Todos os capítulos de The Billionaire’s Betrayed Bride: Capítulo 171 - Capítulo 180

RILEY'S POV The grocery store felt offensively normal.Fluorescent lights, discount signs, a toddler screaming somewhere in aisle five because he’d been denied sugar-coated cereal.Life didn’t pause just because someone tried to end yours.I stood just inside the entrance for a second longer than necessary, adjusting to the brightness. The automatic doors slid shut behind me with a soft mechanical sigh, sealing me inside something painfully ordinary.I hadn’t planned to come alone but I needed to.After weeks of hospital walls and careful monitoring, I wanted something mundane, something boring that proved the world hadn’t shifted off its axis.I grabbed a cart, the metal cool beneath my palms, and walked forward.Milk, eggs, fresh vegetables. The kind of groceries that suggested routine, stability and continuation.My movements were slower than they used to be, deliberate. I feel the weight of my body differently now. The subtle awareness of balance, the quiet instinct to protect

RILEY'S POV I made it to the door before my composure cracked.Not outside the restaurant or the car. Not even at a red light where I could’ve blamed the shaking on traffic.At the door.There’s something about reaching home that makes the body stop pretending.The key slid into the lock, but my hand trembled once, just once before I turned it.I stepped inside and closed the door. And the silence swallowed me whole.For a few seconds, I stood there with my back against it, staring at nothing. I had done the right thing.I repeated that to myself. I had done the right thing.But the words didn’t feel solid, they felt like paper shields in a storm.I pushed away from the door slowly and walked into the living room. The lights were off except for the lamp near the couch. Claire was there, of course she was.She had taken to checking on me in the evenings under the excuse of “making sure you don’t trip over your own independence.”She looked up immediately. One glance at my face and sh

SOFIA’S POVThe Smile.It wasn’t her words that unsettled me. It was the smile.I replayed the grocery store encounter three times in my head before I even finished unpacking the bags.Riley standing there, hand resting lightly on her hip, looking thinner than before. Paler. But not fragile.She had looked at me directly. Not with confusion or fear. But recognition.That was the problem.I placed the carton of milk inside the refrigerator and shut the door gently.Because if I slammed anything right now, I would be admitting something had shaken me.And I don’t get shaken. Not by her, not by anyone.Still….that smile.“I survived,” she had said.Softly, almost pleasant. As if we were discussing weather.And then“I’ll let fate punish you for your misdeeds.”Casual, measured, exhausted. Not confused or unsure.That meant memory or at least pieces of it.I moved back into the kitchen slowly, setting the remaining groceries down one by one.If she remembered everything…no. Not everything

RILEY'S POV The office looked the same, that was the strange part.After you decide to leave somewhere, you expect the walls to shift, the air to feel different. The lighting dimmed in dramatic acknowledgment. But everything was ordinary.The receptionist nodded at me like she always did, the elevator chimed on cue, the faint smell of coffee and printer ink lingered in the hallway. Normal.I stepped into my office and closed the door quietly behind me.For a moment, I just stood there.This room had seen so many versions of me. Ambitious, exhausted, victorious, humiliated, determined.And now… detached.I set my bag down on the desk and powered on my computer. The screen glowed to life, filled with notifications.Emails, meeting reminders and project updates.I stared at them without urgency. For the first time since I started working here, I wasn’t building toward something. I was wrapping it up. There’s a difference.Building something is loud, forward and hopeful, ending it is met

AIDEN’S POVI told myself I was just driving, not thinking, not heading anywhere specific. Just letting the city stretch out the noise in my head.That’s what I told myself when I passed my turn, when I kept going instead of heading home.When the streets became familiar in a way I didn’t consciously acknowledge.By the time her building came into view, I didn’t even pretend it was accidental anymore. I slowed down.Her building stood the same as always. Quiet, neutral, windows lit sporadically like small squares of ordinary life.I shouldn’t have been there, she had made her position clear. Distance, space, another man.I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. Another man.The words had sat wrong since she said them. Not because I doubted she wasn't interested but because she’d looked like she was choosing something not confessing it.There was a difference.I was about to shift gears and leave when I saw movement near the entrance.A man standing too close to the doorway. Tall wi