تسجيل الدخولInstantly, every gossip outlet exploded over the story.Wade family matriarch secretly meeting a bank executive?!Wade Enterprises CEO and his first love or should we say, his mistress caught in a secret rendezvous, a passionate several-minute kiss neither could break away from.Wade Enterprises CEO's wife dead, under mysterious circumstances!Soon someone leaked that the Wade family had been actively searching for someone recently.Not just Qingyang Villa they'd combed every corner of the city.And it wasn't only the living they were searching for.Someone had even spotted a Wade family representative at the local morgue, inquiring about an unidentified female body.So is the Wade family's daughter-in-law actually dead?This new murder angle collided directly with the two affair scandals already circulating.The connections practically drew themselves.Mother-in-law's secret meeting. Husband's blatant affair.Did the wife know something? Is that why the Wade family silenced her?Spec
Claire froze.What did he just say?Jonathan lifted his teacup, took a slow sip, glanced down for a beat, then looked back up, holding her gaze with total sincerity."The Reid family needs your help.""This is the offer from me personally, and from the entire family behind me."Something stirred in Claire's chest.Everyone in Los Angeles knew what the Reid name meant. Wealthiest man in the city. A conglomerate that shaped the local economy. If Reid Industries so much as shifted its weight, half the city felt it.Anyone who secured the protection or the personal backing of the head of the Reid family could completely rewrite their entire future.Since walking away from the Bennetts, Claire genuinely had no one left to lean on. Only her own instincts and talent had kept her from ending up truly destitute.The offer was tempting. Genuinely tempting.But entangling herself with this man further would be insane.She still carried the one secret that made him dangerous to her.The only reas
Nathan had barely gotten Vanessa settled on the sofa when the sound hit him, and his face went white.He shot up, abandoning Vanessa without a word, and bolted outside."Damn it Claire, playing games with me tonight! I swear to god, I won't stop until I find you!"Claire had finally seized her window and made it off the property.She didn't dare run flat out every step had to account for the twins.So she moved fast but careful, one hand cradling her stomach.She knew it wouldn't be long before Nathan and his people noticed and started tracking her down.Which meant no stopping. She kept weaving through unfamiliar streets around the villa's perimeter.Rain fell so hard the streetlights barely cut through it.Her only hope was to zigzag enough that Nathan lost the trail entirely that even he couldn't run this one down.Eventually, exhaustion overwhelmed her. She dropped onto a low rooftop ledge, crouching.She wrung out the water from her soaked clothes fast.The apron over her head ha
Crack!The door burst open, splintered and crooked.The three of them rushed in together, footsteps chaotic. Claire sat frozen in the wardrobe, not daring to breathe.She'd left water trails deliberately scattered around the room, hoping the puddle near the wardrobe wouldn't stand out among the mess.She'd also arranged her coat by the window to look like it had been ripped through as she climbed out.Hopefully that buys enough time.Sure enough, Mrs. Chen's voice rang out from the window."This is Mrs. Wade's coat!"Diane: "That little tramp really did climb out again."But there was no sign of Claire on the outer wall.Diane's mind raced. "Could she have made that whole racket up here just to lure us in and buy herself time to actually climb out and disappear?"Nathan shook his head. "No.""She's too sharp for something that obvious.""There's more to this."He'd heard her voice through the door, talking to someone.Who?Then it hit him his phone. Left on the nightstand. Gone.His e
Claire clung to the outer wall, shaking.Every step careful, deliberate.The ground slicked with rain, this whole plan borderline suicidal but it was also her only real shot at getting out.Autumn rain, ice-cold, hammered against her, teeth chattering uncontrollably.Still, she made sure each foothold was solid before advancing to the next.Babies, cheer for Mommy, okay?We're getting out of here together. Out of this house that's trying to kill you.The rain came down so hard she could barely make out how far the next patch of light actually was.Nathan spotted her through the window and roared. "Claire get back here! Now!"He moved to follow her out, but Diane grabbed him hard."Are you insane?""What if you fall? You'd be dead or crippled! What happens to me then? To this whole family?"Nathan had no room left for anything but panic. "Mom Claire's carrying my child!""I have to go get her!"Diane's eyes went cold, watching his desperation with something close to indifference."That
Claire lifted the bowl."I won't drink it!"Her eyes cut past Nathan to Diane behind him.Claire had known for a long time she'd become a permanent thorn in Diane's side, ever since her real identity came out. As mother-in-law, Diane had wanted her gone from this family from day one.Especially since Grandma Wade had handed her that heirloom bracelet every look Diane threw her way since had carried a mix of hatred and calculation.The toxic-furniture stunt. The whole mess with Vanessa afterward. Diane's fingerprints were all over it.Whether Diane genuinely wanted the twins to be born safely was, at this point, a total unknown.Claire wasn't drinking anything handed to her."You're the one scheming against my baby. Nathan's just too blind to see it.""I don't trust you. At all."Voicing her suspicion of Diane out loud made something flash across Diane's face irritation, sharp and immediate.She looked at the spilled medicine on the floor and snapped, "Claire, don't you dare be ungrate







