Semua Bab The Billionaire's Dirty Secrets: Bab 71 - Bab 80

CHAPTER 72Calla's POVThe penthouse felt different when I returned.Empty, yes—Ronan was still at the office, fighting his war. But also charged, somehow, as if the walls themselves were waiting for something. I moved through the rooms slowly, my hand on my stomach, my mind still replaying the interrupted intimacy of his office.Desperate people do desperate things.I couldn't shake the words.Isobel found me in the nursery, standing by the window seat, staring out at the grey afternoon sky. She didn't announce herself—just appeared, as she always did, a small ghost in pink."Daddy's still working?" she asked."Still working." I turned to look at her. "He'll be home late, I think. There's... trouble."She absorbed this with her usual calm. "The bad people?"I hesitated. How much did a five-year-old need to know? How much could she handle, after everything she'd already survived?"Some of them," I said carefully. "The ones who hurt us before. They're trying to cause problems again."I

CHAPTER 74Calla's POVFebruary fourteenth started like any other day, which meant I woke to an empty bed and thought nothing of it.The sheets were cool on Ronan's side, the indentation of his pillow already smoothed away by Anya's careful hands. Somewhere in the penthouse, I could hear the distant murmur of voices—Isobel's precise tones, Anya's soft replies, the clatter of breakfast being prepared. Normal sounds. Ordinary sounds. The sounds of a life that had somehow become mine.Valentine's Day. I'd almost forgotten, and even when I remembered, I dismissed it. In my old life, February fourteenth was just another day to avoid restaurants and roll my eyes at social media. In this life, with Ronan's war against Lilian escalating and the D'Aramitzes still thrashing in their death throes and Isobel adjusting to a new mother figure who barely knew what she was doing, the last thing I expected was romance.So I showered, dressed in comfortable maternity clothes—a soft sweater that stretch

CHAPTER 76Calla's POVThe penthouse had never felt so large.I sat on the sofa, still in the same clothes from yesterday—was it yesterday? Time had dissolved into a endless loop of waiting and staring and trying not to imagine what Isobel might be experiencing. Anya had brought tea that went cold. Beck had called with nothing. The baby kicked occasionally, reminding me that life continued whether I wanted it to or not.The front door opened.I didn't move. Couldn't move. I just sat there, my hands clasped over my stomach, watching the doorway like a prisoner awaiting sentencing.Ronan walked in.He looked like hell. His suit was rumpled, his hair disheveled, his eyes—those grey eyes that usually held such warmth when they looked at me—were hollow, shadowed, burning with something I couldn't name. He'd been searching all night. I knew that. Beck had told me. Roadblocks, train stations, every contact in every agency, all while I sat here uselessly.He stopped when he saw me.For a long

CHAPTER 78Calla's POVThe contractions started at 3:47 AM.I know because I'd been staring at the clock again—the same clock I'd been staring at for five days, watching the numbers change, measuring time in the space between heartbeats. Five days since Isobel disappeared. Five days of searching, waiting, hoping. Five days of Ronan's calls growing shorter, his answers more clipped, the distance between us expanding like the universe after the Big Bang.At first, I thought it was false labor. Braxton Hicks, Dr. Vance had called it. Practice contractions. My body rehearsing for the main event.But by 4 AM, I knew this was no rehearsal.The pain started low in my back, then radiated around to my belly, tightening like a fist. I timed them—fifteen minutes apart, then twelve, then ten. Too early. Too damn early. I was only thirty-two weeks. The baby wasn't supposed to come for another two months.I reached for my phone. Ronan's number was right there, first in my favorites, the familiar di

CHAPTER 80Calla's POVThe penthouse was alive again.After all that silence and shadows, laughter echoed off the walls. Isobel's laughter—high and bright and so impossibly precious after days of wondering if I'd ever hear it again. She sat on the living room floor surrounded by gifts, Neil the astronaut propped beside her, a new stuffed elephant named "Ella" (after Eleanor, obviously) tucked under her arm."It's too much," Ronan said, but he was smiling—actually smiling—as he watched his daughter tear through another wrapped package."It's never too much." Lilian's voice cut through the warmth like a blade. "The child has been through trauma. She deserves to be spoiled."Lilian was here. Because of course she was. She'd inserted herself into the celebration under the guise of "family unity," and Ronan—exhausted, grateful, desperate for any sense of normalcy—had let her. Seraphina hovered at her mother's elbow, looking uncomfortable, her eyes darting toward me occasionally with someth