All Chapters of The Ultimatum Wife: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Roman tried. God, he tried.He picked up his phone again, scrolled through numbers, contracts, paragraphs that should have demanded his full attention. But all he could focus on was Elena biting into her toast with that maddeningly casual air, one bare leg crossed over the other, completely oblivious, or worse, completely aware, of the effect she was having on him.Finally, his composure snapped.“Is this how you intend to carry yourself in my house?” His voice was low, hard edged.Elena lifted her eyes slowly, blinking at him as if he had asked whether she wanted more coffee. “What, eating breakfast?”Roman leaned forward, his phone abandoned. “Dressed like that. Walking around as if...” He cut himself off, jaw tight.Her lips curved, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner. “As if what? I live here?”That single line stole the ground from beneath him. She’d said it so simply, as if she were mocking the possessive fury burning inside him.Roman stood, palms flat on the table. “You t

The map on her screen was soft and abstracted for her software’s safety settings, street names, gate locations, and service exits lightly marked. She ran her eyes along the lines, imagining the crowd, the streetlights, the small air of complacency that always greased a highprofile public route. Imagining was the cheap part. She spent longer on the things that couldn’t be pictured, the pattern of a man’s movements, a habit of checking a watch twice, the way a body relaxes when it thinks itself secure.There were audio files too, a recording lifted from a phone call, laughters clipped from a speech, the target’s voice booming about deals. Hearing someone’s cadence made him feel smaller, more mortal. She shut it off. It was a trick she used, strip away the theatre until only the human remained, and then decide if you could do what needed doing.Jace pinged a single note into her channel.Jace: You sure, Len? We can postpone. The wedding is this weekend, heat on you is still...She typ

The click of her heels against marble announced her before the door even opened. Roman had been standing in the corridor, hands in his pockets, the picture of composed patience. Yet the moment Elena stepped out, the air shifted.The gown clung to her like it had been made for no one else, silk cascading down her frame, dipping at her back, hugging her waist before flowing free. Midnight shimmer caught the dim lights overhead, making her look like a star had dropped into his mansion.Elena, of course, acted as though none of it mattered. Her shoulders rolled back, her chin lifted, her smirk unapologetically smug. “So,” she drawled, turning slowly as if on a runway. “Do I meet your impossible standards, Mr. Thorne?”Roman’s throat tightened. He had chosen that dress for power, for image, for the headlines that would swarm after the gala. But he hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected her.His gaze swept down once, lingering too long at the curve of her collarbone, the line of her leg

The ballroom was alive with murmurs, champagne glasses clinking nervously as more and more of society’s elite circled near Roman and Elena’s table, hungry to witness what everyone was now calling the scandal of the year.Roman had expected to endure handshakes, shallow congratulations, and thinly veiled questions about the marriage contract. Instead, what he got was Elena, acting the part of a woman hopelessly, recklessly in love.She leaned into him as if she belonged there, laughter bright and shameless, her hand brushing his tie as though straightening it. Every time someone congratulated Roman, Elena was quicker with her response.“Oh, I caught him at the perfect time,” she told one woman with a dazzling smile. “Roman was practically begging me to say yes.”Roman’s jaw locked, but Elena continued, sliding her hand down his sleeve, nails grazing the fabric. “He’s not as scary as everyone thinks. Isn’t that right, darling?”“Enough,” he muttered, his lips barely moving.Her smirk o

The crowd murmured louder, whispers thick with scandal. Roman Thorne, so out of control? With Dante Valerio as his rival?Roman’s jaw flexed, his chest rising with barely checked fury. He pulled Elena tighter into his side, his hand gripping her waist possessively as though to brand her in front of the world.“You lay a hand on her again,” Roman said, voice cutting cold, “and I’ll break it.”Dante’s laughter rang like crystal shattering. “Break it?” He tilted his head, studying Elena with deliberate insolence before flicking his gaze back to Roman. “You can’t even keep her from slipping through your fingers. Tell me, Roman, what’s more embarrassing? That your fiancée runs from your arms… or that she lets herself be caught by mine?”The room sucked in a collective breath.Elena stiffened, her pulse hammering, though her lips curved in that familiar, dangerous smirk. She wanted to retort, to play her game, but Roman’s grip was vice tight, his fury was not something to toy with right