Home / Romance / Falling For My Billionaire Ex / Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

All Chapters of Falling For My Billionaire Ex : Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

139 Chapters

Ms Hart

SusanI did not expect to see her in my office.It was Thursday afternoon, six days before the wedding, and I'd just returned from a site visit with mud on my shoes and a headache I'd been nursing since noon. The door to my office stood open. And in the visitor's chair, perfectly upright, with her handbag balanced on her knees as if she'd been told to wait for an audience, sat Elliot's mother."Mrs. Prescott," I said."Susan."She didn't rise. She didn't smile. But she did look, I thought, less certain than I had ever seen her."Is something wrong?" I asked. "Is Elliot...""Elliot is perfectly well. He is, I believe, in a meeting with Gerald and has no idea I am here." She paused. "I would prefer to keep it that way."I set down my bag and shut the door, then lowered myself into the chair behind my desk. For a long moment neither of us spoke."I attended your briefing on Wednesday," she said at last.I blinked. "I didn't see you.""I stood at the back, behind the screen. I did not wan

The Dress

SusanMeera had insisted the dress live at her apartment until the morning of the wedding."Elliot Prescott has a way of finding things," she'd said, when I protested. "Gerald could locate a lost earring in a snowstorm. If that dress spends one night at the estate, someone will 'accidentally' mention it over breakfast."She wasn't wrong, which was infuriating.So on Saturday afternoon, four days before the wedding, I drove across the city with my mother in the passenger seat and a small, nervous knot lodged behind my ribs. She didn't ask what was wrong. She just rested her hand over mine on the gearshift for a few blocks, the way she used to when I was small and the world felt too large, and I let the knot loosen a little.Meera opened her door before we knocked. "It's in the bedroom," she announced. "It looks like a body.""It's a dress.""It's a very expensive body, Susan. I've been walking past it all week."My mother laughed, a real, bright laugh, and followed Meera down the hall.

To Susan

SusanElliot's mother insisted on a family dinner.Not a rehearsal dinner, she corrected, when Gerald used the phrase. A family dinner. Small. At the estate. Three days before the wedding, on Sunday evening, with the terrace doors thrown open to the garden and the autumn light turning everything amber.I had braced myself for a cold, formal table, a dozen courses, a seating chart designed by a general. Instead, when Elliot and I walked out onto the terrace, I found a round table set for six, with mismatched candles and a bowl of late roses in the center."Is this a trap?" I murmured."I think it's an olive branch," Elliot murmured back. "She picked the roses herself."My mother was already seated, in the blouse I loved best on her, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Meera sat across from her, looking pleased and slightly terrified, which was how she always looked around Elliot's mother. Gerald hovered near the door in what I could only describe as an agony of etiquette, unsure whethe

Two Days

ElliotThe email arrived on Monday morning, two days before the wedding, and Gerald brought it to me the way he brought all bad news...in a plain folder, with a plain face, and a cup of coffee already poured."A reporter," he said. "From the society publication that ran the column last week."I took the printout. It was short and perfectly polite.*Dear Mr. Prescott's office. In preparing a feature on the upcoming wedding, we would like to ask about the timing of Ms. Hart's recent advancement at the Prescott Foundation in relation to the engagement. Some readers have asked whether the two are connected. We would welcome a comment before publication on Thursday.*I read it twice. By the second time, my jaw was tight."Some readers," I said."It is a very old trick," Gerald said. "The reader is always imaginary.""Who's the reporter?"He gave me a name. I didn't recognize it."Is she good?""By all accounts, fair. Careful. Not cruel." He paused. "I would not call this malicious. I would

The Night Before

SusanThe night before my wedding, I couldn't sleep.It wasn't fear, exactly. It was something quieter and more stubborn, a restless awareness that tomorrow my life would divide into a before and an after, and I was standing right at the seam.Meera had given me her bedroom and taken the couch, over my protests. She'd fallen asleep around midnight with one arm flung over her head and a half-finished cup of tea going cold on the floor beside her. The apartment was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the faint, distant sound of the city turning over in its sleep.I sat on the edge of her bed with the garment bag hanging on the door beside me, a lamp turned low, and my notebook open on my knees.The page still said only one line.*You came back.*I looked at it for a long time. Then I closed the notebook, set it aside, and let myself remember.***I remembered a girl of eighteen who tripped over her own feet on the first day of college and looked up into the face of a stran

Becoming Somebody's Husband

ElliotI had told Susan the truth: I'd spent an hour staring at a wall.What I hadn't told her was that it was the wall of the old library, the one at the end of the quietest wing of the estate, the room where I'd taken her the night of the announcement. Nobody used it. Nobody had in years. Which made it the only place in the house where I could think without somebody asking whether the napkins were the right shade of ivory.I'd sent my last text at eleven forty. Now it was after midnight, and the lamp on the old desk threw a warm circle across a page that still wasn't finished.I had written my vows eleven times. I'd read them aloud to the empty room. Each version had sounded either too grand or too small, either like a man trying to impress a boardroom or like a man trying to apologize for an entire decade.I set down the pen.Through the tall window, I could see lights moving on the lawn. Gerald's crew had arrived on schedule, quiet and efficient, carrying ladders and long coils of

The Wedding

SusanI woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of Meera singing off-key in the kitchen.For one dizzy second, I couldn't remember why my heart was already racing. Then the light through the curtains caught the garment bag hanging on the door, pale and glowing, and everything came back at once.It was Wednesday. It was the twenty-first.It was my wedding day."She's up!" Meera called, with the triumph of a woman who had won a bet. "Susan Hart is conscious! Somebody alert the press!""Please don't say that word today," I groaned, pressing a pillow over my face."Fine. Alert the florist."I laughed into the pillow. And just like that, the knot in my chest loosened a fraction, enough for me to sit up, push the hair out of my eyes, and breathe.***The morning moved in a blur of small, ordinary miracles.My mother arrived at eight, in her good blouse, carrying a bag of warm pastries and an expression of fierce, trembling composure. She kissed my forehead, handed me a roll, and told me t

The Chapel

ElliotThe side room behind the chapel was small, stone-walled, and cold enough that I could see my breath if I stood too near the window.I stood near the window anyway.Through the narrow glass, I could see the front steps, a strip of the lawn, and the first of the guests arriving in twos and threes, wrapped in coats against the autumn chill. Somebody's hat blew off. Somebody else laughed and caught it. Forty people, give or take, drifting toward a wooden door as though they'd all been invited to the same quiet secret.My mouth was dry. My palms were damp. I had negotiated deals worth more than the entire village around this chapel, and I couldn't make my hands stop moving."Sir," said Gerald, from the doorway. "You are adjusting your tie."I looked down. I was."It is straight.""I know.""It was straight eleven minutes ago.""Gerald.""I am simply observing." He gave me a look of enormous, patient affection. "I have prepared for every contingency except this one. I do not know how

I'm Ready

SusanThe car stopped at the foot of the chapel steps, and for a moment nobody moved.Through the window I could see the old stone walls, the narrow windows glowing with candlelight, the heavy wooden door standing slightly ajar. A last few guests hurried up the path with their collars turned against the wind. Somewhere inside, an organ was playing something slow and unfamiliar."Well," Meera whispered. "This is it."My mother reached across the seat and took my hand. Her fingers were warm and steady, and I held on to them harder than I meant to."We'll go in first," she said. "Gerald will bring you in when the music changes.""Mama.""Yes?"I didn't know what I'd meant to say. There were too many things. *Thank you* felt too small, and *I love you* felt too obvious, and *I'm scared* was a thing I'd already said out loud once this morning."I'm ready," I said instead.She smiled, her eyes shining. "I know you are."She kissed my cheek, careful of the veil. Meera squeezed my other hand,

The Vows

SusanThe officiant was a small, silver-haired woman with a voice like warm tea, and she did not rush us.I was grateful for that. I had half expected the ceremony to dissolve into a blur, one of those moments you spend years trying to remember and can only recall in fragments. Instead, each word landed slowly and clearly, as if the chapel itself had agreed to keep time with us.She spoke about promises. About the way two lives learn to share one road. She said nothing grand, nothing that sounded borrowed from a greeting card, and when she smiled at us over her small round glasses, I felt Elliot's hands tighten around mine."Today," she said, "Susan and Elliot have asked to speak their own words. They have not shared them with each other. I'm told this is, in both their cases, a source of considerable terror."A ripple of laughter moved through the pews. Elliot's mouth twitched."Susan," the officiant said gently. "Whenever you're ready."I let go of one of his hands. My notebook was

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