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Chapter Seventy-Two: Followed
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-05-28 01:50:30
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Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret 139: She finally reveals herself
Adrian's POVHer name was still her name when I asked her, but everything else had changed, but the name was the one thing she couldn't bring herself to give up.She talked for forty minutes straight.Penelope sat beside me, her hands in her lap, and I was grateful for it. I needed my own hands free to grip the edge of the table. My father had older debts even before Gerald which came from decisions made in the early years of building something, back when the building needed money no legitimate source would provide. He had borrowed from people who charged in loyalty instead of interest, and when it came time to repay, he found he had none left to give them.So they took something else instead...Or tried to.My mother was what they chose as leverage. Her existence became a pressure point against my father's choices. As long as she stayed reachable, he stayed manageable.So he made her unreachable.Gerald Harrow was back then a man my father trusted who could arrange things, and who ha
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret 138: The Woman Across the Street
PENELOPE She didn't move. She just stood there outside the coffee shop, hand raised, eyes fixed on Adrian, with the exact stillness of someone who had decided to be found.Adrian crossed the road, and I crossed with him. There was no version of this where I stayed on the pavement.Up close, she was smaller than the distance had suggested. She had Adrian's eyes, the same shape, the same depth. She dressed well, and she had a bold fashion style, and she looked like a woman who had survived something significant and came out the other side not unscathed, but upright.She looked at Adrian. He looked at her. Neither spoke for five full seconds.Then she said his name. Just his name, the way mothers say names when they've been holding them a long time."Don't," he said."Adrian...""Don't." His voice came out completely flat.She looked at me. "You must be Penelope.""Yes." I nodded, extending my hand for a handshake."I've heard about you." She mentioned "But I thought you were dead," I
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret 137: Monday Morning
PENELOPE *** The man's name was Gerald Harrow. I found that out on Sunday when Adrian's lawyers ran a background check and called him in the morning with the results. He is Sixty-one. A former property developer, with three civil suits in the last decade. I'm sure that he knows how to hover at the edge of legitimacy. I read the summary at my kitchen table while Adrian made coffee and Nora dismantled a tower of blocks she'd spent six minutes building. "He has done this before," I said. "He has claimed informal debts against estates." "The second civil suit," Adrian said. "He also made a private arrangement with a deceased business partner and he was paid out." "So it worked before." Penelope said "But not this time." *** Monday arrived with rain. It rained so lightly that it wasn't heard from inside. Adrian's lawyer's office sat on the eighth floor of a building that seemed to believe seriousness and comfort weren't mutually exclusive. Gerald Harrow had already arrived
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret 136: Meeting seraphina at the hospital
PENELOPE The hospital corridor was the same one I had been in. But this time around, we were on a different floor and a different ward. I walked fast enough that Jonathan struggled to keep up. Adrian had stayed in the car at my request. Not because I wanted to keep him out, but because this was a Westfield situation, and I needed my hands free to deal with it. Jonathan pushed open the ward door, and a nurse intercepted us immediately. "She's resting," she said. "She asked for me," I said. "I'm Penelope Westfield. I'm her sister." The nurse checked her clipboard, glanced at me, then stepped aside. We were in room seven, near the window which faced a wall. The light seemed to drain color from everything it touched. Seraphina lay in the bed. She looked smaller than I had ever seen her outside a hospital. The confidence she usually wore like armor, that posture of pride...all gone. She was just a woman in a bed with monitors, pale in the way that showed that her body had st
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret 135: The Man in the Doorway
PENELOPE "Who is he?" I asked.Adrian hadn't answered yet.The man was still standing in the doorway. He was medium-height, older than us, and had a face that had once been handsome and had hardened without losing its structure. He wore a good coat, and he wasn't afraid of Adrian the way frightened people usually stood.He looked comfortable, and that was why it bothered me."Adrian," I called again."Give us a minute, please," he said to me.I looked at him. "No."He met my eyes. "Penelope...""No," I said. "We've been through this. I don't wait in cars while things get explained to me later."He held my gaze, then turned to the man. "This is Penelope," he said. "She stays."The man looked at me, then back at Adrian. "Your father's business partner," he said. "You know that's what I am."My hand was still in Adrian's. I felt the tension of a hand belonging to a controlled person who wasn't, for once, in control."My father died four years ago," Adrian said."Yes," the man said. "And
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret 134: The Confrontation
Penelope's POV I was in the Clerkenwell office when Jonathan walked in through the front door like he owned the building...which technically, for six more months, he did...and stood in the middle of my workspace, looking at me across three desks and two members of staff who suddenly became very interested in their screens. "Outside," he ordered. I looked at him, studying the expression on his face that I had learned to read over the years. This wasn't the controlled Jonathan. This was the other one. I stood up, and we went outside. "Adrian was at my building this morning," he said."What did he say?" I asked "He told me he was going to ask you to be with him," Jonathan said. "He came to my building and told me directly that he was choosing you. He wanted me to know before it happened." "How did that conversation go?" I asked. Jonathan looked at the street. "He said he understood what he was asking. He said he knew the history, and that he wasn't there to ask my permission. H
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret Chapter Eighteen: The Woman in the Room.
Penelope's POV ***AT AN EVENT "Stop trembling with the bracelet." Adrian stood beside me, holding two glasses of water. He gave me that look he saved for moments when I was trying to appear calmer than I felt."I'm not trembling," I replied."You’ve adjusted it four times in the last minute." He
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret Chapter Sixteen: Rising
Penelope's POV A FEW WEEKS LATER "You look exhausted." Mrs Park, my new landlady said."Good morning to you too, Mrs. Park."My landlady stood in her door with a cup of tea in each hand. Her silver hair was knotted into a pigtail. At seventy-one, she barely reached my shoulder and spoke in a way
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret Chapter Fifteen: Again
Penelope's POV The city was still dark when I zipped my last bag.Five fourteen in the morning. The radiator and tap were no longer making any noise unlike before. I stood in the middle of the apartment and looked around at the small, bare space I had called mine for a few weeks.The marks on the
Love, Lies, and a Billionaire's Regret Chapter Fourteen: I crossed the line
Penelope's POV The whispers began before Seraphina even stepped away.I heard them. Every single one of them. People lowered their voices but didn’t stop speaking. They pretended to focus on their screens while their eyes wandered.I kept my pen moving across the page. "Write. Just write. Don’t l
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