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CHAPTER 20: THE CONTRACT

作者: EffizyWrites
last update 公開日: 2026-11-02 19:42:59

ROSELINE’S POV

"Marry me."

I laughed before I could stop myself, short and disbelieving, because surely, surely, he hadn't actually said that in his office at six in the evening like he was reading off a quarterly target.

I'd come up expecting another folder. Another version of the first one, maybe softer around the edges, maybe with my conditions from the Hartman negotiation actually honored this time. Instead he'd stood up the second I walked in, hands behind his back, and said it like he'd b
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  • The Charming CEO I Slept With Is My Ex’s Half Brother   CHAPTER 32: GOLD AND ASH

    SHE JUMPED FROM BROTHER TO BILLIONAIRE: SOURCES CLOSE TO ERIC KINGSLEY REVEAL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FAMILY'S NEW BRIDE.I read the headline twice, my stomach dropping lower with each pass. The article beneath it was worse, anonymous sources painting a careful, poisonous picture, a woman who'd dated one Kingsley brother for two years, conveniently pregnant within weeks of switching to the wealthier one, a calculating opportunist who'd traded up the moment the opportunity presented itself. Phrases like "sources close to the family" and "those who knew her well" did the dirty work the article never had to say outright.Every word was wrong. Every word was also, infuriatingly, difficult to disprove without exposing details I'd fought hard to keep private, the real story being so much messier and more human than anything a tidy gold digger narrative could hold."They're quoting an unnamed source close to Eric," I told Henry, phone trembling slightly in my hand, my appetite for breakfast alre

  • The Charming CEO I Slept With Is My Ex’s Half Brother   CHAPTER 31: THE GALA PHOTOGRAPH

    The headline hit my phone before I'd even finished my coffee.A BROTHER'S BETRAYAL? NEW KINGSLEY BRIDE WATCHES RIVAL CIRCLE HER HUSBAND AT GALA.I stared at the photograph beneath it, taken from an angle that made the whole evening look like something it wasn't. Celeste's hand on Henry's arm, caught mid laugh, intimate and familiar. Me in the background, slightly out of focus, my expression frozen into something that could easily be read as hurt, as jealousy, as a woman already losing a marriage three weeks old.It didn't show the part where Henry crossed the room and took my hand in front of everyone. It didn't show the dance, or the warmth in his voice when he said he was done letting his family decide who mattered. Just the worst possible frame of the worst possible moment, cropped and captioned to tell exactly the story someone wanted told, and told convincingly enough that even I almost believed it for a second, staring at my own stricken face in that photograph."Henry." I found

  • The Charming CEO I Slept With Is My Ex’s Half Brother   CHAPTER 30: CELESTE'S CLAWS

    The gala ballroom glittered with exactly the kind of wealth that made my dress, however carefully chosen, feel suddenly inadequate. Chandeliers the size of small cars. A string quartet playing something I half recognized from a commercial. Henry's hand rested at the small of my back as we entered, steady, grounding, though I noticed he kept scanning the room the way a man scans a battlefield rather than a party."Relax," I murmured. "You look like you're expecting an ambush.""With this family, that's not an unreasonable expectation.""Comforting, as always.""I try." A faint, tired smile tugged at his mouth. "Stay close tonight. Please.""Worried I'll wander off and embarrass you?""Worried about exactly the opposite."He wasn't wrong.Celeste found us within fifteen minutes, gliding across the room in a dress that probably cost more than my first year's salary, champagne flute dangling from perfectly manicured fingers."Henry." Her voice carried, pitched just loud enough for the sur

  • The Charming CEO I Slept With Is My Ex’s Half Brother   CHAPTER 29: MORNING SICKNESS AND SMALL KINDNESSES

    ROSELINE’S POVThe nausea hit before I'd even fully opened my eyes, a slow, rolling wave that had me bolting for the bathroom before coherent thought caught up with my body. I made it, barely, and knelt there afterward with my forehead pressed against cool tile, breathing through the aftershocks.A soft knock sounded at the door."Roseline?""I'm fine." My voice came out rough, unconvincing even to my own ears."You don't sound fine.""Pregnancy's glamorous like that."A pause. Then, quieter, "Can I come in?"I should have said no. Some vulnerable, stubborn part of me wanted to handle this alone, the way I'd handled everything alone for most of my life. But the tile was cold, and my legs felt unsteady, and I was so tired of pretending strength I didn't currently have."Okay," I said.Henry eased the door open slowly, like he expected me to change my mind, and crouched beside me without a word. He didn't say anything dramatic. Didn't hover with obvious concern or ask a dozen questions

  • The Charming CEO I Slept With Is My Ex’s Half Brother   CHAPTER 28: A HOUSE OF GHOSTS

    HENRY'S POVThe east wing still smelled the same. Dust and old wood polish, a faint trace of something floral I could never place as a boy and still couldn't now, though it caught in my throat the same way it always had.I'd come to collect a box of old files Daniel needed, family records nobody had touched in years, stored in what used to be my mother's sitting room because apparently nobody in this family could bear to repurpose the space for anything else. I told myself that was the only reason I was here. I didn't entirely believe it.The room looked smaller than I remembered. A child's memory inflates everything, I supposed, turns ordinary ceilings into cathedrals, ordinary windows into something vast enough to hold an entire sky. Now it was just a room, faded wallpaper, a window seat where she used to read to me, dust thick enough to write my name in if I'd wanted to.I didn't want to.I found the box of files exactly where Collins had said it would be, tucked beneath a stack of

  • The Charming CEO I Slept With Is My Ex’s Half Brother   CHAPTER 27: THE RULES WE BREAK

    "You could have just let me make the tea," I said, picking the dropped pan up off the floor before he could reach it."You shouldn't be the one cleaning up a mess I made. Especially not tonight.""Is there a schedule I don't know about?""There should be." He took the pan from my hands, his fingers brushing mine for half a second longer than necessary. "I startled you. Figured the least I could do was finish what I started."I should have gone back to bed. The rational, careful version of me, the one who'd written three pages of conditions and meant every line of them, knew exactly how I should have ended this moment. That version of me had a long list of reasons, all of them sensible, none of them loud enough to actually move my feet.I sat down anyway.He moved around the kitchen with quiet, careful efficiency, kettle, two mugs, a tin of loose leaf tea I hadn't known we owned. The silence between us had shifted somewhere in the last few minutes, less careful now, less like two stran

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