Lahat ng Kabanata ng I Slapped My Fiancé—Then Married His Billionaire Nemesis: Kabanata 251 - Kabanata 260

She said ‘prenup’. I heard ‘divorce’.I stared at the document in my hands. ‘Why?’‘Isn’t it standard practice? You gave me something to sign when we got fake married.’‘Exactly. “Fake” being the operative word. This isn’t.’ My voice barely rose above the roar in my ears.What was she playing at? Drawing up an escape route before we’d even made it to the aisle? Did she really have that little faith in us?‘I thought you liked contracts.’ She sounded genuinely baffled, even a bit hurt. ‘It protects both our interests. I don’t get why you’re so worked up about it.’I kept my eyes on the document. If I looked at her, she’d see too much.‘Will you at least skim it? We can change anything you’re not happy with.’Skim it? All I wanted to do was rip the bloody thing into confetti and sca

‘Her name’s Lea Marchand—Lea Lopez, once she’s divorced. Her husband’s a drunk, violent arsehole. He turned up at her hotel and wouldn’t leave her alone. I had to get her out. She’s coming back to Skyline with me. He can’t touch her there. His family’s powerful and old-school. The divorce makes them look bad, so they’ll try everything to make her back down…’Ashton’s voice was calm, unemotional. Like he was reading out a weather report.I caught some of the words, but most of it blurred into a low, distant hum.I was preoccupied with the feeling settling heavily in my chest.What I felt was panic.But not the usual kind.I was terrified by how calm I was. And how… relieved.I liked Ashton. That much was still true.But for the first time, I was certain—I didn’t love him.Or maybe I just didn’t deserve to.He was

I rubbed my ear, sank into the nearest chair, and braced myself for a long, punishing lecture.Yvaine didn’t disappoint.‘You ran off to Paris days after getting engaged. You’ve barely lifted a finger for the wedding. Then you spotted some mystery woman in a red dress and immediately decided Ashton must be in love with her and the whole thing’s off. You didn’t even ask him. It’s like you’ve been waiting for something to go wrong, and she just gave you the perfect excuse. Whether anything’s going on or not, you don’t care. You just want out, and now you’ve got a reason.’I made a few non-committal noises to prove I was still on the line. If I didn’t, she might actually book an air taxi and fly to Paris to deliver her bollocking in person.But really, she wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already clocked—just buried under a few layers of self-delusion.She’d lose her mind if I told her the full plan. That I was thinking of relocating Mira Joie to Paris, which would only prove her theory t

‘Penny for your thoughts.’I turned from the floor-to-ceiling window. ‘Nothing. Just thinking about work.’Lea didn’t buy it. ‘Work doesn’t make you look like that.’‘Not my work. Mira’s.’I glanced at the phone clenched in my hand. Mira had just texted to say she was extending her stay in Paris. She didn’t say how long. Just that work was piling up, they were short-staffed, and she needed to pull her weight. As if to prove the point, when I called, she barely got two sentences out before cutting the call.Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something she wasn’t saying.It wasn’t what she said—it was how. Something in her tone. A kind of evasiveness.‘Ah, yes, the famous jewellery designer.’ Lea tilted her chin towards the safe in the corner of the office. ‘May I?’I keyed in the code and unlocked it.She removed the top box, opened a velvet case, and lifted out a necklace. ‘What’s this one called again?’‘Veyra.’‘Pretty name. Eliza Black wore it, didn’t she? I remember the

Inspector Silva walked up to me and reached for the front of my blouse.I snatched the button out of his hand. ‘I can do it myself.’‘The gadget’s sensitive,’ he said. ‘Needs careful handling.’‘I can manage pinning a button to a blouse, thanks.’If not for the strictly professional look on his face, and the fact I’d spent the last three days getting a sense of him, I might’ve thought he was trying to grope me. But the man had one setting: work.‘The mini camcorder captures everything within twenty metres of your field of vision,’ he said, stepping back. ‘Make sure the lens is facing outwards and at the right angle.’I looked down and adjusted the tiny white device. It blended in perfectly with the rest of the buttons on my blouse.Silva checked something on his laptop, then put on a pair of earphones. ‘The view’s good. Say something.’‘Something.’‘Loud and clear.’ He pulled the earphones off.I resisted the urge to keep looking down at the button. ‘What if he doesn’t say anything us