تسجيل الدخولمشاركة
CHAPTER 31
تاريخ النشر:
2026-03-21 14:57:41
أحدث فصل
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 39
Danny Reid came back. Of course he did.Six weeks after the inquiry closed. A Friday. He sent Alex a message through the firm's official contact page — not an email, a formal message routed through the administrative system, which meant it was logged.Alex showed me that evening.The message said: I think we should have a conversation. No formal channels. Just the two of us. There are things about the Hargreave situation you should know before they become public. — DI read it twice. "He's not done.""No." Alex had a glass of water, not wine. His thinking drink. "He's escalating to a direct contact.""What does he want?""I don't know. But a meeting with no witnesses, after a failed formal complaint, requested through a logged channel — that's not someone with real information. That's someone who wants a room with me and no record of what's said in it.""You're not meeting him.""No.""Have Neil respond.""Already drafted." He paused. "But that's not what's bothering me.""What is?"H
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 38
My father's stroke changed things I had not expected to change.Owen called twice the following week. Actual calls. Not texts. The second one lasted forty minutes and at the end of it he said, "I should have called you that first night," and I said "yes" and he said "I know," and that was the closest we had come to a real conversation in years.Alex noticed the shift in me — the way I was thinking about family, about time, about things that had been left unaddressed for years."You're quieter this week," he said on Thursday evening."Thinking.""About your father.""About time. About all the things I let sit because it felt easier to let them sit."He was at the other end of my couch, a document on his lap that he had clearly stopped reading. "What things?"I looked at him. "You, for a while. I knew something was happening between us for months before I said anything. I kept waiting for it to be cleaner before I acknowledged it.""It's never clean.""No." I paused. "And Owen. My fathe
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 37
The inquiry closed in nineteen days.Insufficient basis for further action. Standard language. Clean outcome.Alex texted me two words: It's done.I was at lunch with a colleague when the text came through. I read it twice. Put my phone in my pocket. Finished my lunch. Kept my face completely neutral.But under the table my hand was shaking slightly and I knew that I had been more afraid for him than I had let on to either of us.That evening he cooked at my apartment. He did not announce this — he simply arrived with groceries and took over my kitchen with the quiet confidence of someone who had decided this was now a thing he did. I sat at the counter and watched him."You're celebrating," I said."I'm cooking dinner.""You're celebrating by cooking dinner.""If you'd like to call it that."I watched his hands. He had good hands — precise, unhurried. He cooked the way he worked: fully committed to the process, no half measures."The Danny situation," I said. "What happens now?""Not
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 36
The bar association inquiry came in on a Friday morning.Not a full investigation. A preliminary inquiry — a letter asking Alex to respond to an anonymous complaint regarding professional conduct during the Hargreave case. Standard language. Routine process. Except it was not routine because the complaint had been filed the previous week, two days after Danny sat down at Alex's table.Alex called me at 7:30am. His voice was completely controlled."It's formal now," he said."When do you have to respond?""Thirty days.""Do you have all the documentation from the original review?""Everything.""Then this is manageable.""Manageable." He repeated the word like he was testing its weight. "Yes.""But?""But someone has decided to use the formal process as a weapon. And the process takes time regardless of outcome. In that time, there is exposure. Perception.""What does Neil say?""That we respond fully and immediately. Preempt any narrative.""Neil is right.""I know."I heard him breat
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 35
Alex was at my door in twenty minutes.He read the text. His jaw tightened — the only visible sign. He handed my phone back."What's the Hargreave account?" I said."A case I handled in 2019. We won. It was significant.""And?"He sat down. "Danny was involved peripherally. He was at a firm that worked on the opposing side's restructuring. After we won, there were questions raised about whether any information had been shared between us during the period when we were — involved.""Were they valid questions?"He looked at me directly. "No. I never discussed active cases with him. I was not even aware we were on opposing sides until after the verdict.""Did anyone believe that?""Most people. There was an internal review. I was cleared.""But Danny doesn't think the story is finished.""Danny is someone who creates leverage wherever he can." His voice was level but something underneath it was cold. "He saw me last night and saw you beside me. He's made a calculation.""That I'm a pressu
HIS WILLING SECRET CHAPTER 34
His name was Danny Reid. He was thirty-four, a former colleague of Alex's from early in his career, and he arrived back in the city on a Wednesday like a stone thrown into still water.I did not know about Danny Reid until he showed up at a dinner.We were at a restaurant — not a date dinner, a working dinner with two of Alex's junior partners and their significant others, the kind of professional-social event I had learned to navigate with some ease. I was seated beside Alex. The table was comfortable. Then the maître d' led someone toward the adjacent table and Alex went completely still beside me.I noticed it before I saw who it was. The stillness — not the controlled kind, but the involuntary kind. The kind that means the body recognized something the brain was still catching up to.The man who sat two tables away was dark-haired, broad-shouldered, and when he glanced over and saw Alex, he smiled the way people smile when they already knew they would see you.Alex turned back to
قد تعجبك أيضًا
Bogus Billionaire
Shining Riviera788.0K وجهات النظرThe Untouchable Ex-Wife
Mizuki Sei2.7M وجهات النظرTwins in Her Womb: Sir President, Please be Gentle
Heap Heap1.8M وجهات النظرHIS REGRET (Ex-Husband wants Me Back)
Major_Canis848.9K وجهات النظرDoctor, Please Be My Wife Again
Terasomdi 509 وجهات النظرChasing Elara
Adesegun Temitayo Dali206 وجهات النظرDaddy's Darkest Addiction
Queen Writes.120 وجهات النظرContracted to The Billionaire
C.I. Malley129 وجهات النظر
