All Chapters of Billionaire’s Pretend Wife To Be: Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

I was twenty-three minutes late for my scheduled Sunday quality time with Isabelle. The delay was unavoidable—a last-minute, emergency video conference call with Tokyo regarding the fallout from the Q3 forecast I'd had to abruptly abandon for the disastrous Milan trip. But the lateness felt like a catastrophic failure of execution. I prided myself on efficiency; punctuality was a non-negotiable metric of respect.My internal systems were screaming. The argument with Clara still echoed in my ears: “You are the ‘Old Alessandro’ in a better suit!” The phrase was a cancer on my carefully constructed self-image. I needed Isabelle—her sharp, uncompromising honesty—to help me recalibrate.I found her in her tiny, high-ceilinged apartment—a space that was beautiful but entirely unmanaged. Blueprints were scattered across the floor, half-eaten Thai takeout sat on the drafting table, and her favorite jazz record was playing at a volume that exceeded optimal conversational levels. It was a beaut

The Milanese spring was trying to break through the damp chill of the studio, but it mostly succeeded in just making the industrial grit stick harder to my camera bag. I hadn't had a proper night’s sleep in two weeks, fueled only by cheap espresso and the high-octane anxiety of being genuinely responsible for myself. My diet was pathetic, my rent was exactly one week late (which felt like a monumental failure), and I was completely, deliriously happy.This was the life I had chosen: hard, unpredictable, and entirely mine. The few hundred dollars Amelia had shoved at me—his failed act of control—were still untouched in a separate account, a personal emergency fund I refused to contaminate my life with. I had to prove I could do this without a Conti safety net; the whole point was to earn my own fight.I was sitting in a tiny, noisy café near the Navigli district, trying to edit the "Unseen Milan" series on my laptop. It was a brutal documentation of the marginalized, immigrant communit

The change in my life wasn’t instantaneous or dramatic, like a hostile takeover. It was subtle, structural, like a slow shift in tectonic plates. I still woke up at five, still prioritized my tasks, but now I left a twenty-minute buffer in every meeting for the unmanaged variable. I checked my sister’s three-word text not to monitor her survival, but just to know she was active. I was learning the terrifying, beautiful truth that some of the greatest rewards in life come from deliberate inefficiency.The biggest, most complex variable in my life was Isabelle. We were three months into a relationship that defied all my previous metrics of success. It wasn't calm or predictable; it was constant, passionate debate, shared take-out, and the daily, deliberate choice to peel back a layer of my armor. She forced me to confront the difference between being a good provider and a good partner.I knew I wanted to marry her. I knew I needed her chaos to balance my structure. But I refused to prop

The silence was the worst kind of noise. It had been thirteen days since the last, cryptic check-in from Clara—a single, delayed text to Marco reading, "Arrived. Starting ascent." That was the last piece of verifiable intelligence we had. The seven-to-ten day window had closed, sealed shut by the desolate, high-altitude terrain she had so deliberately chosen.I had spent the morning trying to focus on a merger proposal, but the words blurred on the screen. The only thing I could see was the blank spot on the map of Morocco where she had vanished. I felt the slow, creeping paralysis that comes when all the power in the world is utterly useless.The call came from Marco’s encrypted line, routed through Amelia’s satellite system. It wasn't the single-word text I was waiting for; it was a connection.I snatched the phone off the desk, my hand shaking. “Report.”Marco’s voice, usually easy and bohemian, was tight with strain. “Mr. Conti, the three-day grace period has expired. We’ve missed

The waiting felt like a physical tearing of the soul. For four endless days, Elara and I had stayed rooted in the Milan Foundation headquarters, surrounded by maps and dormant technology, relying entirely on the single blue dot representing Rashid, the local guide. Every minute stretched into an hour, every hour into a decade. I, the man who controlled multinational timelines, was now entirely subject to the slow, unpredictable rhythm of a man traversing treacherous mountains on foot.Elara was my anchor. She was quiet, organizing tea and simple meals, reading by the dim light, but every time I looked at her, I saw the raw, unspeakable fear in her eyes—the same fear mirroring my own. Yet, she never faltered in her belief in the process. “We trust the heart, Alessandro,” she repeated, her voice a low, steady prayer. “We trust that she is strong, and we trust that the one man we sent knows the mountain better than any helicopter.”Trust. That single word has been the most volatile commo