All Chapters of Married To The Ruthless Billionaire : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Her throat tightened. She dropped the phone quickly, as though the glass burned her skin. She didn’t delete it, though. She couldn’t. The words lingered in her chest, a bitter echo of the argument she’d had with Lucian.She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead, trying to steady her thoughts.Lucian’s silence. Ethan’s whispers. The world’s judgment.And her own voice—lost somewhere between them all.For the first time, Amara wondered if she was fighting a battle she had no chance of winning.The rustle of the paper still echoed in her ears when the door opened. Amara looked up sharply, her heart lurching as Lucian stepped into the room. He moved with his usual precision—dark suit, steady stride—but there was a heaviness in his eyes, the kind that told her he’d already seen the same headlines.His gaze dropped to the folded newspaper on the table, then lifted to her face.“You’ve read it.” His voice was low, flat.Her fingers tightened around the coffee cup, knuckles white.

Amara stared at him, unable to move. The man before her didn’t look like the Lucian Hale the world knew—the unshakable heir, the ruthless commander of boardrooms. He looked… human. Stripped down to something raw, uncertain.And it unsettled her more than his silence ever had.Her chest rose and fell unevenly as his words replayed in her mind. “With you, silence fails me.” She wanted to believe him, wanted to take that step toward him. But the sting of humiliation at the luncheon, the headlines still fresh in her memory, stopped her cold.If he truly meant it, why had he waited until now? Why had he let her drown in whispers and shadows before reaching for her?Her hands trembled at her sides, and she clenched them into fists, grounding herself. The doubt was too sharp, too heavy.And then—Ethan’s message surfaced in her thoughts, curling around her like smoke. Don’t let him silence you.The phone lay hidden under her pillow, a secret burning in the room between them. She hated

The cameras clicked like a thousand restless insects, the air thick with anticipation as Lucian stepped up to the podium. He didn’t flinch at the blinding flashes, didn’t falter as microphones angled toward him. He had faced greater predators than this—men who would strip his empire to the bones. Reporters were children by comparison.“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lucian began, his voice low and commanding, cutting through the din. “Rumors are a currency of the weak. And I don’t deal in weakness.”A ripple moved through the crowd. The first hands shot up, questions hurled like stones.“Mr. Hale, is it true your marriage is a façade to strengthen your corporate ties?”“Are the photos evidence of an affair?”“What does Mrs. Hale say about all this?”Lucian let them batter him, his expression carved from stone. Then, with surgical precision, he chose his moment.“My wife,” he said, every word deliberate, “is not a pawn. She is not a decoration. She is not an ornament to this empire. She

Lucian stood frozen in the middle of the room, his fists clenched at his sides, staring at the trail of newspapers scattered across the carpet. The silence she left behind pressed against his chest like a weight he couldn’t shake.Her words still rang in his head. “Then prove it, not to them, not to the cameras, not to the boardroom. To me.”He had faced boardrooms stacked against him, courts that wanted to strip him bare, enemies who would have slit his throat if given the chance. None of them had left him this unsteady.But Amara’s voice was steady, sharp, demanding but had cut deeper than any blade.Lucian dragged a hand across his jaw, the tension in his muscles refusing to ease. She wanted proof. Proof that wasn’t built on power, wealth, or control. Proof that required something far more dangerous.Vulnerability.He hated the word. Hated what it meant. Vulnerability was weakness, and weakness had no place in the empire he had built. Yet with her, it wasn’t just weakness, it

Lucian.The man who had ignited a fire in her veins, who made her feel desired, claimed, protected. But also the man who demanded more than she sometimes had to give, whose love was a storm—beautiful, but dangerous.Ethan.The man who had always known how to reach the parts of her Lucian couldn’t touch. His calm, his confidence, the way he seemed to understand her even when she didn’t speak. But with Ethan came shadows too—mystery, unpredictability, and a pain he carried that she could never quite unravel.Amara buried her face in her hands, her body rocking slightly as sobs wracked her. For so long she had thought she could balance them, that time would decide for her. But tonight had proven otherwise.She couldn’t avoid the choice anymore.Slowly, her breathing steadied. She pulled her hands away and stared out the balcony doors where the night city glittered like a thousand temptations. Somewhere deep inside the storm of her thoughts, a whisper took root.Not of Lucian.Not