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Chapter 8: Nathaniel’s Suspicion
publish date:
2026-04-23 13:45:44
Latest chapter
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 108: Hargreave Neutralized
The board meeting was called for nine o’clock. This was not a normal session. It was an emergency meeting that required a certain number of members to be present and proper notice. The company was in the middle of a real crisis. Nathaniel had filed the counter documents at six forty-seven the previous night, forty-three minutes before the deadline. The legal argument against Hargreave’s fast-tracked proxy was strong and complete. It was built on full evidence instead of pieces.I knew this because I helped put it together.I arrived at the Tao Industries boardroom at eight thirty with Nathaniel and the legal team, I carried the full package of documents we had worked on for four days. Adrian was already there.He came first, as expected.The room filled up at eight fifty. Seven board members sat around the table. Four lawyers joined them, and two crisis communications people stood at the back, alert and ready to handle what came after the meeting. Dominic was present too. He showed th
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 107: What He Knows About Her Now
Adrian POVI had read everything.Not only the fraud documents. I finished those in the hotel room during those long thirty-six hours. The financial records, the regulatory filings, and the forty-three pages that changed how I saw fifteen years of my own work. I had also gone through the rest. The public record of Harper Bennett, the investigative journalist. Once I knew what to look for, the information was there.I read about the Carver inquiry. The deputy minister. The way she used embedded access, three years of articles under her real name before she changed it for this investigation. Her work showed real patience and strong sourcing. A clear line between what was proven and what was only suggested.She was very good at her job.I had always known she was sharp. I felt it in the first few weeks. Her attention stood out in every room and every conversation. I started sharing more with her because that kind of focus deserved it, I knew she was intelligent, but I never understood wh
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 106: Practical Work
The real work together started on Thursday morning. Nathaniel set everything up with his usual efficiency. He knew the only stable thing between us right now was the professional side. So he created a clear structure. We shared documents through a secure system and coordinated with the legal team. We had a daily briefing at nine o’clock that required both of us to show up, stay focused, and get things done.The work itself was serious. The fraud was real, the regulatory process was real. Hargreave’s filing had turned into a contested legal fight, and Nathaniel’s team handled it with sharp precision now that they had the full evidence. The job needed full attention, clear thinking, and the combined knowledge of two people who saw different pieces of the same puzzle.We did the work.The first briefing lasted three hours. We sat on opposite sides of Nathaniel’s conference table with all the documents spread between us. We moved through them with the kind of focus that comes when you are
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 105: The Return
Adrian came back on Wednesday evening. He did not call or send a message ahead of time. I heard the key turn in the lock the same way I had heard it for eighteen months. That sound had become part of me without me meaning for it to happen. I could not unlearn it now. I was sitting in the living room with the two pages from the notepad still in my bag. The apartment felt quiet. I did not get up and go to the door. I stayed right where I was.I heard him step inside. The familiar sounds of someone coming home filled the hallway. The rustle of his coat, the jingle of keys, and the short pause as he adjusted to being back in a place he had left days earlier. Then everything went quiet again. His footsteps moved down the hall, and a moment later he stood in the doorway of the living room.He looked like a man who had finished thinking about something and he came back, because the next part needed him to be here in person.He sat down in the chair at an angle from mine. Neither of us spoke
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 104: What She Owes Him
I sat down at the kitchen table early Tuesday morning and wrote it all out, it was nothing about the newspaper, or the legal filing. This was just for me. For the same reason I kept a separate file about the victims, the same reason I had once written two short lines in a notebook instead of letting the thoughts spin endlessly in my head. Some truths need to live on paper before you can really see them clearly. Writing forces honesty in a way thinking alone never does.I used a plain notepad, the ordinary one I kept for personal thoughts: just simple paper and a pen.I started with the hardest part.I wrote down everything I had taken from Adrian without him knowing.I listed the access I had gained to his professional world. I had used it to build a story he never agreed to be part of. Eighteen months of being close to him started under pretenses. The contract looked like a normal social arrangement, but I never told him its real purpose. I hid the investigation behind every smile an
The Playboy's Forced Bride Chapter 103: He Pulls Back
I woke up Monday morning to an empty house. The bed felt too big. The light coming through the windows looked flat and ordinary. Adrian was already gone. He had not come back to the estate the previous night. That hotel room had become his main place again. I understood why. The open version of him from Sunday evening had disappeared.That version of him at the coffee shop had asked real questions. He listened when I told him about growing up in Fenwick, and he shared pieces of his own story. His eyes had been warm and curious, but now that version was no more, it was replaced with the careful, controlled version of Adrian Tao.I knew it even before I saw him. The feeling sat heavy in my chest during the drive to the meeting. By nine o’clock I sat in the conference room at his office. When he walked in, the distance felt like a wall. He carried himself with tight control. Every movement said he had decided overnight exactly how close he would let things get, not very close.The armor
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