Share

Chapter 171: What It Would Cost

Author: Evve
last update publish date: 2026-05-18 15:28:14

POV: Lewis | Edinburgh

Eleanor spread the Sienna email across her desk at nine-oh-five.

She had printed it. She read it the way she read everything — once quickly, once slowly, making one mark with her pen at the bottom.

"She wants civil immunity," Lewis said.

"She wants your specific immunity," Eleanor said. "She is not asking the court. She is asking you to choose not to pursue her. That distinction matters because it cannot be undone in an appeal and it cannot be reversed by a change in lega
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 273: Sienna's Return

    [POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh]He hadn't slept.Sienna's voice had been the same. Calm, controlled, carrying the particular precision of someone who had spent years planning a conversation and was finally ready to have it.She'd said: "I'm back in Edinburgh, Lewis. I have something you need to hear before Thursday's board meeting. Meet me, or find out the hard way."Then she'd ended the call.That was eleven hours ago.He stood at the kitchen counter now, watching the clock on the cooker. Six forty-three in the morning. In four hours, Claire would walk across a stage as valedictorian and deliver a speech she'd spent three months writing. His daughter, eighteen years old, Stanford-bound, the best thing he'd ever had a hand in building.He was not going to let Sienna take that day from him.Yessica came downstairs in her dressing gown, saw his face, and went straight for the coffee."She called again?" Yessica asked."She didn't need to. She said enough.""What does she want?""She

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 272: The Unknown Sender

    [POV: Yessica] [Location: Edinburgh]Lewis didn't come home for dinner.That hadn't happened in three years. Not without a call. Not without a text that said running late, save me something.Yessica put Rose and Grace to bed at their usual times, listened to Grace negotiate for fifteen more minutes with the focused persistence of a nine-year-old who understood that persistence was its own argument, and said no with the calm authority of someone who had been saying no for nine years and had no intention of stopping.She left a plate in the oven. Sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop and a cup of tea that went cold.At nine forty-seven, she heard the front door.Lewis came into the kitchen and sat down without taking off his coat. That was the tell. Lewis always took off his coat."Tell me," she said.He pulled out his phone and placed it flat on the table between them. The message was still on the screen. Four words from an unknown number.We need to talk."When did this come

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 271: The Heir He Never Asked For

    [POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Sterling Industries Headquarters]The envelope had been sitting on Lewis's desk since Tuesday.He hadn't opened it.Marcus had left it there without a word, which was worse than if he'd said something. Marcus always had something to say. The silence meant he already knew the answer and wasn't sure how Lewis was going to take it.Lewis picked it up now. Turned it over.Sterling Industries. Board of Directors. Private and Confidential.He dropped it back down.The view from the thirty-second floor was the same as it had always been — Edinburgh's skyline, low and grey and permanent. His father had stood at this window. Lewis had stood at this window for twenty years, making decisions that moved markets, that employed four thousand people, that kept the Sterling name on buildings across three continents.He was forty-two. His children were growing up.And apparently the board had decided that was a problem.Marcus appeared in the doorway at half past f

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 270: Catherine's Condition

    Lewis called Eleanor at seven-thirty the next morning.He'd been awake since five. He'd read her message four times, made coffee, read it again, and waited until a reasonable hour before picking up the phone.Eleanor answered on the second ring."I was expecting your call," she said."Tell me about the condition.""I'll send you the formal documentation this morning. But the summary is this." A brief pause. "Catherine attached a condition to Claire's trust fund disbursement. The standard portion — equal share with the other children — releases unconditionally at eighteen. But there is a secondary fund. Substantially larger. It releases only if Claire reads the letter."Lewis was quiet for a moment."She made the letter a prerequisite for the inheritance.""Not the primary portion. The secondary fund is additional — it doesn't affect what Claire receives regardless. But Catherine set aside a separate amount, significantly more, contingent on proof of delivery and acknowledgment of rece

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 269: Would Change Everything

    Lewis didn't tell Yessica about the letter that morning.He told himself he was waiting for the right moment. The truth was he didn't know how to say it out loud yet. That a woman who had never spoken a word to his daughter had written her a letter sealed in Eleanor's office, addressed to Claire Sterling, to be opened at eighteen.Claire was seventeen. Her birthday was in six months.He sat with that all day.***Yessica found him in the study at half past nine that evening, still at his desk, laptop closed, not working.She stood in the doorway and looked at him."What is it?" she asked.He turned around. "Close the door."She closed the door and sat in the chair across from the desk — the chair that had seen every difficult conversation in this house for the last decade. She looked at him steadily, waiting."Eleanor called this morning," he said. "About Catherine's estate. The trust funds are being processed. Standard administrative items.""But?""But she also told me Catherine lef

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 268: The Morning Lewis Woke Up Without a Mother

    Lewis didn't sleep.He sat on the edge of the bed until four in the morning, then moved to the kitchen, made coffee he didn't drink, and sat at the table in the dark while the city outside did nothing and said nothing and kept being Edinburgh regardless.Catherine Sterling had died at nine forty-one in the evening. Stage four breast cancer, progressed faster than projected. He'd been told to prepare. He had prepared.He had not, it turned out, prepared.Yessica found him at half past four. She came in without switching on the light, pulled her dressing gown tighter, and sat across from him.She looked at him. He looked back."She's gone," he said."I know.""I keep waiting to feel the right thing. I don't know what the right thing is."Yessica reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. "There is no right thing. There's just what you feel.""I feel relieved," he said. "And then I feel horrible about the relief.""That's not horrible. That's honest."He was quiet for a mom

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 67 — What Harrison Knows

    POV: Yessica | Location: EdinburghShe called Lewis at seven forty-three.He picked up before the second ring. "I just saw it," he said."He wants to meet the children this week," she said. "Before proceedings. Which means he's moving before either of us has responded to the first message." She loo

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 64 — Four Words

    POV: Yessica | Location: EdinburghShe answered on the second ring.Not because she was ready. Because standing in the Edinburgh kitchen watching a phone ring while Pippa stared at her from across the counter was not a sustainable position."What did you send him?" Pippa said, in a whisper, exactly

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 60 — Claire

    POV: Yessica | Location: Royal Infirmary, EdinburghDr. Hargreaves pulled his chair to the bed.Sat.Not standing. Not behind a desk. At her level, the way he had this morning, the way of a man who understood that what came next required eye contact."The levels have risen by eleven points since th

  • His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns   Chapter 56 — Thursday Numbers

    POV: Yessica | Location: EdinburghAgnes's dinner on Sunday had been quiet and warm and exactly what all three of them needed without anyone saying so directly.Lewis had eaten two helpings of everything Agnes put in front of him, which Agnes noted with the satisfaction of a woman whose cooking had

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status