Semua Bab The Billionaire’s Runaway Bride: Bab 111 - Bab 119

I stood stiff, one hand on the table, the other clenched at my side. “Say that again.”Dennis didn’t flinch. He looked right at me. “Stella isn’t who she says she is. She’s Julie’s daughter. Her biological daughter.”I stared at him, barely breathing. “What does that have to do with me?”He took a slow step forward. “The crash. The one you remember. That wasn’t Stella’s family. That was yours.”I blinked, fast. My jaw locked. “No. That’s not possible.”“You were in the car, Bella. It was your parents. You were listed as dead. Julie made it look that way.”I stepped back from the table, shaking my head. “No. No, I—she’s the one who was in the car. Stella—”“She wasn’t,” he said. “Stella was never in the crash. Julie staged everything. She made it look like Stella was the child who survived so the Rathores would take her in. She used your tragedy, your trauma, and gave it to her own daughter.”I felt my knees start to give out. I grabbed the back of the couch and leaned forward, trying

I stood in the middle of the living room holding the phone in my hand. My fingers were numb, the voice on the other end was gone, the call had already ended but I still hadn’t moved. The room felt too quiet.I looked down at the phone screen. It was blank now, just the home screen. Did he just say I was pregnant? I almost laughed, certain I must have misheard him.The word didn’t sit in my head right. It bounced around and refused to land. I blinked slowly and set the phone down on the table, but my hand hovered there. I stared at the surface like I was waiting for something else to happen.I didn’t feel anything at first. My body was too still, my chest felt tight, but I wasn’t breathing enough to even notice it. I walked toward the couch and sat down slowly.I hadn’t been using anything, I knew that. We hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t stopped to talk about it, hadn’t even mentioned it once. I had let myself get pulled into every moment with Leo without thinking about what could com

The closer we got, the louder everything became.Through the tinted windows, I could already hear her voice. The sound system they had set up was professional, loud enough to carry across the grounds. Her tone was slow and solemn, perfectly measured like a performance.Ryan leaned forward slightly in the seat, “you sure you’re ready for this?”I looked at him, “does it matter?”He gave a single nod and tapped twice on the glass separating us from the driver, the convoy slowed down. As we turned the corner, the scene came into view.The entire courtyard outside the Rathore Foundation building had been converted into some kind of stage, rows of black chairs lined the center. There were massive framed photos of Leo on either side of the platform. A casket...closed...stood between them, covered in white lilies and gold trim.Cameras, at least twenty, news vans lined the street. Press crews stood with microphones and umbrellas, a few drones hovered above the crowd.And there she was.Carla

I woke up with sunlight coming through the curtains and a dull ache in my neck from sleeping sideways on the couch. The blanket Ryan gave me had slipped halfway off during the night, and one of the tea mugs was still on the table, now cold and forgotten.I rubbed my eyes and sat up slowly, the house was quiet except for the low murmur of a morning news show playing faintly from the kitchen. I stretched my arms over my head, took a breath, and stood.Last night had been chaos, Julie disappearing, the funeral disaster, everything closing in from every direction but I couldn’t let it weigh me down this morning. There was too much to do, too much at stake. If I let it eat at me, I’d fall apart again, and I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart anymore.I slipped on my hoodie and padded barefoot across the hallway. I paused outside Jack’s bedroom, hand on the doorframe, then gently knocked before pushing it open.He was already awake, sitting up in bed with a blanket pulled over his lap

I spent the next several hours calling every name Derek had flagged in the shareholder list. Each call started the same. I would introduce myself, explain that I wanted to speak briefly about Leo, and ask for a meeting, just ten minutes, face to face. I wasn’t asking for much. I wasn’t making threats. I kept it professional, calm and clear.Most of them didn’t answer at all.The ones who did gave short responses. Some polite, some cold. One assistant told me to submit a request through a corporate scheduling portal. Another said her boss was out of the country for the next two weeks. Another said, “The board already has a path forward,” before hanging up.I sat in a quiet booth in a corner café, my phone resting on the table next to an untouched glass of iced tea. I’d circled the same five streets all morning trying to make this work. Ryan had offered to come with me, but I told him I needed to do this alone.By noon, I had three confirmed responses. All rejections.One shareholder’s