All Chapters of Bound by Fortune :A Scandalous Heir Billionaire Romance : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

The celebratory din of champagne at the gala had faded, a hollow, choking silence in its wake. Joe Brian's ghostly hand on the small of his back lingered, an impression, a scorch, a blaze of flame compared to the ice that encircled Davidson's insides as he saw that glimpse of a camera. He had returned to the loft late at night, after midnight, into a darkness so complete it was like judgment. Melissa slept, or pretended to sleep, behind the shut door of the bedroom they were not sharing anymore.He could not go there. He could not lie next to her in the dark, the scent of another man's cologne on his body, the memory of a forbidden dance tormenting the vows he had made to her. The shame was a physical weight, a boulder lodged in his chest, tightening his capacity to breathe.He returned to his study, shutting the door behind him. The room was a tomb of his previous life: textbooks of economic theory, pictures of his family, the warm, sweet smell of old paper and Melissa's lavender cle

The trip back to Alaska was no exile, no flight; it was a coronation tour. The frenzied, pressurized anxiety of New York—the tawdry, afterglow of the ball, the forced, glacial hostility with Melissa, Victor Brandt's acid glances—dropped away somewhere over the Canadian Rockies to be taken up by the vast, still anticipation of the wilderness. This time, Davidson did not depart with an air of dazed wonder. He was packed with the deliberate sluggishness of a man going back to his second home.The flight itself was different. There were no tense silences, no unspoken disagreements festering in the jet cabin. Brian worked on the flight, but now he pushed papers under Davidson's nose unannounced, seeking his opinion not as a mentor testing a pupil, but as a king seeking the counsel of his chancellor. The deference was subtle, a shift in frequency, not an action change, but Davidson felt it in his bones. He no longer had a guide; he now had an escort.When the SUV came to a stop on the grave

The invitation was a masterpiece of plausible deniability. It arrived not in the form of a formal invitation, but in the guise of a solicitous, close-to-fatherly email from Victor Brandt's personal email address. The subject line was: Checking In.Melissa, I hope I am not overstepping. I know that these industry events are a haze, and the recent publicity is a burden no family can avoid. I have always admired your dignity. Should you ever care to discuss things with someone who shares the one stress of David's world, you and my wife know we are here for you. Perhaps a quiet dinner?It was well-written. It expressed concern, empathy for him as an ally who understood the "pressures," an appeal to the sanctity of his own marriage so that he would be believed, and put the game gently in her court. Melissa, in solitude in her quiet loft, looking at the wreck of her marriage with no sense why, was vulnerable prey. A lifeline, suspect its source, was a lifeline.She assented, with gracious,

The stillness in the penthouse past midnight was another beast from the stillness of the Alaskan wilderness. This was an engineered silence, the hum of the city stifled by walls of bulletproof glass and soundproofing, a vacancy where thoughts reached to fill the void. They had labored until their eyes were gritted, until the numbers on the spreadsheets began to blur and pirouette. The problem—a hostile counter-bid for the telecom company—had been broken, deconstructed in a grim, beautiful plan that would leave no room for dispute. The victory was commanding, and it left Davidson feeling drained out, a shooting victim who suffers only the shock before he knows the pain.He stood at the window, looking out over the ant trails of light on the avenues below. Each set of headlights was a person going somewhere. Home, probably. To a family, to a wife, to an existence outside the gleaming, sterile walls of this tower. He couldn't remember what that had been like, the simple assumption of a d

The first warning was perhaps a whisper, a snide remark in a middle-ranked New York tabloid's celebrity column. It was wedged between news about a reality show actress's breakup and a socialite's new puppy. The headline was innocuous: Is Billionaire Brian Playing Favorites? But what it said was a dagger, well-sewn with venom."Everyone from every big shot businessperson in New York is wondering: who is John Davidson? The newly famous economics professor is the ubiquitous, and we mean ubiquitous, buddy of reclusive giant Joe Brian. From the Swiss Alps of Davos to Dubai executive suites, where Davidson led the recent takeover (a strange choice for such a gigantic deal, no?) the two are never apart.". Insiders report that Brian has effectively anointed the bright academic heir apparent, going over decades of dutiful executives. What does the dashing protégé possess that has so beguiled the notoriously reclusive billionaire? The town is filled with speculation…It was undeniable. It was a