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Chapter 114: The Call
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2026-06-23 20:23:56
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The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 114: The Call
He called again on Thursday.This call was different from the short, careful one on Tuesday night. It started at eight o’clock. I did not notice how time flew until I looked at my phone later and saw that two hours had gone by. It felt like only twenty minutes while we talked.“What are you doing right now?” he asked when I answered.“Nothing,” I said. “I am sitting by the window.”“I am doing the same thing,” he said. I heard him move and get comfortable in a chair. He asked about the gallery first.The museum opening we went to in the third month. I had almost forgotten it because it did not feel important at the time. It was just one more evening in the long line of nights where we acted like a married couple in public.“You stood in front of the Hopper reproduction for eleven minutes,” he said. “I counted. I thought you were working. I thought you were studying the room and watching who spoke to whom.”“I was looking at the painting,” I said.“I know that now,” he said. “I did n
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 113: Iris Meets Adrian
Iris arrived in the city on a Tuesday. She said it was for a work conference she had gone to every year, for six years. She called me from the airport. Her voice sounded bright and full of energy. She had planned to see me no matter what else was happening in my life.“I have four hours before I check into my hotel,” she said. “Lunch?”“Yes,” I said.I did not expect Adrian to be there.She did not expect it either. I understood that later.We picked a restaurant in the design district. It was a plain place. Nothing special. I could be myself there without worrying about who might see us. I needed a spot like that. A place that did not ask anything extra from me.I got there fifteen minutes early. I sat at a table near the back, and then I saw him walk through the door.He came in on his own. I learned later that he had a meeting close by with a board member. They needed to talk about the timeline for new rules, but the meeting ended early. This restaurant was where he decided to grab
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 112: What Was Kept
Saturday morning arrived.He called at eight fifteen, which meant he had been up earlier, probably thinking. The talk from the Friday hallway had stayed with him just like it stayed with me.“Can you come in?” he said.The apartment in the estate glowed with its soft Saturday light, the study door that had stayed closed for a whole week was opened, and the notepad on the counter.“Yes,” I said.I came in at nine.He sat at the kitchen table with two cups of coffee. For many months this was the side of him I knew best. It felt like the real heart of the life we had made here together. He had poured a second cup. It waited at the place across from him.He did not ask if I wanted coffee.He simply made it.I sat down and wrapped my hands around the warm cup. The heat felt familiar and good. I did not say anything about it.He did not say anything either.“I want to understand something,” he said.“Okay.”“The documents you gave Daniel, I mean the full filing. The evidence package that Na
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 111: Some Things Aren’t Evidence
It happened on Friday evening.No one planned it. I had stopped waiting for our big talks to follow any schedule. I no longer believed the important words between us would come in neat packages I could prepare for. They came in the quiet gaps instead. They showed up in the spaces after the formal meetings and the paper reviews and the careful talks that Nathaniel had set up to hold everything during the past week.This talk arrived in the hallway outside the conference room at six forty. The legal team had already gone home. Nathaniel had left too. The whole building carried that special silence of a Friday evening. It was not meant to be anything special. It was simply the end of a long work week that began on Monday and never really paused.We were the only two people left on the floor.He stood at the far end of the hallway. He held his coat in one hand and his phone in the other. His face showed the look of a man who had stayed professional and focused for nine straight hours. Now
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 110: The Conversations That Hurt
It all began on a Sunday evening. This time, it started in the sitting room at seven o’clock. The city outside the big windows grew dark. We both sat very still, we had left behind all the professional ways of speaking. Now we were just two people in a room together.He returned to the estate.He did not call ahead or discuss it. There was no talk about rules or terms. He came back the same way he did on Friday. He used his key and carried his coat. I heard the key turn in the lock, while I stayed in my chair in the sitting room. He walked in and did not head to his study room.He just sat down across from me.After some time passed, he said, “I need to ask you some things.”“Okay,” I replied.“The first month,” he said. “Were you watching me?”His question came straight out. It needed a straight answer.“Yes,” I told him. “I professionally watched you. I studied how you worked. I learned who you trusted and where the weak points might be.” I stopped for a moment. “That is what the fi
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 109: After the Win
He did not celebrate.I did not expect him to, that was not how he was built. After a win, he stayed the same as always, focused on what came next. Any celebration he felt stayed inside and lasted only a short time before he turned back to the problems that were still waiting.There were still problems.The fraud investigation moved forward through official channels. Once it started, it did not stop. Dominic faced real legal trouble. The board would need weeks to handle it carefully. The stock price had not recovered, and news stories kept coming. The regulatory process had its own schedule and demands. It did not pause just because the proxy fight ended.Adrian worked through the aftermath with steady efficiency. He had a long list of tasks and started on it before the boardroom door even closed.I was not on that list; I was not on the work list either, and I was not part of the professional steps that came next. I helped get us here, with the documents, the four days of meetings, t
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 53: Adjusting
Nobody told me it would feel like this.I had expected some kind of aftermath, the careful distance and pulling away, the polite way people rebuild walls after something big happens. I thought we would treat that night in the gallery like a storm that had passed. Intense while it lasted, then filed
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 49: The Gala
I didn’t turn around when Dominic spoke.“You look stunning tonight.”I had learned how to handle comments like that over the past five months. I let the words settle for a moment, then gave a small smile without rushing it. No nervous laugh. I just lifted my champagne glass and took a slow sip, my
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 48: The Silence Between Us
I almost walked past. Then, I noticed the gallery door was open and the light was switched off. Something made me slow down and I looked in and stopped. He was sitting on the floor, just right in the middle of the room, cross-legged, in front of the unfinished painting. Arms resting over his knees
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 44: He’s Already Searching
I noticed the files first. His office door was half open, the way it usually was when he was working through something. I was heading to the kitchen and I glanced in without thinking and saw his screen. Old financial records and pre-acquisition documents from the look of them, the kind buried in o
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