MasukShare
CHAPTER 2:A Name Like a Warning
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-03-26 17:25:56Every person Alina asked about Adrian Voss gave her the same response: a sharp deep breath, then silence, then the careful face of someone deciding how honest to be.
She started with Priya at work because Priya knew everything about everyone and was constitutionally unable to stop herself from sharing it. "Adrian Voss?" Priya put down her coffee. "Why? Alina, why?" "I just need to know who he is." "Everyone knows who he is. He's the reason half the city's mid-tier property developers lost their jobs in 2021. He's the reason the Kellerman Group doesn't exist anymore. He—" Priya stopped. "Did he contact you?" "I got a letter." "Oh God." "Priya." "No, I'm just — okay. Okay. What did the letter say?" "That he wants to meet. That he has an offer." Priya was quiet for a moment. Then: "What kind of offer?" "He didn't specify." "Right. He wouldn't." Priya picked her phone up, then put it down, then picked it up again. "Alina, men like Adrian Voss don't make offers. They make arrangements. There's a difference. An offer is something you can say no to." She paused. "Can you say no to this one?" Alina thought about the hospital bill. The thirty days. The photograph. "I don't think so." "Then be very, very careful." It wasn't useful advice. But it was honest, which was more than she'd expected. She called Ethan at seven. He arrived at seven forty-five with food and an armful of printed articles he'd stress-researched, which was how she knew he'd already read the articles before he came, which meant he'd already formed the argument. He put everything on the table and stood back and looked at her. "Don't," she said. "I haven't said anything." "You have a face. The face you make when you've already decided what I should do and you're about to explain it to me." "I just think—" "Ethan. I know what you think. I know you. You think I should walk away and that it isn't worth it. You think we can figure something else out." She looked at him. "Tell me what. Specifically." He opened his mouth. "Not 'we'll figure it out.' Something specific." He closed his mouth. "My mother has a pending balance of thirty-two thousand dollars ," she said. The number sat between them like something heavy. "The landlord has given me thirty days before I'm evicted . My salary after existing rent leaves me with two hundred dollars a month, Ethan. Two hundred. I've done the maths. There is nothing I haven't tried. This time there is no version of this where we figure it out." She picked up one of his printed articles. "So yes. I'm going to the meeting." Ethan sat down heavily. He put his elbows on his knees and pressed his face into his hands for a moment. "I hate this," he said, into his hands. "I know." "I hate that I can't—" He stopped. Looked up. "I hate that I can't just fix it and that I feel helpless." "I know you do." She sat across from him. "But you can't. And that's not your fault. And I need you to not make this harder by pretending there's another option, because there isn't, and I need to focus." A long silence. In the kitchen, the refrigerator hummed. Somewhere above them, they could hear a sound from their neighbour's television through the ceiling. "What does he want from you?" Ethan said. "I don't know yet." "He's not just being generous. Men like him aren't generous." He picked up one of the articles. "Three companies destroyed in four years. Not failed — destroyed. There's a difference. This man doesn't do anything without a reason." "Then I'll find out the reason when I meet him." "And if the reason is something you can't do?" "Then I'll leave the meeting." "And if it's something you can do but shouldn't?" She didn't answer that one. Ethan looked at her for a long time, the way he did when he was memorizing her face for a version of events he was afraid was coming. "If anything feels wrong," he said quietly, "you call me. Immediately. Doesn't matter what time." "I know." "I'm serious, Alina." "I know, Ethan." She put her hand over his for a second. "I know." He stayed until almost midnight. They didn't talk about Adrian Voss again. They talked about how her mother's last check-up went , and the film Ethan had been meaning to watch for three months but has been procrastinating, and the city's broken traffic lights on Clement Street. Normal things. The kind of conversation that meant: I'm scared and I love you and I don't know what else to do except sit here with you until I have to go. After he left, Alina sat alone with the articles spread in front of her. She read all of them. Then she turned them over so she couldn't see the headlines, and she typed a message to the number in the letter ,I'll come to the meeting. But I have conditions. The reply came back in under a minute. Mr. Voss expected that. He says: bring your conditions. And bring the photograph — he'd like to return the original. Alina read it twice. Then she read it a third time, because the part that caught her attention was not bringing her conditions. It was the part about the photograph. He had the original. Which meant what she'd been sent was a copy. Which meant he had been carrying her image around for three years, and he'd kept the real one for himself.
Bab terbaru
Bought by the Ruthless Billionaire CHAPTER 9 :PUBLIC PERFORMANCE
The gala was the most beautiful lie Alina had ever walked into. She understood that on the steps, before they were even inside — the photographers, the lights, the cars arriving in perfect sequence, everyone dressed like they had never in their lives worried about rent. She had pressed her good dress and worn the earrings she'd had since university and told herself she looked fine, until she saw the women getting out of the car ahead of them and she realized that she might look like someone who belongs in a different postcode. She must have gone still, because Adrian said, without looking at her: "Stop." "I haven't done anything." "You were about to decide something. I could see it." He glanced down at her. They were standing at the bottom of the steps, waiting for the car in front to clear. "Whatever it is — don't." "You can't see what I'm thinking." "I can see what your face is doing." He looked ahead again. "You look exactly as you should. Stop comparing." She stared at the
Bought by the Ruthless Billionaire CHAPTER 8 :THE EMPIRE
Walking into Voss Industries with her hand on Adrian's arm felt like being led into the heart of something that had been waiting to consume her. That was dramatic, she told herself. She was being dramatic. It was a corporate headquarters. There were people at desks. It was one of the collegues birthday and they had brought in a cake ,the smell of sugar was drifting down the sixth-floor corridor. But the way people looked at Adrian when he walked in — that part was not dramatic. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Posture changed. A man in accounting literally put down his coffee and sat up straight, which Alina would have found funny if the collective response hadn't been so complete. It was the way a room responds to weather. Instinctive. Involuntary. She kept her expression neutral and her hand exactly where it was — lightly on his arm, close enough to be visible, not so close that it read as anything other than performed — and she thought: I need to understand this building befo
Bought by the Ruthless Billionaire CHAPTER 7 :FIRST RULES
Adrian laid out his expectations over breakfast the next morning as though he were reciting the terms of a military operation — calm, sequential, without pausing to check whether she was following or not. Luckily she was following. She was also trying to eat toast without betraying the fact that her stomach had been knotted since she woke up. "Public appearances will typically occur two or three times per week," he said. He hadn't touched his coffee. "You'll be informed forty-eight hours in advance for the appearances. Dress appropriately and accordingly for the event type — the folder covers the categories." He looked at her briefly. "You've read the folder?" "Abit of it." She put down her toast. "I read to page three." Something crossed his face — not irritation exactly, but something similar to it. "Read the rest today." "I had questions about page two, actually." A pause. "Then ask them." "The section on public conversation topics." She kept her voice even. "It lists seve
Bought by the Ruthless Billionaire CHAPTER 6:The Penthouse
The penthouse didn't feel like a home. It felt like a chess board, and Alina was already standing on the wrong square. The car had brought her here in silence — her suitcase in the boot, the newspaper clipping still folded in her coat pocket, forty-eight floors rising above her before she could decide how she felt about any of it. The building's lobby had marble floors so clean she could see her reflection in them. There was a man at the desk who looked at her with the specific blankness of staff who had been trained not to register surprise at anything. She registered enough surprise for both of them. The elevator rose without a sound. The doors opened directly into the apartment — no corridor, no hallway, just the apartment itself, waiting like something that had been holding its breath. A woman was waiting there. She looked like she was in her mid-thirties, dark blazer, and a tablet in her hand. She smiled with the practiced warmth of someone whose job required it. "Miss Carte
Bought by the Ruthless Billionaire CHAPTER 5:Everything She Is Leaving Behind
As Alina was packing one suitcase for six months she realised how her life was now out of her control.She sat on the bedroom floor at midnight on Saturday and looked at the small piles she'd made — work clothes, casual clothes, the dress she'd bought for her cousin's wedding and worn once .She sat there as she couldn't decide which version of herself she was packing for. The person who lived here knew what she needed. She knew which drawer was stuck and needed lifting, knew that the hot water in the shower took ninety seconds to arrive, and knew which floorboard creaked outside her mother's old room.She did not know the person who was about to live in a penthouse forty-eight floors above the city.She was still sitting there at seven in the morning when Ethan knocked. She hadn't slept, she had been up all night.He came in, looked at the half-packed suitcase and the piles on the floor and then looked at her sitting in the middle of them.Ethan sat down beside her without being aske
Bought by the Ruthless Billionaire CHAPTER 4:The Terms
The contract was twelve pages long. Alina read every single word twice and still couldn't find the answer to the most important question: why her, when a man like Adrian Voss could have arranged this with anyone.She spread it across the kitchen table at midnight, still in her coat, because since she came home from the meeting and she did not quite make it past the kitchen. The eviction notice was still on the counter. The hospital bills were in a folder beside the fridge, where she put things she needed to see every day so she didn't let herself forget how urgent they were.She made tea. That she ended up not drinking.Past midnight she called Ethan. He picked up on the second ring, which meant he'd been awake."Tell me everything," he said."He admitted the photograph was from an investigation. He admitted I affected his business. He accepted all four conditions before I even finished reading them out."A long pause. "That's not reassuring.""No.""Men who accept everything yo
Anda juga akan menyukai
On My Professor's Bed
Xee write799.7K DibacaMarried a Secret Billionaire
Breaking Wave1.1M DibacaTo Be Yours Again
Taylor1.0M DibacaThe Breaking Point of Love
Cloudsearcher3.5M DibacaMarried With Perfect Boy
monicarara20140 DibacaNaked Desires (an erotica collection)
Embreigh 240 DibacaThe Billionaire's Ex-wife Is a Brilliant Lawyer
Debbie Inks122 DibacaThe Rejected Wife's Secret Empire
Arhaan178 Dibaca
