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Chapter Forty Two
publish date:
2026-07-29 03:14:40
Latest chapter
The Billion Dollar Revenge For Lucia Hale Chapter Hundred and Forty-Seven
The housekeeper was waiting in the front hall when they came in from the reception. She was wringing her hands in a way that made Elara’s stomach sink before she said a word.“Ma’am, I’m so sorry, there’s been a pipe leak,” she said. “The east guest suite flooded an hour ago, and the whole wing smells of wet plaster.”Elara still had her coat half off, and her lipstick, she suspected, was in considerably worse shape than when she had applied it. She was aware of Atlas beside her, very still, and of two footmen pretending to study the ceiling.“Is everything ruined?” she asked.“The bed and the rugs, ma’am, and we’ve prepared the north room instead, though it’s cold and the heating there is still being seen to, so I thought—”“She can use mine,” Atlas said.The hall went silent for a second as the housekeeper discovered a sudden fascination with her own hands, and the footmen stared straight at them.Somewhere down the corridor, a clock ticked.Atlas realized what he had said about on
The Billion Dollar Revenge For Lucia Hale Chapter Hundred and Forty-Six
“Where do you want me to be tonight?” Atlas asked in the car.It was the third time that week he had asked some version of the question, and Elara was beginning to enjoy it more than she should.“Where I can see you,” she said, “and not scowling.”“I never scowl.”“You’re scowling now.”“I’m concentrating.”She hid her smile against the window. In the front seat, Curt kept his eyes carefully on the road.The teasing faded as the Halcyon Hotel came into view, its entrance lit gold and a line of photographers waiting behind the rope.Elara felt her stomach tighten.“We can go home,” Atlas said quietly. “Nobody would blame you.”“I know.” She watched the flashes. “I’ve spent weeks being a headline someone else wrote, and tonight I’d like to be one I chose.”He looked at her a moment longer and nodded once.She hadn’t told him that the shutter clicks sounded, tonight, uncomfortably like footsteps on a stair. She didn’t have to, because his hand found hers on the seat and squeezed before s
The Billion Dollar Revenge For Lucia Hale Chapter Hundred and Forty-Five
Mina’s phone rang in the middle of a pin.“I’m so sorry.” She read the screen, and her face crumpled. “It’s my landlord, and he says my kitchen is flooding, but I’ll be ten minutes at most, I swear.”“Go,” Elara said. “I’ll manage.”“You’re half-zipped, I can’t just—”“It’s a zipper, Mina, go before your ceiling falls in.”Mina went, pausing at the door long enough to look back with enormous guilt. Then the studio was quiet.Elara stood before the tall mirror in the replacement evening dress, deep midnight blue with a back cut low to the waist, one side of the zipper still open. She reached for it, her fingers brushing fabric, but found nothing.“Wonderful,” she muttered.The door opened behind her.She saw Atlas in the mirror first, his coat over one arm, and she wished she had not turned. He had been odd since Thursday, quieter, watching her a moment longer than necessary whenever she spoke, and she hadn’t decided whether it was about Camille perched on his desk or something she c
The Billion Dollar Revenge For Lucia Hale Chapter Hundred and Forty-Four
Camille Torres returned to Steele Tower on Thursday with a leather folder and no appointment, which Atlas’s assistant explained, wearily, was because she had never once needed one.“The waterfront amendments,” Camille said, dropping into the chair across from his desk as though she owned it. “My family wants the delivery schedule moved up a quarter, and I’d like your signature before your board gets nervous.”“Send it through legal.”“I did, and legal said you’d want to see it yourself, which is how I know I’m right.” She crossed her legs. “Read it.”He read it and saw the terms were reasonable. Right when he opened his mouth to give a response, his phone buzzed on the desk, and without even so much as a second of hesitation, he glanced down.Elara: ‘Fitting ran long, but want to have Coffee?’He answered before he even had the chance to think about it.‘Yes, most definitely, just need to finish a task.’After typing the response, he turned back to the contract.“That’s the fourth tim
The Billion Dollar Revenge For Lucia Hale Chapter Hundred and Forty Three
The drive back to the Steele estate was quiet, but it wasn’t the old kind of quiet.Elara sat in the back seat with her coat around her shoulders, and Atlas sat beside her with his hand resting on the leather between them. His hand was close enough that she could feel the heat emitting from it, and her fingers could have touched his if she moved. She didn’t. She watched the city lights slide away through the window and felt every inch of space in the car.There was no folder in her lap and no phone buzzing with Dean’s name, unlike previous times.Curt drove with his eyes carefully on the road and his shoulders carefully elsewhere, and nobody mentioned Vane, or the lawsuit, or the man who had come into her house.It was strange, she realized. It was the first night since she had met Atlas that had nothing to do with business, or security, or revenge, or pretending.She didn’t know where to put her hands.The estate was dark when they arrived, with a few lamps glowing along the drive
The Billion Dollar Revenge For Lucia Hale Chapter Hundred and Forty-Two
Atlas appeared in her office doorway at four o’clock with his hands in his pockets, wearing the carefully casual air of a man about to ask for a loan.“Are you busy tonight?”Elara glanced up from her sketchbook, and her mind went straight to work. “With what? Did Tony find something?”“No.”“Is it Dean?”“It isn’t anyone.” He cleared his throat. “Dinner.”“Whose?”“Ours.”She set down her pencil. He was standing very straight, with a faint flush along his jaw, and she realized, with a rush of delight she tried to hide, that he was nervous.“Are you asking me on a date?”Atlas looked deeply offended. “Don’t make it sound humiliating.”“I’m only checking.” She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. “Yes, I’m free.”“Good.” The relief on his face was almost comical. “Eight o’clock, and you’ll want a coat.”At eight, she stepped out of the private elevator onto the roof of Steele Tower. The wind caught her hair and the hem of the green silk dress she had cut herself two winters
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