Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Billionaire's Bargain: Kabanata 111 - Kabanata 120

PENELOPEIt’s been three days.Three days since I fought with Jess, since I walked out of Christian’s penthouse after our argument, and since the threats became constant.I haven’t told anyone. Not Jess, not Maria, not even Alfred. I don’t know how. I don’t even know who to trust. And I sure as hell don’t want to scare anyone else. So, I’ve been quiet, pretending everything is okay while barely holding myself together.The second letter was the one that shook me the most. It was waiting for me in my car after I left Christian’s that morning. It was folded neatly and sitting right on my driver’s seat like it had been hand-placed there moments before I arrived.The alarm hadn’t gone off last night or this morning because security would have alerted us.“Next time, I won’t wait until you leave the bed.”I remember sitting frozen for what felt like hours, unable to even cry, until Christian had shown up, asking why I was still there, unaware I was barely breathing. I had to bring myself t

PENELOPEWhen I pushed the door open, the house was quiet.The lights in the foyer were on, casting a warm glow over the entrance, but the warmth didn’t reach the people standing there waiting for me.Christian was sitting at the base of the stairs, his elbows were resting on his knees, head bowed slightly. His jacket was off, the sleeves of his shirt was rolled up, there was nothing loose about the tension in his frame.This was here he rushed too from dinner, I almost thought he went back to work, even Liam hadn’t known where he was going to. And I avoided Alex throughout, everytime I look at him, I remember Christian’s threatening words to me.Maria stood at one side of the hall, it was the one time since she started living here that I don’t see a juice in her hands. Alfred was near the kitchen archway, he had a worried expression. And Jess… Jess stood near the banister, she looked worried.It felt like they’d all been… waiting for me.I stopped just inside the door, clutching my

PENELOPEI woke up to the constant vibrating of my phone on the nightstand. I groaned, rolling over and pulling the blanket tighter around me. But the buzzing didn’t stop, and when I finally reached for it, still half-asleep, I saw it wasn’t a call.It was Instagram.And my bakery’s page — Sweet Delights — was blowing up.I sat up instantly, my heart hammering as I scrolled through the notifications. Thousands of new followers. Hundreds of comments flooding in under the last post I made two weeks ago about Sweet Delights being on a break.And everywhere I looked, it was the video— Samantha tampering with the flour bags in the bakery’s kitchen. Then the fire she started, just like Maya had confessed… although the video didn’t show Maya at all. If she claimed she did it, she should have been there—unless whoever released the footage cropped her out on purpose, because she wasn’t their target. It was all over the internet now. And right alongside it… the other video of me.Dragging her

PENELOPEI heard him come in late last night, just as I was finishing some work at the dining table.“Hey, still up?,” he’d said, pausing just long enough to look at me.“Yeah, I just got off a call. How was work?” I asked softly.He adjusted his tie, looking exhausted. “The prep went fine. Get some rest.”And that was that.Now it was morning, and I was staring at the same dining table again—this time with a proper breakfast in front of me, the smell of eggs, oats, strawberries, and pancakes filling the air, and Maria already bustling around with her blender and that awful green concoction she called juice.I lifted my coffee mug to my lips just as she set a tall glass of the green stuff in front of Christian with a hopeful little smile.“Drink,” she said brightly. “You’ll thank me later.”Christian didn’t even glance at it at first, just kept cutting into his pancakes and scrambled eggs like nothing. But when Maria nudged the glass closer, his hand froze.Uh-ohThen he looked up at

PENELOPE“Where were you the night Samantha Elliot died, Mrs. Hilton?” he barked, leaning across the table.I didn’t so much as flinch. I laced my fingers neatly in front of me, tilting my head just slightly.“At home,” I replied evenly. “My husband picked me up from work and dropped me home. You’re welcome to check the cameras at Castillo Inc, or at my estate, for confirmation.”Wallace scoffed, pacing to the other side of the table. His eyes burned into me like embers.“Cameras can be tampered with, after all your husband is a tech guy.” he shot back. “But you? You’ve got a motive written all over you, sweetheart. The same woman who humiliated you, burned down your precious bakery, winds up dead a few weeks later? And you just happen to have a history of—what was it again?—poisoning people. That’s right. The Governor’s kids still can’t eat without getting fear of being poisoned because of you.”“Detective, unless you have a shred of evidence tying my client to Ms. Elliot’s death, yo