Library
Search
Home / Romance / Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride / Chapter 87: Ethan's Innocence

Share

Chapter 87: Ethan's Innocence

Author: Evve
last update publish date: 2026-01-10 18:25:39

The cabin in the Adirondacks was not a "glass castle."

It was a fortress of timber and stone, nestled deep in a forest that smelled of pine needles and damp earth. It was primitive, as Liam had promised. No internet. No cable. Just a landline, a fireplace, and silence.

For two days, it had been a sanctuary.

Aurora sat on the porch, wrapped in a thick woolen blanket, watching the rain drip from the eaves. The air was cold, sharp, and clean—a stark contrast to the recycled, surveillance-heavy air
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 491: THE MEETING

    The dining room table had hosted birthday parties, science projects, and war councils. It had seen laughter, tears, and the signing of adoption papers.Tonight, it held the weight of an empire.The entire family was present.Aurora sat at the head of the table. She wasn't wearing her CEO armor. She wore a simple white shirt and jeans, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked tired, but her eyes were clear. Slate-blue. Unwavering.Liam sat to her right. He had taken off his suit jacket, draped it over the back of the chair like a discarded skin. He held a glass of water, his knuckles white against the crystal.Marcus stood by the sideboard, his arms crossed, watching the room with the protective vigilance of a sentinel who knows the castle is about to fall. Sophia sat next to him, her hand resting on his arm, grounding him. Their daughter, Lily, five years old and oblivious to the tension, was coloring quietly on the floor with Grace.And the children.Ethan, sixteen, sat at the

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 490: THE AVALANCHE

    The screen at the head of the boardroom didn't show a graph anymore. It showed a cliff.Liam Cross sat at the head of the table. His hands were folded on the mahogany surface, perfectly still. He wasn't looking at the screen. He was looking at the faces of the twelve men and women who had helped him build an empire, and who were now preparing to dissect it."Fifty-eight percent," Julian Thorne said. His voice was quiet. It wasn't the booming voice of the man who had approved the merger or the Atelier. It was the hushed tone of a coroner. "The stock has lost fifty-eight percent of its value in forty-eight hours, Liam. We triggered the circuit breakers twice this morning.""I saw," Liam said."The Tokyo consortium pulled their financing an hour ago," Elena Kostas added. She didn't look triumphant. She looked scared. Her own net worth was tied to this sinking ship. "The Berlin hub is offline because the workers are striking in solidarity with... well, with the narrative."The narrative.

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 489: THE DUMP

    The notification didn't come as a ping. It came as a vibration that didn't stop. A continuous, buzzing tremor that rattled the coffee cup on Aurora’s bedside table until the china chattered against the wood.7:00 AM.Aurora rolled over. She picked up the phone.It wasn't a single text. It wasn't a single email. It was a deluge.CNN Breaking: The Cross Files: 40 Years of Corporate Murder and Manipulation.NYT Alert: Massive Data Leak Exposes Origins of Vale-Cross Empire.Twitter: #TheCrossCurse trending #1 worldwide.Aurora sat up. The room was quiet. Liam was still asleep beside her, his arm thrown over his eyes.She unlocked the phone.She didn't need to search. It was everywhere.A website had gone live at midnight. TheCrossTruth.org.It wasn't a tabloid blog. It was an archive. Thousands of documents. Scanned letters. Audio files. Bank transfers.The remnants of Voss Industries—the loyalists, the true believers, the people Ethan hadn't been able to buy—had emptied the vault.Aurora

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 488: COMING HOME

    The elevator doors opened directly into the penthouse foyer.Hope stepped out. Her painting hoodie was still damp from the run to Sophia’s, but her hands were dry. She clutched her phone in one and her house key in the other.The lights were dim. It was late—past midnight. The city outside was a grid of electric jewels, indifferent and beautiful.Hope looked down the hallway.Aurora was sitting in the window seat of the living room. She wasn't reading. She wasn't working. She was just sitting, her silhouette framed by the skyline, watching the elevator doors.She had been waiting.Hope walked into the room. Her sneakers squeaked on the hardwood floor.Aurora turned.She stood up. She was wearing her pajamas—the silk ones she wore when she was tired—but she had wrapped a heavy cardigan around herself, as if she were cold.They looked at each other.Hope saw the puffiness around her mother’s eyes. She saw the way Aurora’s hands were clenched at her sides, fighting the urge to reach out.

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 487: SOPHIA'S GIFT

    The brownstone in Brooklyn smelled of roasted garlic and rain. It was a warmer smell than the penthouse, less filtered, less high-altitude.Hope sat on the velvet sofa in the living room. She was shivering, though the room was warm. She was still wearing her painting hoodie, but now it was damp from the run to the cab and the sprint to the door.She clutched a mug of tea with both hands. Her knuckles were white.Sophia sat on the coffee table in front of her. Not on a chair. On the table. Close enough to touch, but respecting the perimeter of Hope’s rage."She ruined it," Hope whispered. Her voice was raspy from forty minutes of crying. "She ruined everything.""Drink your tea," Sophia said gently."I don't want tea. I want my life back.""Tea first," Sophia insisted. "Then life."Hope took a sip. It was chamomile. Boring. Safe."She fired him," Hope said, the anger flaring up again, hot and sharp in her chest. "She made him leave. He didn't even say goodbye, Sophia. He just... vanish

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 486: THE DEVASTATION

    The studio light was perfect. It was 3:00 PM, and the sun was hitting the new resin panels with a clarity that made the embedded gold leaf look like fire.Hope Vale-Cross stood at her worktable, mixing a shade of violet that she had been trying to perfect for weeks. She was humming. Bohemian Rhapsody.She was happy.She was fourteen years old, the Creative Lead of a division that was about to launch globally, and she was... seen.Adrian had seen her.He had looked at her sketches yesterday and said, You understand gravity, Hope. Most people just understand weight.It wasn't a compliment. It was a recognition.The door opened.Hope turned, a smile already forming on her lips. She expected Adrian. He was supposed to come by to review the final proofs for the catalog.It wasn't Adrian.It was Aurora.Her mother stood in the doorway. She wasn't wearing her work clothes. She was wearing jeans and a cashmere sweater, her arms crossed over her chest. Her face was pale. Her eyes—slate-blue, u

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 240: THE TROJAN HORSE

    The conference room on the forty-fifth floor of Cross Industries was a sanctuary of silence. Unlike the boardroom, with its mahogany and portraits of dead ancestors, this room was modern. Glass. Steel. A single slab of black granite for a table.It was a place where decisions were cut, not debated.

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-04

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 18: New Identity

    The vow she’d made in the cold, fog-gray bathroom had settled in her bones.He will never know you.It was a promise that had solidified the ice. The hysterical, broken woman who had sobbed on the bathroom floor was gone, frozen out. In her place was a new, cold, calculating intelligence.She was n

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-17

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 7: Wedding Morning

    The sun came up.Aurora watched it happen from the window seat of her bridal suite, her knees drawn to her chest. She had not slept. She had not even been in her bed.After Liam had left her, she had remained in the foyer for a long, silent, shattered hour.Then, on her hands and knees, her cashmer

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-17

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 10: Betrayal

    The click of the latch was a gunshot in the silent hall.Inside the room, the voices, the laughter, the life—all of it stopped.Aurora's hand was still on the cold, heavy brass. It was no longer her hand. It was a piece of stone, a mechanical lever. She pushed.The heavy mahogany door swung open wi

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-17
More Chapters

You may also like

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