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Chapter 52: Protecting Tom
publish date:
2026-02-09 00:14:11
Latest chapter
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 143: Terms and Agreements
Caleb POVBella's conditions arrived in a document. Of course they did. She was Bella Hart, CEO of an international acquisitions firm, and when she told me she had conditions she meant it in the most complete sense of the word which made it difficult to misinterpret.I picked it up and read it, it had six rulesI recognized three of them immediately; she'd said them out loud already.One: No timeline imposed by outside expectation. We move at my pace. This is non-negotiable and not subject to revision based on board optics, media pressure, or anyone else's calendar.She'd said this to my face and I'd agreed without hesitation. Seeing it written down made me understand she'd needed it documented. That there had been enough people in her life who agreed to things verbally and then quietly renegotiated.Two: Weekly couples therapy for the first year minimum, both parties present, non-negotiable. I am not building something on a foundation that hasn't been properly examined.Three: Tom wi
The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride Chapter 110: Moving Forward
Bella POVI said no twice before I said yes, which I think was reasonable given the circumstances.The first no came the night after the hearing, when Caleb sat across from me in my kitchen and laid out, very calmly, why the penthouse security infrastructure was categorically better than anything a
Last Updated : 2026-04-05The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride Chapter 109: Victoria's End
Bella POVThe courtroom was smaller than I expected. I'd testified in arbitration rooms before — but this was a criminal preliminary hearing, wood-paneled and fluorescent-lit, with a court reporter in the corner and a prosecutor who looked like she hadn't slept since days. I sat in the witness box
Last Updated : 2026-04-05The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride Chapter 106: Victoria's Return
Victoria pov The apartment in Geneva had been lovely while it lasted.I'd chosen it for the views and the distance — all that clean Swiss air between me and the wreckage I'd left behind — and for weeks I'd woken up in twelve-hundred-thread-count sheets and told myself this was fine. Better, even.
Last Updated : 2026-04-04The Billionaire’s Discarded Bride Chapter 82: Enter Ethan
Bella POVI didn't see Caleb for the rest of the gala. He'd disappeared after his devastating revelation, leaving me to navigate conversations and networking while my mind spun with humiliation and anger.He'd heard me, he heard everything. By the time I made it back to the penthouse, it was past m
Last Updated : 2026-03-31
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