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Chapter thirty-one

Author: Lily Grayson
last update Last Updated: 2025-07-07 03:38:39

Sophie's POV

The Blackstone archives smelled of old money and older sins a heady mix of decaying paper, leather bindings, and the faint metallic tang of the vault's climate control system.

My fingertips left barely perceptible indentations on the cardboard banker's boxes as I worked through the 1990s financial records. The motion-activated lights flickered overhead, casting long shadows between the steel shelving units that stretched toward the vaulted ceiling.

I was examining a particularly dense file of offshore transactions when the air pressure changed. The hairs on my nape rose before I heard the deliberate clearing of a throat.

"Researching ancient history, Sophie?"

Marcus's voice oozed across the space between us, smooth as aged whiskey over ice. I turned slowly, careful to keep my expression neutral as I took in his perfectly tailored Brioni suit charcoal gray with the faintest pinstripe, costing more than most people made in a month.

"Provenance work for the Monet ac
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  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter sixty-three

    Sophie's POV The bedroom door slammed shut behind me with a force that vibrated through my entire body, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the cavernous penthouse. I pressed my palms flat against the cool mahogany wood, my fingers splaying wide as if I could physically absorb the impact, and could somehow push back against the hurricane of emotions threatening to tear me apart from the inside out. My breath came in sharp, ragged gasps that burned my throat, each inhale tasting of salt and unshed tears. "Do whatever you want." Damien's words were so cold, so final played on an endless loop in my mind, each repetition like a knife twisting deeper between my ribs. I squeezed my eyes shut until stars burst behind my eyelids, but all I could see was the way his face had closed off completely in that moment, his stormy blue eyes turning to arctic ice, his sculpted mouth hardening into an unyielding line. The way he'd looked at me - like I was just another problem to be managed, an

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter sixty-two

    Sophie’s POV The afternoon sun spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse, golden and thick like liquid honey, painting the marble floors in long, shimmering streaks. The light caught the delicate porcelain cup in my hands, warming the tea inside chamomile, a weak attempt to soothe the jagged edges of last night’s fight still clawing at my chest. "You’re reckless, Sophie. You don’t think before you act." Damien’s voice, cold and sharp as shattered glass, echoed in my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the memory played on his jaw clenched, his storm-blue eyes darkened with frustration, the way his fingers had flexed at his sides like he was physically restraining himself from saying more. I exhaled sharply, my fingers tightening around the cup. “Maybe he was right.” Maybe I had been reckless. Maybe I rush headfirst into danger without considering the consequences. But I wasn’t some fragile doll he needed to lock away in a gilded cage. I was a woman who

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter sixty-one

    Sophie's pov The elevator's chime slices through the penthouse silence like a scalpel through flesh. *3:17 AM* glows blood-red on the security panel, Damien's signature homecoming hour. I don't turn. Can't. My fingers remain locked around the jagged remains of his favorite Glencairn whiskey glass, the one I'd thrown at the security monitors hours ago. Crimson blooms across my palm where the crystal bit deep, dripping steadily onto the Carrara marble we'd chosen together. Each drop splatters like a tiny explosion, spreading in fractal patterns between the porcelain shards of his mother's Ming vase. The security wall hums with static - sixteen blank screens where I'd smashed the feeds after watching his plane go dark over the Atlantic. Sixteen empty eyes that had witnessed my unraveling. His footsteps are all wrong. “Too heavy” - the confident stride replaced by a laborious drag. “Too slow” - each step measured like a man counting his remaining breaths. “Too human” - t

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter sixty

    Sophie's pov The studio smells of turpentine and impending doom when the phone rings. My palette knife slips, slicing through the canvas right through the heart of the Damien portrait I'd been restoring. Elena's voice comes through the speaker, stripped of its usual steel: "Sophie... there's been an incident."A drop of vermilion paint bleeds across the floor like a warning. "Damien's plane..."The words detonate in my chest before she finishes: "Gone down in the Alps." The phone hits the marble with a crack. My knees follow. Somewhere, a clock ticks. Somewhere, Lillian screams. Somewhere, the baby our baby kicks violently against my ribs as if trying to escape what comes next. Time fractures into jagged shards: “3 Minutes” : Security footage plays on loop Damien boarding the Gulfstream, his hand brushing the pilot's shoulder in that coded way that meant "fly safe"“17 Minute”: The crash site appears on satellite a black scar across glacial ice “39Minute”: Elena pres

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter fifty-nine

    Sophie's pov The vase explodes against the marble floor with the force of a detonating heart. His mother's Ming dynasty treasure. The one that had survived five generations of Blackstones. The one he'd carried through fire and bloodshed to place in our penthouse as a silent vow: “This is yours now too.” Porcelain shards skitter across the floor like broken promises, catching the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Manhattan glitters below us a kingdom we'd conquered together, now just another battlefield. "You are encouraging her Sophie." Damien's voice isn't raised. That's how I know this is nuclear. The quieter he gets, the more dangerous the storm. His hands hang loose at his sides, but I see the way his fingers twitch the same micro-movement he makes before reaching for a weapon. I step deliberately onto the largest fragment, letting it bite into my bare heel. The pain is clean, sharp, nothing like the jagged mess in my chest. "And if I did?" The security syst

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter fifty-eight

    Sophie's pov The embossed cardstock smells like jasmine and betrayal. "Ms. Lucina Moretti requests the pleasure of your company at dinner..." I drag my fingernail across the gilded edge, watching the gold foil flake away like rotting skin. "We're not going." Damien doesn't look up from his security monitor's sixteen screens showing Lucina's movements across four time zones. "We have to." His knuckles whiten around the stem of his wine glass. "She booked the private dining room at Le Cœur Noir." The name hits like a slap. “The Black Heart” where Arthur celebrated after every corporate takeover. Where my father drank his last martini before the “Scheherazade.” I snap the invitation in half. The torn edge reveals a hidden layer, a molecular diagram of the toxin that killed our baby. Damien's glass shatters against the wall. "Exactly," he says softly. Lucina greets us in a backless gown the color of dried blood, the fabric slit to her hip. Her emerald choker pulse

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