Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 401 - Chapitre 410

Months passed after Aurora's arrival, and life had slowly found its rhythm again. The house was filled with lullabies, diapers, and midnight laughter. Eliana and Damian were settling into parenthood wonderfully well, their lives now revolving around the little star named Aurora.In another corner of the city, Saben Thompson had buried himself in work—incessantly.With his father Benedict formally relinquishing the BMX Estates reins and the last holding of the Thompson portfolio, Saben's life was now a blur of boardroom meetings, real estate projects, and 2 a.m. coast-to-coast phone calls. The swagger, the saracastic grins, the Sunday brunches—those were all replaced with pressure and precision. And he enjoyed it that way.The hurt with Clarisse was over—not all at once, but fragment by fragment. After the gender reveal, when he lay eyes on her again and found that he no longer hurt, he knew that something had genuinely changed. That wild, reckless, sloppy part of him that had craved

Back in the office, the instant Jenny passed through the glass entrance, she took a deep breath she'd held since the end of the meeting. Her heels tapped firmly, but her heart pounded as if she'd just been off a battlefield.In Zina's corner office, the older woman reclined on the couch, feet propped up, one hand placed protectively across her belly. She was pregnant, but Zina still had that radiant, poised serenity Jenny admired.Zina's gaze rose in a languid smile. "So… how was it with His Highness of Ice?"Jenny flopped her bag onto the side chair and collapsed onto the sofa with a sigh."I hate him," she grumbled.Zina's eyes twinkled. "That bad?"Jenny rolled her head. "No. Worse."Zina smiled quietly. "Let me guess—he didn't even give you water?""No water. No hello. No smile. Just those deadpan eyes like he was silently judging my existence.""Sounds like Saben."Jenny rubbed her forehead, frustrated. "He hardly let me get a word in edgewise before he disputed every argument. A

Jordan flashed a smile as he headed toward the door. "You can place the business first, boss, all you want. But I've learned enough to know—if she walks back in here again, looking like last Tuesday? You're going to remember how hard it is to focus when your pulse doesn't work a clock at five."As the door swung shut behind Jordan, Saben stood staring toward the doorway, motionless, reflective.Then, with one hand, he gradually closed the file on the desk before him. His fingers caressed the edges. "Let's see what kind of move she makes," he whispered.BMX Estates boardroom, glass walls and all, sent back the early sunlight in warm golden light, casting stripes of shadow on the shiny mahogany table. Jenny White sat at the far end, papers neatly fanned out, ankles crossed at the heel, revealing only a fraction of the storm within.She'd had meetings. Important ones. Pressure-cooker ones. None, however, compared to when he strode in.Saben Thompson.The infamous, irresistibly smooth CE

He wasn't the type of fellow to allow anyone—not least someone like Jenny White—to into his head. He didn't even want to allow her into his head past their working contacts. But the clock seconds, his mind appeared not to be able to dislodge her. The way that she'd held her own in that meeting, the way that she hadn't cried when he tried to send her packing, and the way that her eyes had flashed with wordless rebellion—it was different. She was different.Saben's teeth clenched. He did not like it at all when people defied him like that, especially when they succeeded. There was something in Jenny's eyes when she spoke to him, something that had frozen him for a moment of a split second. It was enough time, though, to have him angry.He turned his chair around and away from her, pacing. Why was she so difficult? It wasn't the disobedience—damn, he'd gotten worse out of others. It wasn't how fast her mouth worked or how well she ran the board meeting so slickly. It was something else,

The Thompson Estate was alive today. And though the elegant beauty of the grand house, today was a day of laughter, commotion, and celebration. Today was Isla Wolfe's birthday, and the estate was filled with the sound of fellowship calls, a cacophony of laughter from children, and the far-off echo of joyful music on the breeze. The festoons were suspended in motion over the vast estate: balloons floated in light hues, and banners that declared "Happy Birthday, Isla!" were hammered up in all corners.Saben Thompson's room was to the side of the formal dining area, overlooking family grounds. The sun cast a golden spear of light out across the broad lawns, and the prospect should have been soothing. This morning it was like another fight waiting to blow.He had dressed in his typically immaculately creased suit—even, black, unwrinkled—but the tension in his posture cautioned that he had not been this at ease. Tonight would be a different sort of test. He was going to eat as a family wit