All Chapters of The CEO's Untamed Contract Bride: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Vivienne POV~•~I woke up early.Earlier than Liam, earlier than the staff, earlier than whatever time Elena usually appeared in the kitchen looking effortlessly put together. I laid still for a few minutes staring at the ceiling and then I got up, went to the bathroom, and stood under the shower until the water ran lukewarm.I dried off and stood in front of the small mirror and looked at myself for a moment before I opened my bag and took out the soft green dress I had packed on impulse two weeks ago and never worn. I put it on. I let my hair down instead of pulling it back. I put on the small gold earrings I usually saved for work events.Then I went downstairs.The kitchen smelled like coffee and something warm from the oven. One of the staff had already set the table. I poured myself a cup and sat down and picked up my phone and started scrolling through my emails like I had not spent half the night sitting in the dark making quiet decisions about my own life.Elena came in abou

Elena's POV ~•~ Breakfast had gone too well and that was the problem. I sat at my desk with the documents spread out in front of me but my mind kept pulling me back to the kitchen, to Vivienne pouring my coffee before I even reached the pot, to the way she asked about the counter-motion like she had been up thinking about it, to that smile she wore all through breakfast that never once slipped. People did not just become that settled overnight. Not without a reason. I pushed the documents aside and sat back in my chair. Outside the window the trees were still, and somewhere down the hall I could hear Liam talking, his voice carrying the way it always did when he was excited about something small. I picked up the folder on my desk, the one with the updated filing timeline, and stood up. Vivienne's door was slightly open when I got there. I knocked anyway. "Come in," she said. She was on the small couch with her legs tucked under her and her laptop open on her knees.

Damon's POV~•~Immediately after leaving Vivienne, I got on a call with my legal team and by the end of it a counter petition was already being drafted.I sat back and looked at the ceiling for a moment.The photographs were the thing that kept pulling at me. Not the petition itself, William filing for custody was predictable enough once Damien got his hooks in, and predictable problems had predictable solutions. But the photographs were different. Someone had walked through this house and taken those images deliberately, carefully, knowing exactly what they would be used for.That was not William. William did not have the patience or the access.I picked my phone back up and called Marco.He answered before the second ring. "Boss.""The photographs in William's custody filing," I said. "I need to know who took them and I need to know today.""I heard about the petition," Marco said. "I've already pulled the internal security logs from the past six weeks. Going through them now.""Ho

Vivienne POV~•~Liam had built the fort out of three couch cushions and the good throw blanket from the den, and he was crouched inside the gap he’d left for a door when I came down the last step.“Mommy, you have to come in,” he said. “But you have to knock first. That’s the rule.”I got down on my knees on the rug and knocked on the cushion. “Knock knock. Is this the famous fort?”“It’s a castle,” he said, very serious. “Forts don’t have kings.”“My mistake.” I crawled in beside him, folding myself small to fit under the blanket roof. He pressed against my side and showed me a flashlight he’d found somewhere, clicking it on and off against the cushions.Damon came down a minute later. He stopped at the edge of the rug and looked at the two of us crammed into the cushions.“Is there room for one more?” he asked.“Kings have to knock too,” Liam said.Damon knocked on the floor with two knuckles, then got down and pushed his way in. He was too big for it. His shoulders hit the cushion

Vivienne POV~•~Liam was still awake when I came up, lying on his back with the dragon tucked under his chin.“You’re supposed to be asleep, champ,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed.“I’m not tired.” He turned his head toward me. “Were you and Uncle Damon practicing?”I went still. “Practicing what?”“Talking,” he said. “I heard you in the dining room. You sounded funny. Like a TV mom.”I smoothed his hair back and kept my face easy. “We were just sorting out grown-up stuff. Boring stuff.”“Okay.” He yawned, finally, and rolled toward me. “Will you stay till I’m asleep?”“Always.”I lay down next to him and waited until his breathing went slow and even. Down the hall I could still hear the low murmur of Damon and Elena finishing up, and I thought about the dining room, the notepad, Elena telling me to look up every time he walked into a room. Tomorrow I had a call that had nothing to do with any of it. No custody, no marriage to sell, no evaluator watching me eat breakfast. Jus