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Chapter 80: Tea For Two
publish date:
2026-11-12 19:45:18
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He Chose Her While I Was Dying, Then I Became an Heiress Chapter 83: The Empty Flat
EliasI sent the second text before I could talk myself out of it, then stood in the clinic corridor with the phone in my hand and felt like a boy who had rung a doorbell and run.Behind the door, my father slept. He had woken at six, asked for Sienna by name, and gone under again before I could ask him why. The nurse said that was normal for the mornings now. She said it gently, and I had stopped liking the gentleness."Mr. Lévi."Mrs. Roux was coming down the corridor at her usual speed, which was brisk for a woman of seventy-six and shockingly fast for one who stood five feet tall. She carried her handbag in one hand and a folder in the other, and she had not bothered to take off her hat."Vivienne's lawyers sent this at ten to eight," she said. "I've read it three times. Sit down.""I'd rather stand.""Then stand and be angry. I'd like you to be angry quietly."She handed me the folder. The top sheet was short and polite. Laurent Maison, in the interest of goodwill, was withdrawin
He Chose Her While I Was Dying, Then I Became an Heiress Chapter 82: What The Lab Said
SiennaIt was Saturday morning, ten past seven, and my phone was buzzing against the hotel nightstand before I had fully opened my eyes.Renata. I sat up and answered with my hair in my face."Are you dressed?" she said."No.""Get dressed. I'm in the lobby with coffee and two envelopes. I'd rather you read them sitting down."I was in jeans and a sweater in four minutes. When I opened the door of the suite, Renata was already in the corridor with a paper cup in each hand and her gray coat still buttoned. She had been practicing law for twenty-six years, and I had never seen her hurry. She was hurrying now."Drink," she said, and pushed a cup into my hand.We sat at the little round table by the window. She laid the first envelope between us and did not open it."The lab sent its comparison to Dr. Aldous at six this morning, and Dr. Aldous sent it to me at six-oh-five. I think she wanted you to hear it from someone who wouldn't flinch." She folded her hands. "The blood on the old clos
He Chose Her While I Was Dying, Then I Became an Heiress Chapter 82: Both Parents
JulianThe taxi was already moving when I gave the driver the address of the hospital.Pippa's second message had come through before we left the curb. Ambulance here. Westbrook Children's. I'm going with him. I read it with my thumb shaking over the screen, then dialed my mother.It rang six times and went to voicemail."Mother, it's Marcus. He's being taken to Westbrook Children's. Call me the moment you get this."I dialed again. Voicemail again. I put the phone against my knee and stared at the back of the driver's head, at a gray patch of hair above his collar, and told myself she was in a meeting. She was never out of reach. In thirty-nine years I had never once failed to reach my mother, and the one time I needed her, she was somewhere I couldn't follow."Faster," I said."It's Friday, sir. Everyone's going home.""Then go around them."He did. I didn't remember the road. I remembered the cream folder from the Carrington on the seat beside me, and I shoved it into my briefcase
He Chose Her While I Was Dying, Then I Became an Heiress Chapter 80: Tea For Two
JulianI was ten minutes early, and she was already there.The tearoom of the Carrington stood on the first floor, behind a pair of glass doors and a potted palm the size of a small tree. I had last been inside it eleven years ago, on the afternoon Sienna and I had come to book our wedding breakfast. She had worn a green dress. She had eaten four of the little sandwiches without saying a word, and I had thought, this one is quiet; I'll have no trouble.I pushed the memory aside and crossed the room.Vivienne sat at a corner table by a tall window, in a soft gray-lilac suit with a single pearl at her throat. A silver pot steamed at her elbow. She rose as I came up, with both hands out, and a smile so warm and so unforced that for a moment I forgot I had come to be careful."Mr. Hart. You came.""Your card was very persuasive.""Was it? I've never been sure about cards." She laughed and gestured at the chair. "Please. I ordered for both of us. I hope you don't mind. The scones here are
He Chose Her While I Was Dying, Then I Became an Heiress Chapter 79: Going Down
EliasThe lift dropped, and nobody said a word for three floors.Vivienne stood in the center of the car with her portfolio held against her ribs, looking up at the numbers as they ticked past. Jonah stood a step behind her, rigid, with the umbrella clutched in both hands like a rifle. Mrs. Roux stood beside me with her handbag on her arm. She hadn't so much as blinked."Thirty-eight to the lobby," Vivienne said, to no one in particular. "I do love a quiet lift. It's the only place in this city where no one asks for anything.""You're early for your meeting.""I was." She smiled at me. "I came up, and then I saw your face through the glass, and I thought, no. I'll go down with him. It would be rude not to say hello." She turned her head a few degrees. "How is your father?""The same.""I was thinking of him all week. And how kind you were to come on Thursday." She said it warmly, lightly, as if the supper on Larkin Street had been a gift. "I do hope you didn't mind the copies.""I rea
He Chose Her While I Was Dying, Then I Became an Heiress Chapter 78: My Chair
JulianMy mother was sitting in my chair.I stopped in the doorway of the boardroom with my briefcase in one hand. It was nine o'clock on Thursday morning, and the long table was full. Seven directors, Richard Vane at the far end with a folder squared in front of him, and at the head, in the high-backed leather seat that had been my father's and then mine, Eleanor Hart in a dark gray suit and her good pearls.She looked up. "Julian. Good. We can begin.""What is this?""A meeting of the board." She gestured at the empty seat halfway down the left side. "You've been unwell. I thought you'd like to be spared the effort of chairing.""I'm not unwell.""You've been sleeping badly. You've lost weight. You attended the bank on Monday in a stained tie, by all accounts, and left without speaking." She said it gently, for the benefit of the room. "Please sit."I sat. I had not been told to sit in front of my own directors since I was twenty-two, in my first week, when my father had put me at t
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