LOGINShare
Chapter 97: The Question
publish date:
2026-08-17 18:25:02
Latest chapter
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 100: Free
POV: Nora Two years changes the shape of things in ways you don't notice until you stop and look back. Ashford Studio had moved into a larger space six months ago, a proper floor in a building near the river with actual conference rooms and a kitchen that didn't double as a storage area. Eight full time staff now, a waiting list that had stopped embarrassing me to mention, and the kind of reputation that came from doing the work correctly rather than from any deliberate campaign to be known. My father had built the same way. I understood now that the method was in the blood. Aria started preschool on a Tuesday in September. She had opinions about it before she arrived, during, and afterward. The opinions were largely positive once she established that the other children were willing to negotiate, which apparently took approximately forty minutes of assessment before she decided the situation was acceptable. Her teacher had sent me a message at pickup saying Aria had organized the
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 99: Not Yet
POV: Nora I knew my answer before I left the cemetery. I had known it, I think, somewhere underneath the thinking, since the Sunday he had put the box on the cushion between us and then picked it back up without pushing. The clarity I had told him I needed had arrived at my father's grave in the specific way clarity often arrived for me, not as a decision made but as a recognition of something already true. I waited three days before telling him. Not because I was uncertain but because I wanted to sit with the fullness of it before speaking, to make sure what I said came from somewhere settled rather than somewhere reactive. He came to pick up Aria on a Saturday and I asked if he could stay for a few minutes after the handoff. He looked at my face and said yes and put Aria down to play and sat at the kitchen table the way he had sat at hundreds of kitchen tables with me over the past two years, hands on the surface, present. I sat across from him. "I've been thinking about your
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 98: His Grave
POV: Nora I went on a Wednesday morning, alone. Aria was at childcare and the studio could manage without me for a few hours and I had been meaning to go since the proposal and hadn't been able to find the right version of the day for it. Wednesday arrived and felt like the one, no specific reason, just the particular quality of a morning that seemed to have space in it for something important. The cemetery was the kind that had been there long enough to have old trees growing through it, the roots of them lifting the path edges in places in the slow patient way of things that have been growing for a hundred years and intend to keep going. My father's grave was in the east section, a simple stone, his name and dates and below them the single line he had written down once and my mother had kept and used when the time came. It said: He built things that lasted. I stood in front of it for a moment before sitting down on the low bench nearby, the one that had been there every time I
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 97: The Question
POV: Nora It happened on a Sunday. Not a significant Sunday. Not an anniversary of anything or a carefully chosen date. Just the kind of Sunday that builds naturally into something without announcing its intentions, the kind where the morning starts with coffee and Aria demanding specific breakfast items and the afternoon moves into a park visit and then back to the apartment where she eventually runs out of energy and goes down for a nap earlier than usual, leaving the afternoon with an unexpected quiet in it. We were on the sofa. Elias had a book he hadn't opened. I had a design file I had looked at twice without processing. Aria was asleep down the hall. The city was doing its usual Sunday thing outside the window, slower than weekdays, unhurried. He closed the book he hadn't been reading and put it on the cushion beside him. "I've been thinking about something for a while," he said. "I want to say it and I want to be clear before I do that I'm not saying it to create pressure
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 96: The Video
POV: Nora The guests left by early evening, Aria having hit the wall that all two year olds hit at some point during a birthday party, the moment when the stimulation tips over into exhaustion and the only reasonable response is to find the nearest adult lap and stop moving. She had fallen asleep on Chen's shoulder twenty minutes before Chen needed to leave, which had produced a brief logistics challenge resolved by the careful transfer operation that parents and people who love children develop expertise in. Chen had passed her to me with the practiced ease of someone who had figured out the technique, and Aria had stayed asleep through the handoff, which felt like a small miracle. Elias stayed to help clean up. We worked through it the way we worked through most things now, parallel and easy, without needing to coordinate every movement. He handled the kitchen. I sorted the living room. Aria slept in her room through all of it and we kept our voices low without discussing keepin
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 95: Two
POV: Nora We decided on the apartment rather than a venue because Aria had strong opinions about her territory and a rented space would have required her to spend the first hour of her own birthday party assessing whether it was trustworthy. Elias handled the food. Not catered, he made most of it himself, which was something I had discovered about him in the past months that hadn't fit the picture I'd originally assembled of him. He cooked with the same focused attention he brought to everything and he was good at it and he found it settling in a way that was probably therapy-adjacent without requiring a session. I handled the decorations and the cake, which Aria had been consulted about extensively and had specified should be yellow with dogs on it, a preference that had required some creative problem solving but had produced a result she had examined with the seriousness of an inspector before pronouncing it acceptable. The guests arrived in the kind of informal wave that happe
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 3
Nora's POVThe apartment smells like mildew and old takeout. I drop my bag by the door and the sound echoes in the empty space. Almost empty. I still have my mattress on the floor, a folding chair, and a lamp. Everything else got sold months ago to make rent.I should lie down. My body is screaming
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 2
Nora's POVI wake up to sunlight cutting through the blinds and immediately wish I hadn't.My body feels like it's been hit by a truck. Everything aches. My stomach is cramping, my breasts are rock-hard and leaking through the hospital gown, and between my legs, there's a dull, constant throb that
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 1
Nora's POV"Push, Miss Ashford. One more push."The doctor's voice sounds like it's coming from underwater. Everything hurts. My body doesn't feel like mine anymore. It hasn't for nine months, but right now, it feels like I'm being split in half.I grip the hospital bed rails and push. A scream tea
Bred for Betrayal Chapter 6
Nora's POVI'm halfway to the police station when I realize I left my jacket at the shelter. The one with my documents in the pockets. Everything important. My ID. My copy of the surrogacy contract. The photo of the baby.I turn around and head back. The shelter is only six blocks but my body is sc
You May Also Like
Your Uncle’s My Husband Now—Back Off, Ex!
June2.2M viewsTriplets on Secret Mission
Lamour Toujours1.3M viewsAccidentally Married
Swiftpen1231.0M viewsThe Heartbreak Prescription
Glazed Snow1.4M viewsMy Groom Abandoned Me, So I Married His Brother
Lumi Luna20 viewsDivorce Me, Mr. Lancaster
Midnight Rose32 viewsNobody Dumps This Curvy Bitch
Mira divah54 viewsHis Curvy Secretary, His Ruin
TOBE BLESSINGS74 views
