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Chapter 23
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2025-08-26 03:39:39
Latest chapter
Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend Chapter 117
On the walk back, we stopped under the willow. The rain had given the leaves the sort of shine they get when the world decides to wash off its worst thoughts. Marcus took my face in his hands like a man who had learned that rituals don’t just occur in courtrooms.“You okay?” I asked, because he had been holding the weight of a legacy and now seemed, incongruously, younger.He searched my eyes like someone choosing which vows to speak first. “Yes,” he said finally, voice small. “Because you were with me in the vault. Because the past is strange and messy and now it’s honest. Because it named us. Because—” He swallowed. “Because I can stop being afraid of my name.”I reached up and kissed the place above his mouth—the place where tenderness moves into hunger. It was a soft press that spiraled, quickly, into something far hotter. The vault and the bankroom and the vicar were behind us like a curtain; we were two people in a universe that had just been given a reason to keep breathing.We
Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend Chapter 116
The morning after Nora’s ledger arrived felt like a small, sacred truce. The inn was quieter than usual; the town seemed to be hovering, as if waiting to see which way the weather would blow. Marcus was already at the kitchen island when I wandered in, hair sticking out like a wild halo and a look on his face that made my heart do the idiotic little tumble it always does.“Coffee?” he offered, not because I needed caffeine but because he knows ritual steadies me.I took the mug and watched him from the side as he moved through the kitchen like someone putting armor on with practice—deliberate, methodical, almost tender. His hand brushed mine as he handed me my drink and the small electric jolt of touch landed where it always did: under my sternum, where the twins did their tiny, independent rebellions.“We got a phone call last night,” he said, voice low as if the news itself needed gentling. “From a bank in town. A safe-deposit box under Roderick Hale’s name. It was registered to a c
Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend Chapter 115
Nora’s eyes were bright. “We never wanted the ledger public before. It’s a record of trust. But maybe trust needs witnesses right now.” She smiled a little. “I thought you’d like to see it.”It felt like a benediction. Evidence that the Willow Inn had always been this — a ledger not of accounts but of acts. The absurdity of love sewn into receipts. The more documents we collected, the smaller the liars seemed. Graham Reed’s gambit looked less like a scalpel and more like a puddle that would dry under accumulated truth.We placed the ledger in the packet counsel would file and watched Nora through the window as she walked away, hair whipping like a flag. Marcus squeezed my hand in a way that said thank you without words. He kissed my knuckles and the tenderness of the gesture rearranged the muscle in my chest.We decided to rest for an hour. It was a decision made with the professionalism of people who have discovered that crises are worse when you run on empty. In the bedroom we were
Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend Chapter 114
The morning light found the inn wearing yesterday’s dust like a medal — not shameful, but earned. Marcus was at the kitchen table with his laptop open and a patient, tired look that made him younger in the way men do when they carry too many things at once. He looked up when I padded in, eyes bright with the adrenaline of someone who’d stayed up reading the seams of a story until they could see the stitch.“You slept?” he asked.“Like a cat,” I said, because it’s true and because a cat sleeps like it has invested in permanent comfort. He smiled that small, private smile he reserves for me and slid a mug across the table. “We have a court date,” he said, no flourish.I blinked. “Already?”“Forty-eight hours. Reed’s counsel got impatient when his name came up in the link and he demanded certainty. The judge expedited the discovery.” He rubbed his hands together. “We’ll have the forensic report and the original mail headers in two days. If they’re clean, which they are, we can probably f
Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend Chapter 113
Morning after the storm feels like someone offering a clean plate. The inn smelled of lemon and old paper, and for the first time in days the quiet wasn’t brittle — it was a steadier thing, thinned by work but held in place by truth.Marcus was up before me, as if the day itself had cues only he could read. He sat at the kitchen table with counsel on the laptop and a stack of papers neat as a small fort. He looked up when I padded in, eyes raw around the edges but bright in a way I liked: the sort you get from doing the hard work when nobody is watching. He pushed a mug toward me. “We have something,” he said.My pulse turned into a drum. He’d been moving like a man marshalling a private army — lawyers, forensics, the quiet grunt-of-effort of people who want to prove a lie is a lie. “What is it?” I asked, though my throat was already set against the news.“Forensic accountant says the scanned ‘donation memorandum’ is a composite,” he said. “Several different fonts, stamps added after
Her Father’s Billionaire Best Friend Chapter 112
“No,” I answered instantly. “I want the truth to be out before any pack of vultures can make a spectacle. If you want to handle legal, I’ll handle hearts. I’ll call the local feed, the people who came to our reception. I’ll get the town to back us up.”The plan was messy but it had geometry. We both moved — him to his lawyer, me to the kitchen where I wrote a quick note and put it into the town’s messaging board with a plea for calm and a promise of transparency. I called Juliette, Tom, Elena; within an hour the inn felt like a rallying center rather than a target. People who’d eaten jam on our porch wrote messages of support online. The town feed filled with They’re ours instead of There’s a scandal!But the internet runs faster than breakfast gossip. By noon the story had been picked up by a national outlet that loved scandal more than nuance. A TV van idled on the lane like a predatory beast. The inn’s phone would not stop ringing. An unfamiliar photographer took a long lens shot t
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