All Chapters of The Secret Billionaire Heiress Strikes Back : Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

Chapter 181Jayce found them ten minutes later, having steered his brothers toward the car with a promise of fries on the way home that bought him just enough time to slip back, alone, to find the two people whose night had nearly ended in a way his brothers would never know about.He approached carefully, giving them space, stopping a few feet short until Ravyn noticed him and stepped back from Dante's arms, wiping quickly at her face with the back of one hand, composing herself with the fast, practiced efficiency of someone used to putting themselves back together in front of an audience."Hey," Jayce said, quiet, careful, the specific tone of someone unsure what kind of conversation he was walking into."Hey," Dante said.Nobody said anything for a moment. The silence stretched, heavy with everything that had happened in the last hour, everything none of them had fully processed yet."I'm not going to pretend I don't have questions," Jayce said final

Chapter 183 — Collecting RJana's apartment, the next morning, smelled like pancakes instead of cinnamon, and R was already at the table when Dante and Ravyn arrived, syrup smeared across one cheek, deep in animated conversation with Miles about whether triceratops could theoretically survive in modern weather conditions."Mama!" R said, abandoning the pancake debate the instant he spotted her in the doorway, scrambling down from his chair to launch himself toward her with the specific, uncomplicated joy of a child who had simply had a wonderful, normal night and had no idea what either of his parents had actually survived a few hours earlier.Ravyn caught him, lifting him despite the exhaustion sitting heavy in every muscle of her body, pressing her face into his hair for a moment longer than the hug strictly required."Did you have fun?" she asked."We made cookies and watched a movie and Miles let me win at cards twice," R reported, with the breathl

Chapter 185Dante woke up feeling like he'd been run through a car wash that used fists instead of brushes. Every muscle he hadn't consciously used in years had apparently decided, sometime overnight, to register a formal complaint, and his shoulders — both of them, the dislocated one and its apparently sympathetic twin — ached with the specific deep, structural soreness that came from holding a steering wheel in a death grip for six miles while expecting, every second, to die.He was fine. He kept reminding himself of that fact as he eased himself upright in bed, wincing at the protest from his lower back. He'd walked away clean. No new injuries, no stitches, nothing broken. Just the body's slow, indignant accounting of everything it had been asked to do under duress.He made it as far as the bathroom mirror before R found him."Papa," R said, appearing in the doorway in his dinosaur pajamas, hair sticking up in three directions, regarding his father with the particular scrutiny of a

Chapter 187 — Alyssa's PartyThe venue Alyssa had chosen for her birthday occupied the top floor of a hotel overlooking the river, the kind of space designed specifically to make two hundred guests feel like they were attending something more significant than a birthday — string lights woven through every available surface, a string quartet playing something elegant and unobtrusive near the windows, the specific controlled extravagance of a woman who had spent six weeks ensuring every detail reflected exactly the image she wanted the evening to project.Jayce arrived at eight, as instructed, in the suit she'd specified weeks ago when the party was still attached to an engagement that no longer existed in any meaningful sense, and found her almost immediately, stationed near the entrance greeting guests with the particular bright, performed warmth she'd perfected for exactly this kind of audience."You came," she said, when he reached her, her smile not quite reaching her eyes."I said

Chapter 189 — Cole Shows UpThe dinner had been Eleanor Hawkins's idea — a small, casual gathering at the family house, nothing formal, just an excuse to have everyone in one room while Cole was still home for the brief window between his academic term abroad and whatever came next. Ravyn had been invited, technically, the way she was always technically invited to these things, with the specific understanding that her attendance was optional and nobody would be especially surprised if she found a reason to decline.She'd nearly declined. She'd told herself, packing R off to Jana's for the evening with the same careful cover story she always used, that there wasn't any real reason to go — except that Eleanor had asked specifically, gently, in the particular tone that meant she actually wanted Ravyn there rather than simply performing the obligation of inviting her, and some small, stubborn part of Ravyn had decided, after the call with Nathan, that she wasn't going to let her family's