Semua Bab Falling For His Forsaken Wife: Bab 21 - Bab 30

Saturday morning came too fast and too slow at the same time. I had barely slept, tossing around while Miguel painted by the window. Every time I closed my eyes, I kept hearing Alex's voice in that hallway, talking about catching us in the act of something. "You should eat something," Miguel said around seven, bringing me a cup of coffee and some toast. "Not hungry." "Emily, you need to eat. We have to go see Detective Morrison in an hour, and you are going to pass out if you do not put something in your stomach." I forced down half the toast just to make him stop looking so worried. The estate planning documents were spread across our little table like evidence from a crime scene. Which, I guess, they were. "What if he still does not believe us?" I asked. "Then we figure out something else." "Like what?" Miguel sat d

The sirens were getting closer, but Vanessa was not the type of woman to go down without a fight. "You think this is over?" she asked, her voice dropping to something cold and dangerous. "You think a few police cars are going to fix everything?" Alex stepped closer to where Miguel and I were standing. "Vanessa, just put the gun down. Whatever you have done, whatever you are planning, it does not have to end like this." "Does it not?" She backed toward the French doors leading to the garden, keeping the gun trained on all three of us. "Alex, darling, do you really think I have spent three years planning this just to give up because of a few sirens?" "Three years?" "Oh, sweetheart. This started long before you even met Emily. This started the day I realized that Alexander Reed was exactly the kind of man who could give me the life I deserved." The sirens were r

The scream came again, echoing through the building like something out of a nightmare. It was definitely Sophia - I recognized her voice from our coffee shop meeting, but now it was raw with terror and pain. "Where is she?" Miguel demanded, stepping toward Vanessa. "Careful, darling," Vanessa said, holding up the remote. "One wrong move and Sophia's situation becomes much worse." The emergency lighting cast everything in that hellish red glow, making Vanessa look like something from a horror movie. Mrs. Martinez sat frozen behind her desk, watching her daughter with a mixture of fear and heartbreak. "Vanessa," Mrs. Martinez said quietly, "please. These people have done nothing to you. Let them go." "Nothing to me?" Vanessa laughed, and it was not a sound any human should make. "Mother, they have destroyed everything I worked for. Everything I built. Everything I deserved."

I woke up to the sound of Alex's phone ringing at six in the morning. Through the thin walls of the safe house, I could hear him answering with the sharp tone he used for business emergencies."What do you mean it is all over the news?" His voice was getting louder. "Which news? How much do they know?"Miguel stirred beside me, and we both sat up to listen."No, I am not available for comment. Schedule an emergency board meeting for this afternoon. And Marcus? Find out who leaked this story."The call ended, and Alex appeared in our doorway looking like he had aged ten years overnight."What happened?" I asked."Someone leaked everything to the press. The motel incident, Vanessa's arrest warrant, Sophia's kidnapping, all of it."Miguel was already reaching for his phone. "How bad is it?""Bad enough that the board of directors is calling an emergency meeting to discuss my fitness to continue as CEO."I felt my stomach drop. Reed Industries was Alex's life, everything he had worked for

Three days later, I signed the lease on a small studio apartment in Brooklyn. It was nothing fancy - a converted warehouse with exposed brick walls and industrial windows - but it was mine. For the first time in my adult life, I had a space that belonged only to me. "The light is incredible in here," Sarah said, helping me carry boxes up the three flights of stairs. "Perfect for painting." "That is what sold me on it." "And the fact that it is nowhere near Alex's mansion or Miguel's neighborhood?" I set down a box of art supplies and looked at her. "Maybe that too." Sarah had been surprisingly supportive when I told her I needed time off from the gallery to figure out my life. "Take all the time you need," she had said. "But promise me you will keep painting. You have too much talent to waste it on relationship drama." The apartment was sparse - a Murphy bed,