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ONE HUNDRED TWENTY
publish date:
2026-10-09 06:52:24
Latest chapter
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO
Aria’s POV Romanov’s face changed before he said a word. I watched it happen over breakfast, something going still and careful behind his eyes while he stared at his phone, and I knew before he turned it around that whatever he’d found wasn’t going to let either of us finish our coffee. “What,” I said. He turned the phone around. A headline, bold and ugly: Sleigh Heir’s Marriage Built on a Lie? Sources Say Contract, Not Love. “That’s not new information,” I said slowly. “That’s true. We told people that ourselves, months ago.” “It’s not what it says,” Romanov said. “It’s when it says it. And how many places are saying it at once.” He set the phone down and opened his laptop instead, pulling up three more outlets in separate tabs. Different headlines. Same shape underneath them. My past dressed up as scandal. Our marriage dressed up as scheme. Romanov’s judgment questioned by people who’d never met either of us. “This isn’t one reporter with a tip,” he said. “This is coordinate
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE
Aria’s POV Morning came without any of us having slept. By seven, the study looked like a war room already. Dmitri had three laptops open, cables running across the desk like something had been assembled in a hurry. Romanov stood behind him, arms crossed, reading over his shoulder. “Talk to me,” Romanov said. “The photograph is old,” Dmitri said. “Chemical print, not digital. That narrows things. If it was developed locally, there’s a chance the lab still has records. Most places keep archives for insurance reasons, even decades later.” “You think you can trace it,” I said. “I think I can try,” Dmitri said. “There’s a studio in the city that did contract printing for society photographers back then. If your mother had professional photos taken, this could be one of a set. A set means a negative. A negative means a name attached to an order.” It was thin, but after last night, something felt better than nothing. “How fast can you get someone there?” Romanov asked. “I already
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE ONE HUNDRED TWENTY
Aria’s POV The alarm tore through the estate just after two in the morning, a sharp, insistent wail that pulled me out of sleep before I’d even fully processed what the sound meant. Romanov was already moving beside me, reaching for the light, his body tensing into the same alert readiness I’d watched him summon a dozen times before across this investigation. “Stay behind me,” he said, already pulling on the shirt draped over the chair beside our bed. “What’s happening?” I asked, my heart pounding as I scrambled for my own robe. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “But that’s not a test.” We moved into the hallway together, finding Dmitri already there, his laptop tucked under one arm, three of Romanov’s security team fanning out ahead of us with the same controlled urgency I remembered from Cedar Hollow, from the greenhouse, from every moment this investigation had asked more of us than careful planning alone could offer. “Perimeter breach,” Dmitri said, checking his screen as we hur
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN
Aria’s POV Romanov and Dmitri met me at the edge of the woods, both of them scanning my face carefully the moment I came into view, searching for whatever damage the last half hour might have left behind. “You’re shaking,” Romanov said, closing the distance between us quickly, his hands resting on my shoulders, steadying without asking. “I’m fine,” I said, though the tremor in my own voice betrayed how untrue that actually was. “What happened in there?” Dmitri asked. Romanov didn’t ask anything right away. He simply stood there, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him, waiting with the particular patience I’d come to rely on whenever words needed time to find their shape. I opened my mouth to answer and found the words harder to arrange than I expected, everything Simon had said tangled together with everything he’d refused to say, grief and anger and unresolved questions all pressing forward at once. “He knew things about my mother,” I said finally. “Personal things.
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN
Aria’s POV The house at the end of the letter’s address sat at the edge of a small, private wood, unremarkable from the road, the kind of place designed specifically not to draw attention. Romanov parked a short distance away, Dmitri positioned discreetly nearby, though I’d insisted on walking the final stretch alone, exactly as I had at the greenhouse months earlier. The front door opened before I’d finished climbing the porch steps. He stood taller than I expected, older certainly, silver hair combed back neatly, dressed in the same kind of worn, old-fashioned coat I recognized immediately from the Cedar Hollow footage. His eyes were pale, careful, studying me with an intensity that felt less like threat and more like decades of curiosity finally reaching its end. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I pressed them flat against my sides, willing them still, and failed. “Little bird,” he said quietly. I stopped moving entirely. “What did you call me?” I asked, my voice unsteady in
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN
Aria’s POV Dmitri called us into the study just after dawn, his eyes bloodshot but sharp, three screens glowing with everything he’d pieced together overnight verifying Constance’s account. “Her story holds up,” he said. “The handwriting matches. The timeline fits. I don’t think she lied to us.” “Good,” Romanov said. “What else?” “There’s something I need your eyes on,” Dmitri said, turning his laptop toward me specifically. “Security footage. Old, and not from this estate.” “From where?” I asked. “Cedar Hollow,” Dmitri said. “The property maintained an old exterior camera system, tied into the same trust that’s kept the taxes current all these years. Most of the footage was never digitized, but I finally tracked down archived files from the night we drove out there.” My stomach tightened, remembering that night clearly, the alert Dmitri had received just as we prepared to leave the estate, someone entering Cedar Hollow ahead of us. “You said someone got there first,” I said
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