All Chapters of Married To The Cruel Billionaire : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

SELENEPART ONE: THE RIDE TO JUDGMENTI stood in the bedroom for a long time without moving.The closet doors were open. Dresses hung neatly inside, colors lined up like they had a purpose I didn’t understand anymore. Black. Navy. Cream. Soft gray. Things that didn’t ask questions. Things that didn’t make noise.My hands were shaking.Not violently. Just enough that I noticed it when I reached for a hanger and missed it the first time. I curled my fingers into my palm, pressed them together, waited for them to stop. They didn’t.I told myself to breathe. Slow. Quiet. Like Adrien had said earlier.It helped a little. Not enough.I picked a dress without thinking too hard. Dark blue. Long sleeves. Nothing fitted. Nothing that showed skin. Something that said I understood where I was going. Something that wouldn’t be used against me.Acceptable.That was the word that kept repeating in my head.Acceptable. Proper. Unproblematic.I laid it on the bed and stared at it like it might reject

********The door closed behind them with a sound that stayed in the room longer than it should have.It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t sharp. It didn’t slam or shake the walls. It simply closed. But the silence that followed felt heavy, like something had been taken out of the air and not replaced.No one spoke.The dining table remained exactly as it had been moments before. Plates untouched. Glasses still full. Chairs pushed back at odd angles from where Adrien and Selene had stood too fast and left without looking back. The empty space they left behind felt wider than it was, like the room itself had shifted.Mireille stayed where she was, seated at the head of the table. Her posture was perfect, shoulders back, chin lifted. Her hands rested flat against the wood, fingers relaxed but still. Her face showed no crack, no loss of control. But there was something tight at the corners of her mouth, something cold behind her eyes. This was not embarrassment. This was insult. The kind that settl

*********Lucas was the first to hear the sound.Not the music. Not the shouting from the TV. The soft buzz from Olivia’s phone on the table between them.She didn’t reach for it right away.The phone buzzed again.Then again.Olivia frowned, finally picking it up, her thumb moving without care. She was halfway through opening the message when her expression shifted. Just slightly. Her lips parted. Her eyes narrowed.Lucas noticed.“What?” he asked, not looking up from his own phone.Olivia didn’t answer. She stared at the screen, then tilted it closer to her face. Her thumb scrolled once. Then stopped.She let out a short laugh.Lucas looked up then. “What is it?”Olivia held up her phone without turning it toward him yet. “You won’t believe this.”“That usually means I will.”She laughed again, louder this time, and finally turned the screen so he could see.It wasn’t a headline. It wasn’t even a caption. Just a paused video. Grainy. Low light. A woman mid-move, hair loose, face tur

SELENEAdrien had been moving around for the last twenty minutes without settling. Not pacing exactly. Just doing small things that didn’t need to be done. Opening drawers. Closing them. Checking his phone, then locking it again. Standing still for a second like he’d forgotten what he was about to do.I was on the couch, pretending to read something I hadn’t absorbed in ten minutes.When he walked back into the living room with his jacket on, keys already in his hand, that’s when it clicked.“You’re going out?” I asked.He stopped for half a second. Not long enough to be obvious. Long enough for me to notice.“Yeah,” he said. “I need to handle something.”That word again. Handle.I put the tablet down. “Now?”He nodded. “It won’t be long.”I watched him instead of responding. The way his jaw was tight. The way he wasn’t looking at me. The way his body was already angled toward the door like the conversation was already over.“Where are you going?” I asked.He didn’t answer right away.

SELENEThe door opened close to midnight.Not slammed. Not rushed. Just the quiet sound of the lock turning and the door easing shut behind him.I didn’t move.I was sitting on the couch, exactly where I’d been for the past hour, my legs tucked under me, my phone face down on the table like it might burn me if I touched it again.He stood there for a second when he saw me.Jacket still on. Hair slightly messy. His shoulders looked tense, like he’d been holding them that way for too long and forgot how to relax them.He didn’t smile.He didn’t say my name.He just looked tired. The kind of tired that comes from more than a long day.“You’re up,” he said.“I was waiting.”That made something shift in his face. Not guilt exactly. More like he’d expected this moment and still hadn’t figured out what to do with it.He walked in slowly, set his keys on the counter, took off his jacket. Every move felt careful, like he didn’t want to make anything worse by moving too fast.I stayed where I w