All Chapters of Billionaire’s Pretend Wife To Be: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The Contis were hosting the annual Founders’ Day Gala, a mandatory, glittering display of corporate success and familial cohesion, designed purely for the cameras and the shareholders. Following the intimacy of the scar and the fraught conversation in the East Wing, the thought of playing the adoring wife under the full glare of the media was almost paralyzing.I felt like an actress being pushed onto a stage without a script. The rules of our relationship changed nightly, shifting from cold disdain to shared vulnerability, only to be snapped back into transactional reality by the threat of the contract.The man who held my throat last night, whispering about finding comfort in the "uncontrollable variable," is the same man who is about to use me as a prop for his stock price. I hate the lie, but I hate the confusing, genuine thrill of being near him even more. He's making me crave the performance because, in public, he allows himself to touch me.I stood in the massive, mirrored foye

Alessandro returned from Singapore late Thursday evening, not with the fanfare of the Gulfstream, but quietly, having routed his travel through a smaller, private terminal. The suddenness of his appearance was matched only by the immediate, suffocating chill he brought back with him. He was a man drowning in his own forced composure. The memory of the kiss, now officially categorized by his legal counsel as a "strategic maneuver," was a raw wound he was desperately trying to suture with work and ice.The contract is the truth. The ten million is the truth. The kiss was a temporary, biological flaw in the structure. I purged the vulnerability, I disciplined the asset, and now I reinforce the walls. I cannot allow the confusion of her eyes, or the softness of her touch, to dismantle seven years of careful, calculated control. The threat is not Lucas; the threat is the light she brings.He had barely stepped into his private office when the familiar chime of the internal Manor phone requ

The atmosphere in the East Wing felt oppressive, heavy with the phantom weight of Alessandro’s presence, even though he was barricaded in his West Penthouse office. His corporate email, delivered by Ms. Thorne, had successfully reduced the scorching intimacy of the kiss to a "lapsed professional discipline." His retreat was absolute, and I was left staring at the wreckage of my own self-control.He had to destroy it. He had to reduce the passion to policy because the alternative, the truth of that hunger, threatened the fortress he built. And I am terrified because his denial doesn't make the feeling any less real. I don't hate him anymore. I love the cold, terrifying strength of him, the way he fights himself. That is the true danger.I lay in the massive, silken bed, the vastness of the room echoing the emptiness in my chest. Sleep was a slippery thing, punctuated by flashes of the Gala, the chilling tone of his phone call, and the paralyzing fear that I had risked everything, Leo's

The gentle, pale light of the Pacific dawn filtered into the East Wing, exposing the devastating reality of the previous night. Alessandro was already on his feet, moving with the brutal efficiency of a man trying to outrun a confession.I lay in the bed, the silk sheets tangled around me, watching him. He wasn't looking at me. His movements were mechanical as he retrieved his silk pajama shirt, tossed carelessly hours before, and shrugged into it, covering the powerful, intimate landscape of his shoulders and chest. It was the armor going back on, piece by piece.He crossed the room to the massive, ornate wardrobe and retrieved a fresh, crisp white shirt, the kind that cost more than my first car. The sound of the starched cuffs snapping into place was sharp, formal, and violently out of sync with the softness of the morning.“Alessandro,” I finally said, my voice husky, still thick with sleep and the residue of passion.He flinched, a tiny, almost imperceptible tremor in his shoulde

The email from Lucas arrived mid-afternoon, slipping past the usual Conti screening filters because it came from his personal address, not his corporate one. It was oddly formatted, unnecessarily formal yet strangely urgent. He requested a private, twenty-minute meeting to discuss a "highly personal and confidential joint gift endeavor for Alessandro's impending birthday."I was instantly suspicious. Lucas never used personal email for anything that could be considered corporate. More importantly, he and Alessandro had always handled gifts themselves; they didn't require an intermediary, let alone the contract wife.Still, the Manor felt like a pressure cooker following Alessandro’s retreat and his subsequent, fragile admission that our intimacy "wasn't protocol." We were maintaining the facade during the day, but at night, the new, reckless arrangement was terrifyingly intimate. I needed distraction. And Lucas, despite his constant presence, felt like a stranger now. I agreed to meet