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Clara's wedding
publish date:
2026-05-16 06:47:57
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Stolen Heiress Chapter 39: The Feelings
~Celine's POV~ Not the stillness of pleasure. The stillness of memory. Of Clara's voice don't flatter yourself, no one wants you. Of Xavier's hands, rough and impatient, pushing where I hadn't been invited. Of every time I'd been told my body was a transaction, a burden, a thing to be endured. Lucien felt it immediately. His hand stopped. His mouth lifted from mine. "Celine —" "Don't." The word came out sharp, broken. I pushed at his chest, sudden and desperate, and he rolled off me instantly, sitting up, his hands raised in surrender. "Celine, I —" "You saw." My voice was shaking. I pulled my nightgown down, covering myself, the silk suddenly too thin, too revealing, too much like every other garment that had been used against me. "You saw my dress was loose. You thought .. you assumed… because I let you stay, because I kissed you, because I …" I couldn't finish. The anger was back, but twisted now, laced with something worse than rage. Shame. The old shame, the Laurent sh
Stolen Heiress Chapter 38: This is new
~Celine's POV~To what?" He didn't move back. His weight was distributed on his elbows, caging me without touching, the heat of him radiating through the small space between our bodies. "To hold you? To sleep beside you? To wake up with your hair in my face and your elbow in my ribs and your knee —" He shifted, grimaced. "Your knee is currently threatening my ability to father children?""I …." I became aware of my leg, indeed wedged between his thighs in a position that could only be described as aggressively intimate. I jerked it back. He caught my ankle, held it."Too late. Damage done. I'm emotionally scarred." But he was smiling, the rare real smile that transformed his sharp features into something almost boyish. "You also snore. Did you know? Small snores. Like a cat. Very undignified for a corporate heiress.""I do not snore.""And you talk. In your sleep. You recited shipping codes at three in the late night . Perfect recall. Very impressive. Then you called me a bastard agai
Stolen Heiress Chapter 37: Lucien
Celine's POV I woke to warmth. Not the warmth of blankets, though those were present. Not the warmth of late-night light, though gray rain-filtered glow pressed against the curtains. This was the specific, solid warmth of breathing against my back, an arm draped over my waist, a chest rising and falling with a steady rhythm, the unmistakable presence of another person in a bed that should have been mine alone. I froze. Lucien Thornhart was in my bed. Not beside it in a chair, as he had been once after a nightmare. Not in the doorway, watching, as he had been after the gala. In it. Behind me. His arm was heavy and familiar in a way that made my throat tight and my mind loud indeed. I lay still, cataloging facts like evidence at a crime scene. I wore the silk nightgown Mrs. Hargrove had left folded on my pillow demure, high-necked, the kind of garment that announced I sleep alone and intended to keep it that way. It was slightly twisted, riding up one thigh, but otherwise intact.
Stolen Heiress Chapter 36: James Again!
I found the keys to the secondary car in Mrs. Hargrove's kitchen drawer she'd shown me where they were, "in case of emergencies," her kind eyes knowing even then that I would need an escape. I drove through the dark city, the address Lucas had mentioned burning in my memory, the empty passenger seat where the photograph had been. I found them in an industrial district, warehouses and loading docks, the kind of place where no one asked questions. Lucien's black car was parked at an angle, Lucas leaning against it, his face grim. I pulled up beside them. Lucien turned, and the look on his face of rage, frustration, something darker shifted when he saw me. Not to relief. To something more complicated. "I told you to stay," he said. "And I told you I could help." I stepped out of the car, my hands empty, no photograph to offer, no secrets to reveal. "What happened?" "James was here." Lucas's voice was flat, controlled, but I could hear the anger underneath. "He arrived ten minut
Stolen Heiress Chapter 35: The Voss Family.
I looked at the photo. At the woman who had my eyes. At the date that matched the yacht explosion. At the time I'd never spoken aloud because I'd never found anything connecting it to the Laurents, just a strange photograph in Catherine's desk, a curiosity, perhaps proof of an affair or a hidden friendship or something I could use to embarrass her. "I don't know who they are," I said. And this was true I genuinely didn't. The name Voss meant nothing to me beyond what was scrawled on the back of a photograph. "I found it on Catherine's desk. I thought .. I thought it might be proof of an affair. Something I could use against her. The woman looks like me, but that could be a coincidence. The date matches the explosion, but that could be coincidence too. I didn't know the name meant anything." He studied my face. The silence stretched. "You're not lying," he said quietly. "But you're not telling me everything either. You found this three years ago. You've kept it. You've carried it. A
Stolen Heiress Chapter 34: The Stitches
Chapter 34: The Stitches ~ Celine's POV~ The estate's medical wing smelled of iodine and old linen, nothing like the Laurent house's theatrical emergencies with their orchids and hushed voices. Lucien sat on the examination table, his shirt off, the glass wound ragged across his forearm. Blood had dried in dark rivulets down to his wrist, staining the white cuff I still wore on my left hand. Mrs. Hargrove entered with a suture kit, her silver-streaked bun neat, her wire-rimmed glasses catching the light. "The cut needs twelve stitches, minimum. Deeper than it looks, the radial vein caught." "I'll do it," I said. She paused. Assessed me with those kind hazel eyes that saw through performance to bone. "He's had worse, Miss. But not from someone he chose to protect." Lucien didn't look at either of us. His jaw was tight, the mask still down, the rawness of the ballroom still exposed in the set of his shoulders. "Leave us," he said. Mrs. Hargrove set down the kit and closed
Stolen Heiress Chapter 27: More Secrets
James lies about everything." I turned back to the screen, scrolled through the records again, looking for another payment, another reference, anything that would tell us who had been kept alive in Geneva and why. "If someone survived. If they pulled someone from the water and hid them, paid to kee
Stolen Heiress Chapter 26: The Safehouse
~Celine's POV~ The safehouse was a concrete box above a fishing warehouse, two rooms, one window, the smell of diesel and salt permanent in the walls. Lucas had brought us there at 4 AM, silent, efficient, asking no questions about the blood on Lucien's shirt or the way Lucien's hand had stayed i
Stolen Heiress Chapter 25: The Crack in the Porcelain
~Clara's POV~The phone rang twelve times before Dad answered."Not now, Clara.""Someone knows." My voice cracked. "About Lydia. They're sending me things. Photos. The bridge. Her. …" I stopped, my throat closing. "They're going to expose me, Dad. They're going to tell everyone I—""Wait." Sharp a
Stolen Heiress Chapter 21: The Vault
~Celine's POV~The alarm cut out halfway down the east wing corridor.Not a gradual fade. A hard silence, as if someone had pulled a plug. The sconces flickered, dimmed, steadied at half-power. The estate's hum dropped to nothing.Then shouts. Distant, from the main entrance.I pressed against the
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