Lahat ng Kabanata ng Bound by Fortune :A Scandalous Heir Billionaire Romance : Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 140

The news fell not on the business section, but on the front page of the New York Post, a splash of venom and vindication. Davidson saw it during morning coffee on his tablet, the title a gut punch of black, bold letters: "SCORNED WIFE STRIKES BACK: Melissa Ekon Inks Seven-Figure Deal for Tell-All 'Married to the Protégé.'"His breath was out of his body. His penthouse, his steel and glass sanctuary, as delicate as paper now. Victor Brandt's attacks—the leaked memos, the financial manipulations—battles in a corporate war. This wasn't that. This was a precision missile to the heart of all he had ever known, an intentional revelation of a life he would never recover.The story was skimpy on facts but heavy with implication. It spoke of a "feisty auction" between major publishers, which a leading imprint had won for a handsome advance. The informant was "a close friend of the author." The novel was "the definitive, searingly honest account of a marriage founded on faith and family, shatte

The penthouse doorbell had a peculiar ring to it. It was a ring for expected guests and scheduled deliveries, a ring that belonged to a world of normalcy that no longer counted to Davidson. He wasn't expecting anyone. Joe was on a doctor's visit, a stealthy, somber trip they had vowed never to speak about out in the open. The security desk had not picked him up. Whoever had come to the door had slipped past the building's intimidating filters, a feat that either indicated total privilege or sheer presumption on a divine scale.He opened the door and the past came before him, immovable and unflinching, on his high threshold. Pastor William Phillips. The man who baptized him, who wedded him to Melissa, who preached the funerals of his grandparents. He looked older, the kind eyes previously aglitter with benevolent sagacity now holding a deep, somber seriousness. He was not in his clerical collar but in a simple, rumpled suit, and this made his visit less the official interrogation and m

The penthouse was a quiet battlefield in the aftermath of Victor's offer. Davidson hadn't told Joe about the meeting at The Vault, but the secret seethed like a poison in his blood and Joe, attuned to every shift in mood, sensed the storm inside him. The air between them was thick with unspoken words, a tension that had accumulated all day until evening, and the city lights sat in disapproving judgment of their silent war.Davidson stood on the terrace, the cold wind not cooling the war fever in his blood. Victor's deal was a surgeon's knife. It was a means back to a world that felt sane to all but him: restored honour, the chance to mend the broken bond with his children, the cessation of the constant public condemnation. It was to cost him Joe. It had been a deal, and for a terrible moment there in that restaurant, a part of him—the part of him still a frightened father, an embarrassed son—had wanted to grab it.He heard the glass door swing open. Joe moved over beside him at the ra

The boardroom on the forty-second floor was a haven of calculated power, full of the druggy smell of expensive perfume, stale coffee, and unfiltered hostility. Davidson sat down at the head of the table, where the massive slab of polished rosewood had sat for nearly thirty years, once ruled with discipline by Joe Brian. Today, it was a battlefield. And he was the terrain in dispute. Joe was notably absent, a risk well calculated. His presence would have been a shield, yet also an admission of weakness, proof that Davidson could not stand on his own. The tremble in Joe's hand, hidden from the world, was a secret more valuable than any market tip, and they could not give it away here.The session began with the dry reading of minutes, but formality was a thin crust. It cracked when Robert "Bull" Henderson, his face a permanent shade of red, slapped the table with his hand."This is a circus!" he thundered, the noise resonating in the soundproofed room. "A goddamn circus, and our CEO is

The call did not come in the guise of a polite invitation, but as an electronic surprise attack. A bold, unsolicited calendar notice that appeared on Davidson's phone and on all the board members' screens at precisely 8:00 PM on a Sunday night. The subject matter was a textbook example of corporate cold-bloodedness: EMERGENCY BOARD MEETING: Vote of No Confidence in CEO Davidson Ekon. MONDAY, 8:00 AM.There was no preamble, no invitation. It was a declaration of war, timed for maximum disruption, and it allowed Davidson less than twelve hours to prepare his defenses. The location was not the hospitable Brison boardroom but a cold, impersonal conference room in a law firm known for its ruthlessness in corporate dismantlings. Victor's message was clear: this was not a negotiation; it was an execution.Davidson walked back and forth in the center of the penthouse, the city lights twinkling below him, oblivious to the siege underway in its uppermost towers. Joe slumbered in the adjacent ro