LOGINShare
chapter 22
publish date:
2026-09-01 22:46:02
Latest chapter
The Billionaire's Secret Bride chapter 428
Point of View: Alexander“Mr. Sterling, you are early. I admire that in a man who is about to lose. Please sit. The manager made coffee for us all, and I brought the trouble.”Edmund Pruitt sat at the long mahogany table in the private room of Meridian Trust Bank, one leg crossed over the other, a paper cup in his hand. He wore a pale gray suit and a pleasant smile. Behind him stood the manager, a round nervous man named Gale, who would not look at me.It was seven in the morning. The sky outside the tall windows was the color of dishwater. I had not slept, and neither had Elena. She stood beside me in a dark blue coat, her chin high, her fingers laced through mine. Behind us came Marcus with his leather bag, Naomi with her recorder, and Iris, silent and pale, with her phone clutched in one fist.“Mr. Pruitt,” I said. “I do not recall inviting you.”“Invitations are for guests, Alexander. I am here as a trustee.” He set the cup down. “Of the Lydia Hart Heirs Trust. We have legal stand
The Billionaire's Secret Bride chapter 427
Point of View: Elena“Do not come closer, child. Stand under the work light where I can see your hands. A Pruitt once took everything from a Hart, and old guilt makes a very careful guard, dear.”The stage of the Delancey Theater was black and cold. One bulb burned on a tall metal stand, throwing a yellow circle onto the boards. Beyond it, the empty seats rose into darkness like the ribs of a sleeping animal. I could smell dust and cold wood and the faint sweet ghost of old perfume.I stood in the circle of light with my heart hammering. Margaret sat on a folding chair at the edge of the shadow, wrapped in her long coat, her hands folded over the head of a cane.“I am alone,” I said. “As you asked.”“Your husband is outside.”“He is in the car. He promised to stay there.”“That was clever of him.” A tired smile. “Sit, Elena. There is a second chair.”I sat. The wood creaked. Neither of us spoke for a moment, and I became aware of every small sound, the click of the cooling pipes, the
The Billionaire's Secret Bride chapter 426
Point of View: Alexander“I took his money, Alexander. Two years of rent, paid on the first of every month. I told myself it was only a job. Go ahead and say the word you are thinking. I have said it to myself many times.”Iris stood in the middle of the costume room with her coat still dripping. Racks of faded velvet and old satin hung behind her like silent spectators. Elena sat on an upturned crate. Marcus leaned against a sewing table. I had come straight from the car, and I was still breathing hard.“Traitor,” I said. It was the only word I had.“Yes.”“You sat at my table. You looked my wife in the eye and told her you were not here for money.”“I was not here for money.” Her voice shook. “That part was true.”“Then explain the rest.”She wrapped her arms around herself. “My grandmother’s father was Gideon Marsh. You know that. He gave Aldric Sterling forty thousand dollars and received nothing. My grandmother grew up poor and angry. When she died, she left me a trunk of his let
The Billionaire's Secret Bride chapter 425
Point of View: Elena“I think you should leave, Alexander. Just for a while. If I am the name on that claim, then I am the danger in this house, and I will not let it fall on you.”I said it in the car, with the rain starting again and my hands pressed between my knees. Alexander had driven us away from the Sterling tower without a word. Now he pulled to the curb beside a closed flower stall and turned off the engine.“Say that again,” he said quietly.“I am the reason Pruitt can hurt you. My name. My blood. If I go, he has nothing to hold.”“Elena.”“I mean it. I could take Claire to my mother’s. For a month. Until Naomi and Marcus finish digging.”“Look at me.”I did not want to. If I looked, I would break. But I turned my head, and his face was only inches from mine, and it was not angry. It was stripped bare.“Last night you told me never to decide what you can carry,” he said. “Today you are deciding what I can carry. Do you hear it?”I opened my mouth. Closed it.“I am not stron
The Billionaire's Secret Bride chapter 424
Point of View: Alexander“Some of us wonder, Mrs. Sterling, whether you love this family or only its ledgers. A woman with an ancestor on the payroll has every reason to love old paper.”Harlan Voss said it with a pleasant smile, in the Sterling boardroom on Monday morning, with fourteen people watching and the silver coffee service steaming between us. He was sixty and tidy and had hated my father for thirty years. He had never learned to hate quietly.I felt my fist close under the table.Elena put a hand on my sleeve. She did not look at me. She was pale, and she had been quiet all morning, quieter than I liked. She kept her handbag on her lap with both hands on the clasp, as if it held something alive.“Mr. Voss,” she said. “May I answer that?”“Please. The board is curious.”“Then I will be plain.” She stood. The room went silent. “My great grandmother was a seamstress named Lydia Hart. She sewed curtains for the first Sterling hotel, and she gave a small amount of money to a man
The Billionaire's Secret Bride chapter 423
Point of View: Elena“Grandpa Richard, tell me again about the lady with the thimble. Mommy was not listening the first time. Mommy is always looking at the fence now. Why is Mommy looking at the fence?”Claire’s voice floated across the garden, bright as a bell. I stood on the terrace with a cold cup of tea, pretending to read. It was Sunday morning. The rain had finally stopped, and the pear tree hung heavy with drops that fell and fell like slow clocks.I had not slept. I had walked every room of the house three times. The guards stood at the gate in their dark coats, and I hated how normal that looked.Richard sat in the wicker chair under the tree, a blanket over his knees. Claire sat on the grass at his feet with Rabbit in her lap, and her small hand rested on his shoe.“She was a seamstress,” Richard said. His voice was thin, but he spoke with care. “She came to the back door of the hotel every spring. Always on the same morning. She wore a gray scarf and carried a pie in a clo
You May Also Like
In Love With The Hot CEO
Tula582.7K viewsThe Three Little Guardian Angels
Ginger Bud3.3M viewsMarried by Mistake: Mr. Whitman's Sinner Wife
Sixteenth Child13.0M viewsForbidden Love Stories
Avi22Nash1.2M viewsTHE F1 CAPTAIN'S FORBIDDEN TUTOR
Kathy L. Senior14 viewsOne year contract with my Boss (ENGLISH VERSION)
Marghie231 viewsMy Fake-Lame Husband Regrets Losing Me
Prosper144 viewsMy Brother's Best Friend, My Ex-Lover
Finest M.152 views
