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CHAPTER THIRTY THREE : Justin
publish date:
2026-06-07 12:33:36
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The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 77: Three Weeks Later
LEON'S POVThree weeks.That was how long it took for the immediate noise to settle into something manageable.Not gone. These things didn't go. They just found their level, stopped being the loudest thing in every room, started existing alongside ordinary life rather than instead of it.Stefena's case was moving through the proper channels. Her lawyers were doing what lawyers did, which was slow everything down and construct the most defensible version of events from whatever material remained. Carter's statement was on record and couldn't be undone, which meant the defence had a specific shape to work around rather than an open field.It would take time. Everything took time.Justin had found an apartment in the city.Not the Romano estate, not anything connected to the family name. A quiet place on the east side that he'd found himself and paid for himself, which told me everything I needed to know about where his head was. He'd accepted the introduction to the family lawyer, the l
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 76 : Back To The Villa
KATE'S POVWe went back to the villa that evening.Not dramatically. No conversation leading up to it, no decision announced. Leon just took the turning that led toward the private road and the gates opened the way they always did and we pulled into the driveway and got out.I stood for a moment looking at the building.It looked the same as it had the first night I'd arrived here in a wedding dress I hadn't chosen, in a marriage I hadn't agreed to, with a man I'd spent most of my life deciding I hated.Same villa. Everything else different.The kitchen window had been replaced while we were gone. Someone had arranged it quietly and efficiently, the way things in Leon's world got arranged, and you'd never know from looking at it that two nights ago someone had thrown a brick through it while we stood on the other side.I noticed it and said nothing.Leon noticed me noticing.Also said nothing.We went inside.The house had the specific quality of somewhere that had been empty for a da
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 75 : Leon And Carter
LEON'S POVI read Justin's message twice.Then I put my phone in my pocket and stood on the bottom step of the Romano estate looking at the car waiting for us at the gate and thought about Carter Romano sitting somewhere in this city having made a statement last night that couldn't be taken back.Wanting to meet me.Kate was beside me. Not pushing. Not filling the silence with suggestions. Just present in the way she'd learned to be present, which was one of the things about her I'd stopped being able to imagine being without."You don't have to," she said."I know.""Not today. Not this week. Not on anyone else's timeline.""I know that too," I said.She waited.I looked at the gate. At the city beyond it. At the ordinary Saturday afternoon existing completely outside whatever was happening inside me."I want to," I said. "That's the strange part. After everything. After the letter and the bail and the medical records used as leverage." I paused. "I still want to sit across from him
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 74 : What Stefena Kept
KATE'S POVThe room stayed quiet for longer than was comfortable.Leon wasn't moving. Wasn't speaking. Just sitting with what Stefena had said and the particular stillness that came over him when something had landed deeper than his composure could immediately address.I kept my hand on his arm. Didn't say anything. Just kept it there.Stefena was looking at him with an expression I'd been slowly learning to read over the past two days. It wasn't the cold authoritative face she'd worn at that dinner table weeks ago. It wasn't the stripped down version from the anonymous house either. Something else. Something that had decided to be honest regardless of what that cost her in the room.Oliver had gone very still across from us."How," Leon said finally. His voice came out even. The kind of even that had considerable effort behind it."Fiona told me when she came to work here," Stefena said. "Not immediately. I found documents she'd kept. A copy of the DNA result." She paused. "I confron
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 73 : Strange Alliances
LEON'S POVOliver Gentry and my mother.I turned that over in the car and couldn't find an angle that made obvious sense. They had no prior connection, no shared history, no logical reason to be sitting in the same house together the morning after everything that had happened.Unless."He went to her," Kate said beside me. Reading the same silence I was sitting in. "After the press conference. After his statement at the police station." She paused. "He went to Stefena.""Why.""Because she's the only person in this situation who knows what it feels like to have done something you can't undo and have to keep living inside it." Kate looked at the window. "Oliver made choices this week he's going to carry for a long time. Natalie, the press conference, using what he knew the way he used it." A pause. "Maybe he needed someone who understood that specific weight."I thought about that.It wasn't wrong.Stefena Romano had spent decades living inside a decision she couldn't undo. She underst
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER 72 : The Other Match
KATE'S POVHe handed me the phone without saying anything.I read it.Read it again.Then I looked at Leon and he looked back at me and we sat on that bench in that ordinary park on that ordinary Tuesday afternoon with something extraordinary sitting between us on a screen.There's a DNA result you haven't seen. Not Jared's. A different match entirely. One that changes everything you think you know about where you came from."Call her," I said.He was already dialing.It rang four times. Five. I counted without meaning to, the way you counted things when you needed something to do with the part of your mind that wasn't waiting.She answered on the sixth."Fiona." Leon's voice was level. Controlled. The version of him that appeared when something significant was happening and falling apart wasn't an option. "Explain this."I leaned slightly closer. Not enough to crowd him. Just enough to hear.Fiona's voice came through quietly. She sounded like someone who had been sitting with a deci
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
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER TWO : Scandal Hits The Romanos
KATEIt was everywhere.You couldn’t escape it.“ROMANO HEIR LINKED TO DRUG SCANDAL.”The headline stared back at me from my phone screen for the fifth time that morning.I exhaled slowly and locked it, but it didn’t help.Voices carried the same story anyway.“Did you hear about Natalie Smith?”“T
The Billionaire Next door (Who I Hate) CHAPTER ONE : Growing Up Next door
KATELeon Romano never apologized.Not when he ignored me. Not when he humiliated me. And definitely not when he ruined the few things I had.To the world, I was Kate Adams, daughter of Jared and Fiona Adams.To Leon Romano, I was just Katie.And my parents?“Nanny.” “Driver.”I remember vividly t
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