All Chapters of The Billionaire's Forbidden Waltz : Chapter 31 - Chapter 39

The meeting request didn’t come with a subject line.It appeared on Adrian’s calendar at 9:07 a.m., blocking out an hour that had already been assigned to donor calls and a strategy review. The original entries vanished without explanation. No prompt. No option to decline. Just a location and a list of attendees that hadn’t been there the night before.Board Conference Room A.Elara saw it before he said anything. The color-coded block sat there like a bruise.“You’re not going,” she said.Adrian didn’t look up from his phone. He was standing near the windows, the city blurred behind him, scrolling once, then locking the screen.“I am.”“They’re not even pretending anymore,” she said. “They didn’t ask. They didn’t explain.”He turned toward her then, his expression level. “That’s exactly why I’m going.”She crossed her arms, not defensively. To anchor herself. “They’re setting you up.”“They already have,” he said. “This is the part where they make it look orderly.”They walked throug

The boardroom lights were already on when Adrian arrived.Not bright. Just enough to remove shadows.Elara noticed it immediately. The room was ready. The table gleamed, the chairs were set, and the screen at the far end was already on. Nothing here felt rushed. Everything felt planned.She had been asked to wait outside.Not told to leave. Not told to sit. Just asked to wait.The door closed between her and the room with a soft, decisive click.She stood in the corridor alone.Glass walls ran the length of the executive floor, but the shades along the boardroom had been drawn halfway down, leaving only silhouettes visible. Shapes shifted inside. Someone stood. Someone else took a seat. A figure leaned forward, hands braced on the table.Time stretched without measurement.She watched a board assistant pass once, then again, carrying a folder she didn’t glance at Elara while holding. Another assistant paused near the water station, poured a glass, drank half of it, then poured the res

The building had already adjusted.Adrian noticed it the moment he stepped out of the elevator. Not in any obvious way. Not through signs or announcements. It was in the silence that followed him down the corridor, the way people moved just slightly out of his path without being asked.Elara’s absence had left a shape.Desks were occupied. Screens glowed. Meetings continued. But something essential had been removed, and the foundation was compensating by tightening around it.He walked to his office without stopping.Inside, the lights were dimmed to their default evening setting, though it was barely past noon. The city beyond the glass looked sharp and distant, as if viewed through a lens designed to remove warmth. His desk was exactly as he’d left it that morning. Tablet aligned. Folder stacked. Phone face down.Adrian didn’t sit.He stood by the window for a long moment, hands resting lightly on the edge of the desk, and let the stillness settle. This was the part most people miss

Elara woke up when her head slipped off the arm of the couch. She didn’t move for a long time, just staring at the floorboards while her brain tried to catch up. She hadn’t really slept. It was just short, shallow drops into unconsciousness that broke the second her body relaxed. Her neck ached, and her jaw felt stiff from clenching her teeth in her sleep.Morning arrived without any fanfare. Thin bands of light slipped through the blinds, cutting across the dusty floor and the edge of the couch. The apartment was too quiet. There were no footsteps, no sound of water running, and no murmur of Ethan moving around in the other room. There was only the low hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of city traffic, already awake and impatient.She stood up and walked to the window. She used two fingers to pry the blinds apart just enough to see the street. Down below, a delivery truck blocked a lane while a cyclist shouted at the driver. A woman tugged her coat closed and hurried past