The room above the shop was eleven feet by nine feet, and Mark Sinclair stood in the middle of it and did not know what to do with his hands.There was a bed with a grey blanket folded at the end of it. There was a chair, a chest of drawers with three handles and one missing, and a shelf with a kettle and two cups and a small blue tin on it. There was a sink in the corner and a gas ring beside the sink, and a window over the lane with the curtain still drawn across it.Everything in that room was clean, and everything in it was arranged, and there was not one single object anywhere that was not necessary."You can sit down on the chair, because the bed is the only other thing," Olivia said.He sat down on the chair.She filled the kettle at the sink with her back to him, and he watched her do it, and neither of them said anything until it had boiled and she had made two cups of tea and handed him one.There was only one chair, so she sat on the end of the bed with her cup held in both
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