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CHAPTER 202: THE OLD SCHOOL
publish date:
2026-11-15 15:29:57
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The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 205: THE BRIDGE
POV: Vivienne Ashford"Is it long?" said Vivian. "The speech. Is it very long?""It's three minutes," said Roman."That's very long.""It's the shortest speech your grandmother has ever given.""Is that true, Gran?""It is absolutely true," said Vivienne. "I timed it. Twice."It was a bright June morning in the tenth year after the night in Geneva, and the river ran green and slow under the old iron girders of the Bulkeley Bridge in Hartford, Connecticut. A long pale ribbon had been stretched across the entrance to the pedestrian walkway. Behind it, newly painted, gleamed a row of lamp posts. On the far side of the water, in the early haze, a crowd of perhaps three hundred stood on the lawn beneath the cottonwoods, in summer dresses and shirtsleeves, with paper cups of lemonade and small flags.Vivian was ten years old. She was tall for her age, with her father's serious dark eyes and her mother's quick mouth, in a white dress and sneakers because, she had informed the family at break
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 204: TWO BABIES IN VIENNA
POV: Maya"It's snowing," said Vivian. "Look. It's snowing on the angel.""That's not an angel, sweetheart," said Priya. "That's a lamppost.""It has wings.""It has a banner for the Christmas market.""I think it's an angel," said Vivian firmly.It was the twenty-third of December, and Vienna lay under a soft white blanket. Snow fell in slow wide flakes through the amber light of the street lamps, drifting past the tall baroque windows of the Hotel Sacher and settling on the cobbles of the Albertinaplatz. Strings of white lights crossed the lane. Somewhere in the distance a brass band was playing carols. Down in the street, a hundred people in thick coats and bright scarves moved between the stalls, carrying paper cups of hot spiced wine.Vivian pressed her nose against the glass. She was nine months short of two, in a red wool coat and a pair of mittens on a string, standing on a chair at the window of the family's suite with her mother's arm around her waist. Her dark curls stuck o
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 203: THE LEDGER
POV: Priya"Two hundred and twelve," said Priya. "I've counted three times.""Say that again," said Leo."Two hundred and twelve people." She sat at the head of the long dining table in the Westchester house on a gray September morning, with a laptop open in front of her and a stack of folders at her elbow. A pot of coffee steamed untouched beside it. The whole family was assembled, Vivienne and Roman, Anya, Katya and Alexei, Grace with baby Nora asleep on her shoulder, Oliver, Gerald in the corner, and Maya and Thomas, home for a last month before Vienna, Maya with a hand on her enormous belly. "That's how many names are in the green notebook. Eleanor's. The one in the safe.""The ledger.""The blackmail ledger. Her list." Priya turned the screen. A spreadsheet filled it, row after row of names, dates, and sums. "Forty years of it. Every person she threatened. Every sum she took. Every date.""Why did she keep it?" Maya asked."I think she couldn't bear to lose it." Priya's voice was
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 202: THE OLD SCHOOL
POV: Anya"I thought I would find you here," Anya said. "It is where he would have brought you.""I haven't been here in my life.""No. But he would have."The old school stood on a quiet hillside above the lake, a plain stone building with tall windows and a slate roof, shuttered now for the summer. A single street lamp lit the courtyard. Beneath it, on a low wooden bench, sat Vivienne with her jacket around her shoulders and her hands pressed between her knees. She did not look up. Anya came across the cobbles slowly, her heels clicking, and stopped beside the bench."May I sit?""It's a bench.""That is not a yes.""Sit."Anya sat. For a long minute neither of them spoke. A bat flickered across the lamplight and was gone. Somewhere below, church bells began to toll nine."How did you know?" Vivienne said, at last."This was the school where our father taught the exchange year. Not in Moscow. Here. He came to Geneva in 1991, on a summer program, to give a lecture on Whitman." Anya's
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 201: THE ENVELOPE
POV: Vivienne Ashford"Read it to me," Vivienne said. "I don't want to see it.""Viv.""Please. Just read it."They sat on the balcony of their hotel suite on the Quai du Mont-Blanc, with the lake spread out below them like beaten silver and the Jet d'Eau standing white against the dusk. It was eight in the evening. A tray of cold coffee sat on the iron table between them. Roman had not touched his. He held a single sheet of cream paper in both hands, so tightly that the edges had begun to crumple."I haven't finished it myself," he said."Then start at the top.""It's four pages.""Then we have four pages."He looked at her. In the dying light her face was pale and composed, the face of a woman who had spent the afternoon at a deathbed and had no strength left for a performance. Her hair had come loose at the nape. Her hands lay folded in her lap. He drew a breath, smoothed the paper against his knee, and began."'My dear Roman.'" His voice caught. He waited, then went on. "'You will
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 200: THE DYING BANKER
POV: Roman Ashford"He asked for you," the prison chaplain said. "By name. He said it was urgent.""Who did?" said Vivienne."Mr. Brandt.""Lukas Brandt is dying.""He is," the chaplain agreed. "That is why it is urgent."It was a hot afternoon in August, and the infirmary wing of the Geneva cantonal prison smelled of floor polish and boiled cabbage. A long white corridor ran between rows of steel doors. At the end of it, behind a green window, a small bed stood alone in a bare cell. Vivienne had flown overnight. She wore a pale linen jacket and low shoes and carried a leather bag against her ribs, and her heart was beating much too fast. Roman walked beside her. Neither of them had spoken since the airport."He has been failing for a week," the chaplain said. He was a young man with kind eyes, a Jesuit from Lyon. "The doctors say days. He will not eat. He refuses all visitors but you.""Why?""He has not said.""Is he lucid?""Entirely." A faint smile. "I think that is the worst part
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