All Chapters of Married to the billionaire by contract : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

The police car’s taillights winked away down the hospital drive and the corridor felt oddly emptied as if something vital had just been removed. Elena stood at the window, hands locked together, the envelope with Victoria’s papers folded into the pocket of her coat. The hospital hummed with the usual noises — trolleys, distant announcements — but beneath it was the louder, thinner current of what was coming next.Damian lay on the bed, awake now more fully than before. He had the pallor of someone who had been near a cliff and stepped back, but his eyes were bright in a way that caught Elena off guard: clear, hard, pleading with her to understand. He watched her from under the lamp and when she turned, he reached for her with an insistence that pushed past sedation and medicine.“Elena,” he whispered, voice a dry scrape at first, then stronger when she put her hand in his. “They’re taking Victoria. Are you alright?”She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned close so the machines would

Elena woke before dawn, the hospital lights outside her window a pale, steady pulse against the sleeping city. Her phone lay face down on the bedside table where she had left it the night before, a small, ordinary object that had become the conduit for every urgent thing—evidence, subpoenas, messages, threats, and fragile promises. She turned the screen toward her and watched the messages scroll past again as if rereading them might rearrange the world into something softer.Damian slept with a calm that made his features look younger, more vulnerable. The ventilator had been removed earlier in the day; he breathed on his own now, a small, steady rhythm that made Elena feel as if she were watching proof that things could right themselves. His face had a faint bruise beneath one eye and a bandage at the temple, but it was his voice that had been rearranged by honesty. He had made his statement, and the rest of the world would do what the rest of the world does—turn and judge and calcul

Elena’s lungs felt too small for the air in the warehouse. The bulb cast circles of light and left the rafters in shadow; the papers on the crate looked suddenly brittle, like things that could crumble if handled roughly. The woman across from her had closed the file and stepped back into the dark as if she had given up a piece of herself by doing so. Daniel stood a few feet away, jaw set, eyes on the door.When the silhouette moved in the doorway Elena’s first thought was that the night had played a trick on her—because there he was, the outline of broad shoulders, the folded hands, the profile she had learned to read like a map. For a heartbeat she hardly breathed.“Damian?” The name came out small and strange in the empty warehouse.He stepped into the pool of light and the face she knew filled the space like a living portrait. He looked tired, outrageously tired in a way that did not match the controlled, powerful man in the boardroom. There was a bruise at his temple, a thin whit

The room had changed from the bright, safe buzz of the community center into a small arena. Reporters pressed forward with microphones like curious birds, phones up, cameras clicking in a staccato that made Elena’s skin prickle. The kids had been ushered to the back by volunteers, eyes wide and whispering. The volunteers formed a loose human wall between the children and the press, their faces a mix of protectiveness and breathless excitement.Damian stood near the table where the paper planes had been tested. He looked smaller now than in the boardroom or the hospital—less like a CEO and more like a man standing with the weight of everything he’d chosen to change. He had his coat off; the rolled sleeves revealed a forearm that had once been used to sign deals and now held a thin, honest scar from too many late nights. His jaw was set. His hands were steady.“Mr. Kingstone!” called a woman with a bright microphone and a voice that expected headlines. “Are you stepping down as CEO? Is

The studio smelled like makeup and coffee and a kind of electricity that made Elena’s palms cool. The panel lights were bright and unforgiving; the cameras hovered like waiting birds. Behind the glass, the control room murmured with the low, efficient chatter of people who measured reactions in decibels and pixels. Mara had given Elena a quick squeeze when they’d arrived—the small, human touch that meant more than any practiced encouragement.Damian was already seated at the center table when she walked in. He wore a simple dark sweater and jeans, nothing corporate, nothing designed to impress; he looked like a man trying to be ordinary in a world that kept offering extraordinary accusations. His hair was combed but not precisely; his jaw had a faint shadow. When he looked up and saw Elena, his expression changed immediately—softened, brightened, like someone who’d been holding his breath and could finally breathe.“You look tired,” she said quietly as she took the seat opposite him.