Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Billionaires Club: Kabanata 81 - Kabanata 90

It was the fifth boutique, and Celine swore it was their last. But she was not in charge of selecting the clothing they would be wearing; Kim was. Celine had already refused to wear the sheer 1920s flapper-style dress Kim had picked out for her. She had boundaries, one of which was becoming a member of the ‘Naked Barely-There.’ Club. Kim, on the other hand, had no such qualms and had purchased a sheer black dress that revealed her naked perfect breasts. Celine was afraid she would need to carry a stun gun to keep the men off her.“You need to be lascivious. We need to grab the attention of everyone when we walk into a room.”, Kim said, handing Celine a dress that was not sheer. And it looked like it had enough fabric to cover her.“You have that part taken care of.”, Celine said, referring to Kim’s see-through dress. Kim shooed her in the direction of the changing room.Dutifully, Celine obeyed but soon became frustrated with trying to figure out the complex puzzle of cloth and straps

The elevator dinged, and yet another person squeezed into the packed elevator. “Is anybody getting out?” asked a hopeful-sounding voice. Celine almost laughed out loud. The guy was only echoing what they were all thinking. There were too many people on this elevator, and it was stifling. But nobody got out, and the shiny chrome doors closed, crushing their dreams of personal space.“Something smells good.”, the same voice commented. A few passengers laughed at that. Celine blushed. They were smelling the homemade lunch she had made for Sebastian. Lately, he had been working long hours, coming home late and leaving early, and she missed him. She checked with Kevin, and he told her Sebastian had a few minutes free, so she begged him not to schedule anything. Now, she was on an elevator with some home-cooked love, ready to surprise him.Only a few people got off with her on the executive floor, and she groaned when she saw Yuri was one of them. He was going to talk to her. She just knew

Tender feelings filled Celine’s chest as she watched Sebastian dancing with Amara. He gently maneuvered the tender youth around the dance floor carefully and thoughtfully, and Celine wondered where he had learned to be so loving and gentle with children. He certainly hadn’t learned from his parents. Seeing how giant Sebastian seemed compared to Amara made Celine laugh out loud. His massive hands dwarfed hers, and he seemed to swallow up her little body in his enormous arms when he picked her up and swung her around, dangling her several feet off the ground—Amara’s ringing laughter brought smiles to anyone within earshot.A sweaty Amara and Sebastian returned to their seats. Sebastian leaned into Celine and kissed her cheek. Surprised, she looked at him. He was beaming, and his gray eyes reminded Celine of the light in a moonlit landscape. He was happy, and the satisfaction of seeing him so joyful gave her a sense of contentment. Breaking their eye contact, Sebastian scanned the table,

Celine burst into Sebastian’s home office, frustrated and seething. Spinning to face her in his office chair, Sebastian seemed startled by her abrupt entrance and raised an eyebrow.She flung herself dramatically onto his lap, nuzzled into his chest, and said, “I want to elope.”He put his arms around her, and she felt herself calm. She nuzzled, greedily inhaling his scent.“What happened?” he asked.It was his mom. She kept adding people to the guest list, telling Kevin they were essential additions. Every time she did, they had to redo seating arrangements, and now Sophia’s additions were so numerous that they would need to change the venue to accommodate her.When Sophia first expressed an interest in being involved with the planning, Celine decided, against her better judgement, to allow it. To keep the collaboration less hostile, they had Kevin act as a go-between. And at first, that had worked. Kevin had years of experience dealing with the atrocious woman, and she did not bothe

It’s strange to have a traumatic event she couldn’t recall. It’s even stranger to have a crippling phobia and not know why. For as long as she could remember, she has been terrified of the dark. It was so bad that her parents took her to a psychologist, where she was diagnosed with PTSD and trauma-related Nyctophobia with panic-induced cognitive impairment. AKA She freaked the fuck out like a cat who got their tail caught in a mouse trap when she was in the dark.According to her parents, this was why. When she was four, they visited a friend’s farm, and she was sent to play outside with Collette. After a while, Collette returned alone, crying hysterically. Alarmed, her parents went looking for her, and when they couldn’t find her, they called the sheriff, and people came from all over to help find her. They searched night and day until a search and rescue dog found her trapped in a crawl space under an old, abandoned shed.When Celine had what her parents called “a fit,” she sometime