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CHAPTER 66 : Fiona's Message
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2026-10-02 14:45:14
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The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 66 : Fiona's Message
KATE'S POVI watched Leon read it.His expression moved through two or three things before settling into something I didn't have a clean name for. Not shock. Something quieter and more permanent than shock.He handed the phone back.I read it again even though I'd already memorised it.Kate. I'm leaving today. I've arranged everything quietly and I won't be coming back, not to Los Angeles, not to the estate, not to any of it. I want you to know that what I did when you were born was the worst decision of my life. Not because it unraveled. Because of what it cost you specifically. Every year of distance. Every time I held back when I should have held on. I told myself I was protecting you from the truth but I think I was protecting myself from having to live inside it fully. You deserved better than the mother I was. I can't undo that. I can only stop adding to it. There is money in an account in your name. Not Romano money. Mine. Saved over thirty years of working in that house. It be
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 65 : Morning
LEON'S POVI didn't sleep.Not properly. I lay in the hotel room in the dark and watched the ceiling and listened to the city doing its slow transition from night into early morning, the particular shift in sound that happened around five when things that had been quiet started waking up and things that had been moving started slowing down.My mind wouldn't settle.Not because of the statements or the counsel or the legal machinery that was now moving with its own momentum regardless of what I did next. That stuff I could compartmentalise. Had been doing it my whole life. You put the things you couldn't control in a specific place inside yourself and you left them there and you dealt with what was in front of you.What was in front of me right now was a ceiling.And what was behind that was everything else.Carter walking into a station at midnight and saying his own words without arrangement. I kept coming back to that. Not because it fixed anything. It didn't fix anything. Justin ha
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 64 : Natalie Walks In
KATE'S POVLeon showed me the photograph in the corridor outside the room.I looked at it for a moment. Natalie Smith walking into a police station at whatever hour this was, alone, no lawyers visible, no family, no carefully arranged media presence to frame the narrative before it happened.Just her. Moving through a door."She sent the three words," I said. "Check on Allison. That was her.""Yes," Leon said."She knew Allison was locked in that room and she told us before she walked in there." I looked at the photograph again. "She drew a line.""Two lines tonight," Leon said. "Carter and Allison."I handed the phone back.Thought about Natalie Smith the way I'd thought about her all week, through the lens of everything she'd done, the press conference, the messages, the carefully coordinated damage she'd aimed at Leon's name and the Romano family and by extension at me. All of it real. All of it deliberate.And still.Two lines.People were never just one thing. I'd been learning t
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 63 : Allison
LEON'S POVKate showed me the message without saying anything.Three words. Unknown number. New one, different from every previous unknown number that had come through tonight, and tonight had produced several.Check on Allison.I looked at it for a second then looked at Kate.Her expression was doing something careful. Not panic. The measured version of concern that she'd developed over the course of this week, the one that assessed before it reacted."She's at Natalie's family property," I said. "Bryan had eyes on it earlier.""Had," Kate said. "Past tense."I called Bryan.He answered on the second ring, background noise suggesting he was still moving somewhere."Allison," I said. "Current location."A pause. Too long."I pulled my contact from that property twenty minutes ago," Bryan said. "When Wakefield became the priority." Another pause. "I don't have eyes on her right now."I looked at Kate.She was already reaching for her door handle."Bryan," I said. "Get back to that prop
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER SIXTY TWO : Alone
KATE'S POVLeon pulled over before I could give the driver the address.Not aggressively. Just firmly, the car finding the kerb with a quiet certainty that said this conversation was happening before we went another metre in any direction.He turned to look at me."No," he said."I haven't said yes yet.""You were about to."He wasn't wrong.I held the phone against my chest and looked at him properly. He was doing the controlled thing, the jaw set, the expression measured, all the familiar architecture of Leon Romano keeping himself functional when his instinct was running somewhere else entirely. But underneath it something was showing that the architecture wasn't quite covering.Not anger. Something closer to fear.I'd seen it twice before tonight. Both times it had been about me specifically."He said alone," I said."I heard what he said.""If I bring you he won't give me whatever he has.""You don't know what he has.""He said it belongs to me more than anyone else," I said. "Le
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER SIXTY ONE : Jared's Angle
KATE'S POVLeon showed me the photograph without saying anything.I looked at it for a long moment.Jared Adams sitting in the back of a car beside Wakefield, smiling the specific smile he wore when he believed he was the smartest person in a situation. I knew that smile. Had been watching it my entire life, usually right before something fell apart."When was this taken," I said."Bryan's timestamp says eleven minutes ago," Leon said.Eleven minutes. While we'd been sitting in this room talking about letters and leverage and what Carter was going to say in his own words, Jared had been in a car somewhere with the one man who had the one piece of evidence that could still complicate everything.I tried to find surprise somewhere inside myself and couldn't locate it.Jared Adams didn't miss angles. It was the one consistent thing about him. He gambled compulsively and lost consistently and made bad decisions in every direction, but he never missed an angle. He'd seen Carter Romano arri
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER SIX : Our Wedding Night
KATE “What kind of bride ditches her wedding reception before the toast?”I sighed in frustration. “An unhappy bride.”To save face I returned my attention to the wardrobe, desperate to put something on, but not before I saw his mouth twitch at my statement.Where were my clothes? They were here b
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER FIVE : Forced Proximity
KATEThe cathedral bells bellowed ceremoniously.The wedding was finally over. Then came the marriage. The actual marriage.Mrs Romano's smile was ice as she held up my bulk wedding dress, just for the cameras of course, so I could slide into the white limousine. I let out a deep breath I didn't
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER FOUR : Into The Lion's Den
KATEMrs Romano’s eyes met mine.And just like that, I knew I wasn’t welcome.The verdict didn’t need words.It was in the way her gaze lingered a second too long. In the slight tightening of her lips. In the silence that followed.I lowered my eyes and took my seat.The dining table was too long.
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER THREE : The Unexpected Bride
KATE“With cooperation comes reward.”The man’s voice was calm, very calm.My father leaned forward like he was being offered the world.“And everything we discussed… still stands?”The man gave a small nod.“Of course.”My stomach turned. Everything we discussed?I stepped into the room.“What is
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