All Chapters of The Billionaire's Rejected Twins: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Carlos didn't say anything immediately after she hung up. He kept on driving. The evening traffic moved around them and Bella sat with the phone in her lap, not looking at it."What did he say?" He asked Bella was looking at her phone. "That he knows about the meeting with Evelyn. That he needs to see me today." She put the phone face-down on her lap. "His voice was different.""Different how?" Carlos responded "Like he already knows something." She looked out the window. "Or he's close enough that it doesn't matter.""Meaning he's close?" He asked"Meaning he's already decided something." She closed her eyes briefly. "After everything today with Evelyn, the threats and now him..." She stopped. Carlos glanced at her. "You know, you don't have to respond tonight.""I know." She responded back"I mean it." His eyes lingered on her for a second. "Whatever he's decided, it can wait until you've slept."She looked at the side of his face. He was watching the road, jaw relaxed, completel

The coffee bella was drinking had gone cold again.She didn't realise it until she brought the mug to her lips. She put it back on the table and stared out the sunroom window, watching the morning sunlight slowly move across the floor.She heard Helena before she saw her, the familiar sound of slippers against the floor coming from the hallway. A moment later, she heard the kettle click on in the kitchen."Don't worry Helena," Bella said. "You don't have to make anything.""I know I don't have to." Helena pulled out the chair across from her and lowered herself into it, setting two fresh cups between them. "But you've been staring at that window for twenty minutes now."Bella didn't deny it.Helena wrapped both hands around her own mug and was quiet for a moment. Then said. "You know, sometimes I still think about the night you came here. The way you looked standing at the back door with nothing but that one bag."Bella looked at her."I also remember that one time when you disappeare

The foundation office smelled of fresh coffee and printer toner, a small mercy after the last two days. Bella sat behind her desk with the Hartwell gala file open on her screen, cross-checking vendor contracts when her phone buzzed with Evelyn's name."Tomorrow by 2pm. Don't be late."She didn't flinch this time. She set the phone face-down and went back to the vendor contracts, reading through the terms with deliberate focus, as if the message had been about catering instead of a threat wrapped in politeness.Marguerite, her board treasurer knocked twice on the open door before stepping in. "You wanted the Hendricks file pulled?""Yes, actually, hold on." Bella waved her in and turned the laptop slightly before leaning back in her chair. "I wanted to ask you something, off the record. Let's say a private family record surfaced publicly. Something old, but serious enough to implicate a prominent figure in misconduct. If it reached the right people, how quickly do you think the press w

Bella woke up at five-fourteen and knew immediately she wasn't going back to sleep.She lay there staring at the ceiling, one arm draped across her stomach, while her mind kept circling back to the previous evening. The memories played on a loop she couldn't seem to shut off. Not the meetings. Not Lorenzo's photograph or even Alex's cold ultimatum.Just Carlos's thumb moving once across her cheekbone before he pulled back. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and made herself get up.The kitchen was empty when she got downstairs. She stood at the counter making coffee in the dark, not turning the overhead light on yet, and gave herself exactly those five minutes to feel the full weight of what she'd done.She'd kissed him and she'd been the one to move first. And it hadn't felt like a mistake which was exactly what unsettled her most. Because it had felt like the first true thing in weeks.But feelings like that had edges, and they could be used. In fact, everything in h

The morning was quiet in a way that made Bella's skin itch.Helena had the twins occupied in the living room with building blocks with the low sound of Julian's instructions drifting through the house like a radio left on. Bella sat at the dining table with her laptop open with foundation documents she'd been reading for the last twenty minutes without absorbing a single line.She heard the front door before she saw him.Carlos came through carrying a security report folder and exchanged a few words with Helena in passing. Then his eyes found Bella across the room. For a second, neither of them looked away. Then another passed. Finally, she looked back at her screen first.He pulled the chair beside her and sat close enough that she could feel the warmth off his arm without them touching."Anything overnight?" she asked, voice low."Nothing unusual so far. But Lorenzo's attorney made a couples of calls this morning to a family court liaison." He kept his voice low, matter-of-fact. "I