All Chapters of Rejected Bride, Billionaire's Wife: Chapter 41 - Chapter 49

Audrey called on a quiet afternoon, her name lighting up my phone like a reminder of a life that once felt simple.“Dinner,” she said without preamble. “No excuses. Somewhere public, somewhere with good wine, and somewhere far away from brooding billionaires.”I smiled despite myself. “Deal.”We met at a small restaurant tucked between boutiques and bookstores — warm lighting, linen tablecloths, the kind of place that smelled like garlic and normalcy. The kind of place where no one expected anything from me except to order dessert.Audrey was already there when I arrived, waving enthusiastically like we were still twenty and late for class.She stood and hugged me hard. “I missed you,” she said into my hair.“I missed you too,” I admitted.Once we were seated, menus forgotten, Audrey leaned back with a satisfied sigh.“Okay,” she said. “You survived the gala. You survived being married to one of the most powerful men in the country. Now it’s my turn to talk.”She took a sip of wine,

The sound of siren tore through the mansion just after dusk. I was halfway down the corridor when Mrs. Alder rushed past me, her face pale, one trembling hand clutching her chest.“Mrs. King,” she whispered. “It’s Isabella.”My heart dropped.“What happened?” I asked, already moving.She hesitated, eyes darting toward the main hall where voices had begun to rise — security, staff, panic.“There’s been… an incident.” She said finally.The word incident barely registered before I was running.The foyer was chaos, guards speaking urgently into radios, a doctor kneeling on the marble floor, Alexander standing rigid nearby like a man carved from stone and rage.And Isabella…She was sitting on the settee, wrapped in a blanket, her hair disheveled, her face bruised. Not broken — not ruined — but unmistakably hurt.I froze.For all the venom she had poured into my life, for all the ways she had tried to diminish me, the sight of her like that made my stomach twist violently.Alexander’s head

I didn’t sleep.The message burned behind my eyes every time I tried to close them."You think he can protect you?Ask him what he had to trade for that power."It didn’t feel like a threat.It felt like a warning.And that was worse.By morning, the silence in the mansion had settled into something brittle. Even the staff moved more carefully, as if the walls themselves were listening.I found Alexander exactly where I expected him to be.In his study.Always in control. Always working. Always ten steps ahead of everyone else.He didn’t look up when I entered.“Good morning,” he said, voice even, attention still on the document in front of him.I closed the door behind me.“We need to talk.”That got his attention.He looked up slowly, eyes sharpening the moment he saw my expression.“What is it?” he asked.I walked forward, my pulse steady despite the storm inside me, and placed my phone on the desk in front of him.“Read that.”His gaze dropped to the screen.And for the first time

Time stopped making sense in the hospital.Minutes stretched into something shapeless, endless — measured only by the rise and fall of my mother’s breathing beside me and the distant hum of machines that reminded me my father was somewhere behind those walls, fighting for something as simple and fragile as staying alive.I sat beside her, holding her hand, my thumb brushing over her knuckles in slow, absent circles.“It’s going to be okay,” I murmured, though I had no idea if that was true.She didn’t respond.She just kept staring at the double doors ahead like she could force them to open with sheer will.Every time a doctor walked past, her body tensed.Every time it wasn’t our doctor, she deflated a little more.I felt it too.That horrible waiting.That suffocating not knowing.And then—The doors opened.A man in a white coat stepped out, scanning the room briefly before his eyes landed on us.“Family of Mr. Hart?” he asked.We both stood instantly.“Yes,” I said. “I’m his daugh