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Chapter 10: Fennel Street
publish date:
2026-10-14 00:25:09
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The Contract Bride of the Billionaire Heir Chapter 19: The Car Across the Street
ARIA"A room," Sienna said the next morning, slapping a scrap of paper onto my desk like a card she had been saving. "Dalston, over a flower shop, seven hundred a month, and a landlady who has been frightened of me since the incident with her bins.""What incident?""I'll tell you when you're older." She pulled up a chair. "You told me last night that you couldn't stay on Tilly's sofa another week, because if Hale knows the studio, he knows the post, and if he knows the post, he knows Tilly.""I said it very badly.""You said it at one in the morning, on the phone, crying into a biscuit, I thought it was quite moving." She tapped the paper. "Mrs. Abara, Saturday at eleven, she says she doesn't take students, men, or cats, but she's been known to take a person with a good face.""I haven't got a good face.""You've got a very good face, it's only that you hide it behind a cardigan."On Saturday morning we climbed a narrow stairc
The Contract Bride of the Billionaire Heir Chapter 18: My Mother's Lipstick
ARIA"The kettle's broken," Sienna said, in a clear, ringing voice that carried to the back of the building, and then, much more quietly, "Aria, move."I was already moving. I ducked into the supply cupboard and pulled the door almost shut, leaving a crack the width of a pencil, and Gordon the rubber plant looked down at me from his shelf with the calm of a plant who had seen worse.Through the crack I could see a slice of the front window, and Sienna standing at it with her arms folded, like a sentry."What's she doing?" I whispered."Nothing, she's standing there, she's checking her lipstick in a compact, she thinks it's very subtle." Sienna leaned closer to the glass. "Oh.""Oh what?""Oh, Mr. Pike.""What's Mr. Pike doing?""He's coming out of the bakery with the big tray, the one with the cinnamon rolls, he's walking very carefully, he's looking at the sky, he's whistling." She put a hand over her mouth. "He's seen
The Contract Bride of the Billionaire Heir Chapter 17: Fourteen Weeks
ARIABy the first week of September the sickness had lifted, as Dr. Leila had promised it would, and I came to the studio on a Tuesday morning and ate a slice of toast with butter and raspberry jam standing up in the corridor, and Sienna burst into applause."Look at her," she told the whole room. "Look at this woman, eating toast, like a person with a future.""It's only toast.""It's a victory, Harlow, write it in the minutes.""I'm writing it in the biscuit ledger," said Ms. Harlow, without looking up, "which is more serious."I was fourteen weeks along by Leila's count, and the blazer still hid it, although the waistband of my gray dress had begun to complain, and I had a safety pin and a firm belief in loose cardigans. Nobody had asked me anything. Nobody had said anything, except Owen, who had put a cushion on my chair one morning without a word and then pretended it had always been there.That Tuesday was the day of the Margate
The Contract Bride of the Billionaire Heir Chapter 16: Page Six
ARIA"Turn it off," Sienna said, not very loudly, to nobody in particular, and then louder, to the waitress, "Could you turn it off, please, or at least change the channel?""It's the news, love, they like to keep it on.""Then could you turn it to a different piece of news, one with a dog in it?"The waitress looked from Sienna's face to mine, and something passed across her own, quick and practical, the look of a woman who has seen a lot of girls stare at a lot of screens. She picked up the remote from under the till and the picture changed to a man pulling a very large marrow out of a vegetable patch."Thank you," I said."I've got a daughter," the waitress said, and went off to wipe a table.I stayed where I was, with my hand flat on the napkin, and the lemon cake went on sitting in front of me like something in a museum."It's only a caption," Sienna said."I know.""A caption isn't a ring, and a rumor isn't
The Contract Bride of the Billionaire Heir Chapter 15: The Rules of a Secret
ARIAThe telephone on Mrs. Ames's desk rang at exactly five o'clock, and none of us breathed.It rang a second time, a bright, ordinary sound that seemed to belong to another afternoon, and Leila came out of her consulting room, wiping her hands on a towel, and laid one on the receiver."I'll take it," she said. "Aria, stand where you can hear, and don't make a sound."She lifted the phone and said, in a warm, even voice, "Morgan Clinic."I couldn't hear the words at first, only the shape of a man's voice, low and polite, coming out of the earpiece as faintly as a radio in another room. Then Leila tilted the receiver a few inches from her ear, and I caught it."...no wish to intrude, Doctor, I wouldn't dream of asking you to confirm anything; I'm trying to find a young woman who may or may not be a patient of yours.""I'm afraid I can't discuss who is or isn't a patient, sir.""Of course not, that's exactly the answer I'd hoped
The Contract Bride of the Billionaire Heir Chapter 14: Doctor Morgan's Door
ARIAThe supply cupboard at Fennel Street smelled of toner and old sticky tape, and held exactly one person, one rubber plant, and a mop that looked as if it had seen things."Gordon," I whispered, "you're no help at all."Gordon, in his pot on the top shelf, said nothing and went on looking green. I sat on an upturned bucket with the two positive tests wrapped inside a tissue in my fist, and listened to the building: a printer, a distant tap, Ms. Harlow saying something sharp about stationery, and then, quite clearly, three slow knocks on the cupboard door."It's me," said Owen's voice. "He's gone."I opened the door. Owen stood there with his sleeves rolled and a pencil in his hair that he had forgotten about, and behind him, Sienna was pretending to arrange paper clips."He stood across the road for ten minutes," Owen said. "He looked at our window, he looked at his watch, he looked at the baker's, and he smiled at something nobody else c
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