Share

Chapter 41: Lawyered Up

Author: Lois
last update publish date: 2026-02-03 00:32:14

Bella POV

Jennifer's office was all glass and chrome, designed to intimidate, but today it felt like a cage. I sat across from her massive desk while she reviewed the custody petition for what felt like the hundredth time, her expression growing grimmer with each page.

"This is bad," she finally said, setting down the papers. "Bella, this is really bad."

"How bad?" I asked, even though I didn't want to know.

"He has an excellent case." Jennifer leaned back in her chair. "You concealed the pregn
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter
Comments (1)
goodnovel comment avatar
Merthly Naidoo
Why have you made her so weak and silly. Can't understand the law?
VIEW ALL COMMENTS

Latest chapter

  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 149: The Wedding Day

    Bella POVI woke up before my alarm.Six o'clock had been the plan. My body decided five-forty-seven was close enough and that was the end of sleep. I lay there in the quiet for a moment, taking stock — heart rate elevated but not panicked, the fear I'd been half-expecting nowhere to be found. Just the still, certain feeling of a day that had been coming for a long time finally arriving.From down the hall came the sounds of several women who had drunk too much and slept too little attempting to be functional. Something dropped. Someone said ow. Someone else said shhhh in a voice that was louder than whatever it was shushing.I smiled at the ceiling.Maya appeared in my doorway approximately minutes later in last night's makeup and the robe she'd produced from nowhere, her hair in a state that suggested the dancing had ended up being vigorous and prolonged."You're awake," she said."I've been awake.""How long?""Thirteen minutes."She came and sat on the edge of the bed and looked a

  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 148: Bachelorette Night 2

    Bella POVThe evening was loud and warm and genuinely fun. My staff, freed from the architecture of a normal working relationship for one evening, turned out to have opinions and stories and a collective energy I hadn't fully seen before, and I sat in the middle of it and felt the warmth of having built something that people actually wanted to be part of.Someone pressed a drink into my hand at some point. I held it, let the conversation move around me, and when no one was looking I set it down.My stomach had been like this for days. I had been noting it. The nausea that arrived in the morning and occasionally without warning, the appetite that had gone somewhere and not come back. The glass of wine at dinner three nights ago that had smelled fine and tasted wrong, which I had managed by setting it down and talking to Caleb about something else until he didn't notice.My period had been irregular for the better part of a year, which I had attributed to stress and age. That was what

  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 147: Bachelorette Night

    Bella POVThe only person missing was Diana. She'd called that morning from somewhere with a bad signal, an important trip she couldn't cut, something she'd been vague about in the way Diana was vague when she didn't want questions.She'd apologised once, which from Diana was the equivalent of a full speech, and promised she was on the first flight back in the morning.I will be there before you walk, she'd said. Don't start without me.You're coming to my party, I'd said.I'm Tom's guardian.I hadn't argued with that.Tom had gone with her, which still surprised me a little when I thought about it. A year ago he hadn't known Diana existed, and now he'd looked at me with his father's grey eyes and said he didn't want her to travel alone. I'd spent time talking him into staying behind, explaining that Mummy needed him at the wedding, that Diana would be back soon, that it wasn't that far. He'd finally agreed with reluctance then immediately started crying anyway because he'd wanted to

  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 146: Bachelor Night

    Caleb POVJames brought it up on a Monday morning, which was either deliberate timing or just James, and with James the two were often the same thing.I was going through the week's schedule when he set a coffee on my desk and said, without preamble, "We need to talk about the bachelor arrangements.""There are no bachelor arrangements," I said."That's what we need to talk about."I looked up. James had the expression he wore when he had already decided something and was now managing the process of bringing me to the same conclusion, I recognised it. I'd been on the receiving end of it for years."I'm not doing a club," I said. "I'm not doing anything that ends with a hangover the morning of my wedding.""I know," he said. "That's not what I'm suggesting.""Strippers""Absolutely not," he said, with a firmness that suggested he'd already considered and rejected this on my behalf. "Nothing that Bella would hear about, nothing that gives anyone a story. Nothing that risks one single th

  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 145: The Doubt

    Bella POVI didn't know what to say, so I hugged her, which she'd complained about and then held on to for a long time.So yes. Diana had slotted into Tom's life in a way I hadn't predicted. And Maya had been there from the very beginning in a way I couldn't have survived without. Tom, for his part, seemed to feel no conflict whatsoever about being adored by multiple women simultaneously. He accepted it as entirely appropriate.I watched him now, stealing a piece of Diana's bread without asking, and felt the warm ordinary weight of all of it.When we'd told him Diana would be responsible for him if anything happened to us, he'd said "Like a special aunt?" and Diana had said "Something like that" and he'd said "Cool" and gone back to his pasta.Diana had excused herself to the kitchen for five minutes after that.I didn't follow her. Some things don't need an audience.*******The doubt arrived at three in the morning, eleven days before the wedding.Not a crisis. Just the quiet 3 AM v

  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 144: The Aunties

    Caleb pov I thought about it. "Somewhere that means something." I looked at the city below us. "The house? The garden?"Her house — the one I'd put solely in her name.Something moved across her face. "The garden," she said."Three months from now it'll be ready," I said. "The roses you planted in April will be out."She was quiet for a moment, looking at the city. "Three months," she said."Three months," I agreed.She took my hand, we stayed on the terrace until Tom appeared in the doorway to tell us Diana had taught him a card trick and it worked and she was very good at teaching things, and we both looked at the doorway where Diana was standing behind him with the expression of someone who was not enjoying the credit but was also not correcting it."You're staying for dinner," Bella said to her.The last thing I did that night, after Tom was asleep and Bella was in the study reading and the penthouse had settled into its quiet, I sat for a while with the old therapy notebook.Bel

  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 38: Bella Dilemma

    Bella POVI spent the next hour trying to figure out how to tell Tom about his father while my son sat at the kitchen table, happily drawing dinosaurs with his crayons. Every scenario I imagined ended in disaster, with Tom crying or confused or worse, excited to meet a man who might disappoint him.

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-22
  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 34: Grandmother Death

    Bella pov "When?" I demanded through my sobs. "When did she die? What month?""April. April fifteenth."I'd been in London. Building my empire, raising Tom, surviving. And the one person who'd shown me genuine kindness, who'd looked at me like I was worth something, had died thinking I'd abandoned

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-21
  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 31: Going To The Park

    Bella POVThe morning after the reception, I woke to Tom jumping on my bed, his small body landing on my stomach with the force of a tiny meteorite. "Mommy! Mommy, wake up! Angela says we can go to the zoo today if you say yes!"I groaned and pulled him close, tickling his sides until he dissolved

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-20
  • The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride    Chapter 26: Playing the Game

    Bella POVThe morning after my breakdown, I woke up with swollen eyes and a pounding headache. Maya was already in the kitchen making coffee when I emerged, and she took one look at my face before sliding a mug across the counter."You look like hell," she said bluntly."I feel worse." I wrapped my

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-20
More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status