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Cracks in the Facade
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2025-12-22 21:58:23
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The Billionaire's Insignificant Wife 292
Alina read the two messages three times before she lowered the phone."What is it?" Adrian asked. He was already half out of his chair.She could have told him. The instruction sat in her chest like a stone, *tell no one, not even Adrian*, and she understood exactly why it had been written that way. Whoever sent it knew who she trusted, and wanted that trust broken before the night began.She slid the phone across the table instead.Adrian read it. Ms. Fontaine read it over his shoulder. Renee read it last, and she did not bother hiding her reaction."No," Renee said."I haven't said anything.""You were about to." Renee set the phone down very carefully. "It's a lure. Someone cut Daniel's video off mid-sentence and sent you here within the hour. The stables behind the estate, alone, at night. It reads like a script.""Then why send the video at all?" Alina asked. "If they wanted me at the stables, a threat would have been enough. Instead someone sent proof that Daniel was afraid."Ad
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The courtroom doors stood open, and the bailiff was watching them."Two minutes," Adrian said, low. "Ms. Fontaine, tell the judge we need ten more. A medical reason, if she asks. Alina's seven months along. Nobody will argue."Ms. Fontaine nodded and slipped inside. Adrian turned to Renee."Printed in Daniel's study. Three days ago. How sure are they?""The printer has a registered serial number, and the paper carries a watermark from a stationer that supplies only the mansion's offices." Renee kept her voice flat. "Salvatore's analyst says ninety percent. The rest is just caution.""Then Daniel wrote it," Alina said."Or someone sat in his chair while he was out," Adrian said. "Or someone wants us to believe he did."Alina looked down at the folder. A confession, a trap, or a trap dressed as a confession. She had lived inside Daniel's house long enough to know he rarely did anything for only one reason."If he wanted to hurt me," she said slowly, "he would not warn me not to trust hi
The Billionaire's Insignificant Wife 290
Nobody spoke for a moment.The corridor was quiet except for the muffled tick of the clock through the courtroom doors. Alina stared at the phone Renee held out, at the grainy photo of a man in a gray coat leaning against a pillar across the street. The folder under his arm was thin and cream-colored. The name on the tab was just legible.*Alina Blackwood.*"I haven't used that name in months," she said."Legally, you still have it," Adrian said. He had taken the phone and enlarged the image with two fingers. "Until the divorce is finalized, you're Mrs. Blackwood on every document in this country.""What's in the folder?""I don't know." He handed the phone back. "But a man doesn't wait outside a courthouse for hours with something harmless."Ms. Fontaine stepped closer, lowering her voice. "Process server, most likely. Someone serving papers in a marital case would label the folder exactly that way.""Papers for what?" Alina asked.No one had an answer. The silence stretched until Re
The Billionaire's Insignificant Wife 289
The petition reached Judge Simmons's desk on a Monday morning, three pages of clinical language wrapped around a single purpose.Adrian read his copy standing up, in the hallway outside the courtroom, and by the second page his jaw had set."He wants the visits moved to the mansion," he told Ms. Fontaine, who had arrived with her coffee still steaming. "Citing Junior's recovery. Stability of environment.""It's well argued." She took the pages from him and skimmed. "Hastings wrote this. It's the kind of argument a judge can't dismiss without a reason.""Then we give her a reason."They had four days before the hearing. Adrian spent them the way he spent most of his days now, with very little sleep and a legal pad that filled faster than he could organize it. Dr. Sarah Chen, the court-appointed child psychologist, agreed to testify. Her report from the first visit was clear: Junior had been calm, open, and responsive in a neutral setting. The mansion, she wrote, was the place where his
The Billionaire's Insignificant Wife 288
Junior came home to the mansion that afternoon with flushed cheeks and shining eyes.Daniel heard the small laugh from his study on the second floor. The house had been silent for weeks, and the sound made his hand stop above the documents. He stepped out into the hallway and found his son running toward the stairs, a sketchbook clamped under one arm."Papa, look!" Junior held the book high. "Mama said my drawing is good!"The word dropped into the hallway lightly, weightless. Mama.Daniel knelt down. Junior's fever had broken three days ago, in the morning, but he had not seen a smile this wide since Alina left. He studied his son's face for a long moment, searching for something to blame, and found nothing."You met Alina?" he asked quietly."In the playroom with lots of toys. Mama hugged me for a really long time." Junior hesitated, then lowered his voice. "Mama said we'll see each other again. Every two weeks."Every two weeks. Daniel nodded, ruffled his son's hair, and kept his f
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The mansion was quiet when Daniel's car pulled through the gates, though not the peaceful kind of quiet. It was the kind that settled over a house where someone small was sick and everyone else was afraid to make noise.Daniel climbed the stairs without bothering to change out of his suit. Outside Junior's room, a maid stood up quickly from her chair, lowering her voice."His fever came down a little this afternoon, sir. But he barely ate. He keeps asking for..." She hesitated."For whom?""For Madam Alina."Daniel said nothing. He pushed the door open.The room was dim, lit only by a small lamp beside the bed. Junior lay curled under his blanket, his cheeks flushed, his dark hair damp against his forehead. A cold compress had slipped halfway down his face. Clarissa sat in the armchair in the corner, scrolling through her phone, and she straightened the moment she saw Daniel."He's finally asleep," she whispered, standing. "The doctor said it's just stress. Nothing serious.""Stress,"
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