All Chapters of The billionaire’s bidding war : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The morning light broke through the sheer curtains of the west wing, pale and cold against the dark wood of the furniture.I woke to the heavy, suffocating weight of realization before my eyes had even fully opened. The quiet in the room was absolute, broken only by the steady, faint rhythm of breathing beside me.For a few fragile seconds, my mind attempted to reject the reality of the previous night. But the faint scent of amber whiskey and expensive cologne lingering in the air anchored me brutally back to the truth.The barrier between us had not just cracked. It had completely shattered.I sat up slowly, keeping my movements deliberate and silent as I looked at Ashton. He was still asleep, his face unreadable in the gray dawn, stripped of the harsh, guarded armor he wore like a shield every waking hour. Without the cold anger or the relentless strain of his failing company, he looked almost human.A sharp, sick knot tightened in the center of my chest.I pulled my wrap around my

The rain began late in the afternoon, a steady, rhythmic pouring that turned the manicured grounds of the estate into a gray blur.Inside the mansion, the air felt suffocatingly thick. Celina had spent the better part of the day in Ashton’s study, moving back and forth between his desk and the leather armchair with an air of comfortable familiarity that made my skin prickle. Every laugh that drifted through the heavy oak door was a sharp reminder of how easily Brenda’s influence was taking root inside the house.I sat in the library, trying to focus on financial spreadsheets on my laptop, but my concentration was shattered.It was not just Celina’s presence that unsettled me. It was the way Ashton had retreated back behind his wall of stoic silence. Since the night we had crossed the line, he barely looked at me when we passed in the corridor. He treated me like a ghost hovering on the margins of his life, a inconvenient distraction he was determined to ignore until it vanished entire

The interrogation room at the precinct smelled of stale coffee, damp concrete, and metallic industrial cleaner.I sat at the metal table, the cold surface biting into my forearms through the mud-stained fabric of my dress. The handcuffs had been removed, but the heavy steel door remained locked from the outside. For six hours, I had stared at the single fluorescent light fixture buzzing softly overhead, watching shadows stretch and shift across the cracked yellow paint of the walls.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ashton’s face in the foyer. The sheer, terrifying weight of his hatred had hit harder than the crash on the highway. He truly believed I had killed his father.The heavy lock clicked, and the door swung open.My father walked in first, followed by a tall man in an immaculate dark gray suit carrying a leather briefcase. My father looked as though he had aged ten years in a single night. His hair was unkempt, his face hollow, and his hands trembled as he pulled out the meta

The drive back to the estate felt like a slow march toward an execution.I kept one hand pressed firmly against my stomach beneath my coat, as if I could somehow protect the fragile secret growing inside me from the storm I was about to walk into. Pregnant. With Ashton's child. The cruel irony of it threatened to choke me with every breath I drew. The man who believed I had slaughtered his father was the father of my baby.I had resolved on the cab ride over that I would tell him. I had to. No matter how much he despised me, no matter how cold he had grown, he deserved to know before we tore what was left of our lives apart.When I stepped through the heavy front doors of the mansion, the house was eerily silent. The high marble ceilings that had once felt grand now felt like a mausoleum.Ashton was waiting in his study.He stood behind his massive mahogany desk, dressed in a dark suit, his silhouette sharp against the tall windows behind him. He looked gaunt, the hollows of his cheek

While Mariah lay in her hospital room contending with the quiet terror of the anonymous threat, the executive suite at Langford Co. was consumed by a different kind of silence.Ever since the divorce papers had been signed and Mariah had walked out of his life, Ashton had felt hollow. The relentless drive that usually propelled him through twelve-hour workdays had given way to a heavy, suffocating numbness. He sat behind his wide mahogany desk, staring at the financial reports spread before him, but the numbers bled together without meaning.The main office was quiet, save for the muffled sound of rain tapping against the high glass windows. Outside his glass doors, Celina worked quietly at her desk, her movements polished and unobtrusive, exactly as his mother had promised she would be. Yet every time Ashton looked at the empty leather chair across from his desk, a sharp, unbidden ache settled deep in his chest.A soft knock at the door broke his trance.James, Ashton’s closest frien