Semua Bab The Billionaire's Dirty Secrets: Bab 61 - Bab 70

CHAPTER 62Calla’s POVA fragile peace had settled over the penthouse. The world had moved on from the D'Aramitz ruins, and we were trying to build something real in the quiet. I was in the sunroom, my hand on the gentle swell beneath my sweater, when the soft, hesitant knock came.Anya moved to answer it. I saw her open the door, her polite greeting freezing in her throat. Her spine went ramrod straight, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a gasp. The color drained from her face, leaving her looking utterly haunted."Anya?" My voice was tight with alarm. "Who is it?"She didn't speak. She just stepped back, holding the door open as if it were made of lead, her wide, terrified eyes fixed on the visitors.An elderly woman stepped in, her face etched with kindness and a profound, weary grief. She held the hand of a little girl.The girl.She was about five, a vision in a simple pink dress, with a waterfall of dark, silken hair and a face that stopped my heart. She had Ronan's sharp c

CHAPTER 64Calla's POVThe lavender suite was prepared. The room with the window seat was opened, dusted, and made ready. Anya moved through the penthouse like a ghost, her efficiency a thin shield against the emotional wreckage spreading through every room.I stayed in the sunroom. I told myself it was because the light was better there for reading. In truth, I couldn't bear to witness the careful, painful choreography of a man trying to welcome the daughter he'd loved from afar for five years.But the walls were thin, and my ears were traitors."She doesn't eat meat," Elara was saying, her voice soft and weary. "Sofia was vegetarian, and Isobel... she's very particular. She'll push it around her plate but she won't swallow it.""I'll tell the kitchen." Ronan's voice was controlled, but there was an eagerness beneath it, a desperate hunger to absorb every detail. "What else? What does she like?""She reads. Constantly. She taught herself at four. Sofia thought it was a phase, but she

CHAPTER 66Calla's POVLilian Vexley swept into the room like she owned it.She was elegant, silver-haired, impeccably dressed in dove grey. Her smile was warm, her eyes sharp as broken glass. She carried a folded blanket of the softest cashmere, pale cream with delicate embroidered flowers along the edge."Calla, my dear." Her voice was honey and arsenic. "I was so distressed to hear of your illness. Ronan has been keeping you quite sequestered—one might almost think he was hiding you away." A delicate, tinkling laugh. "But I understand. First pregnancies can be so delicate. One wants to protect what's precious."She settled herself in the chair Ronan had vacated, arranging her skirts with practiced grace. Ronan stood by the window, a sentinel of barely contained violence, his phone discreetly angled to capture every word."I brought this for the baby," Lilian continued, laying the blanket across the foot of my bed. "It belonged to Ronan's mother. She embroidered it herself, during h

CHAPTER 68Calla's POVThe door stayed open.Not because I wanted it open. Because my feet wouldn't carry me through it. Because Ronan's words—I'll be here—had wrapped around my ankles like vines, rooting me to the spot.I stood in the threshold, my back to him, my hand gripping the doorframe like a lifeline. The bag with the ultrasound photos hung from my shoulder, a secret weight I couldn't shed.Behind me, I heard him move. Not toward me—just a shift, the creak of the sofa as he sat down. The sound of a man too exhausted to stand anymore."I should go lie down," I said to the empty hallway. "Dr. Vance said rest.""She did." His voice was quiet, accepting. "You should."I didn't move.The silence stretched, filled with everything we weren't saying. The baby kicked—hard, insistent—and I pressed my hand to the spot, a betrayal of my own indifference."I saw her, you know." The words came out before I could stop them. "Sofia. In photos. Anya showed me, years ago, when I first moved in.

CHAPTER 70Calla's POVThe sunroom became my sanctuary again.Three days had passed since the gifts, since the hug, since I'd walked away from Ronan with my heart in pieces and his words echoing in my ears. Three days of careful distance, of meals in the sunroom, of watching the city move below while I stayed perfectly still.Dr. Vance visited daily. Her eyes held that same wariness, that same unspoken concern, but she didn't push. She checked my vitals, murmured encouragement about the baby's strong heartbeat, and left with instructions to rest.Rest. As if rest could fix the chasm between what I felt and what I needed to feel.Isobel visited too.She appeared in the doorway each afternoon, a small, solemn sentinel, always holding something—a book, a drawing, once a single flower she'd found somewhere. She didn't stay long. Didn't demand attention. She simply sat on the floor near my chair, reading or coloring, her presence a quiet comfort I hadn't known I needed.On the third day, s