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Home / Romance / Mira Reckoning: Love, Lies and Inheritance / Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

All Chapters of Mira Reckoning: Love, Lies and Inheritance: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

47 Chapters

Chapter 21

Joseph’s POV Five million dollars. That was what it took to get Julie to agree, five million dollars and a whole lot of pleading that I wasn’t proud of, I had spent the better part of an hour sitting across from her explaining the situation, telling her Fiona needed her, that she was the only option right now, that I would make it worth her while and Julie had sat there with her arms folded and her expression completely unmoved until I mentioned the money. Then she agreed. I had been running on almost nothing for the past five days, barely sleeping, barely eating, moving between the hospital and home and back again trying to hold everything together while Fiona’s condition kept fluctuating and the doctors kept giving me updates I didn’t want to hear, I felt like I had aged ten years in less than a week and there were moments sitting alone in that hospital corridor where I genuinely thought I was going to lose my mind. Now I sat in the chair outside the emergency room and waited. T

Chapter 22

Adrian’s POV I was going through a stack of documents when James knocked and stepped in. “Sir,” he started, standing by the door with that particular expression he wore when he had something to deliver that he wasn’t sure how I’d receive, “the report just came in, three of them have withdrawn.” I didn’t look up from the document in my hand. “All three?” I asked. “Yes, sir, all three confirmed within the last hour.” I set the paper down slowly and leaned back in my chair, the corner of my mouth pulled slightly, and I let it. There was no point pretending that wasn’t satisfying because it was, deeply. I had been patient about this, and patience with things like this always paid out exactly the way it was supposed to. “Good,” I said simply. James shifted slightly, “Should I move to the next step or….” “No,” my voice was flat and sharp, “don’t touch anything, don’t rush anything, I want everything that follows to look completely natural,” I held his gaze, “I want him to watch it h

Chapter 23

Mira’s POV I didn’t even realise I had slept that long until I rolled over and checked my phone. Past four in the evening. I lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling, my stomach growling quietly and reminding me that I hadn’t eaten properly since that uncomfortable breakfast this morning, where I had barely managed three spoons before the whole thing fell apart. I was hungry, genuinely hungry. I pushed myself up and reached for something to throw over my shoulders, then stopped. Jessica was somewhere in this house. Camille was somewhere in this house. The thought alone made me want to pull the duvet back over my head and stay exactly where I was until Adrian came home and sorted out whatever needed sorting, but my stomach made another very firm argument against that plan, and I sighed and stood up properly. I just needed something small, something quick. I wasn’t going to sit at the table and make an event out of it; I just needed to get in and get out before anyone saw m

Chapter 24

Joseph’s POV I drove back to the office feeling the kind of anger that sat hot and tight in my chest and refused to settle, no matter how many times I exhaled slowly and told myself to think clearly. Adrian’s words had been following me since I walked out of that building, the smile on his face, the way he said it, how exactly does a company that stands above partner with a company that is currently on the edge? I gripped the steering wheel tighter. I had tried every angle I could think of, every possible approach to getting someone significant enough to come on board and steady things, and every single time something blocked it, a withdrawal here, a declined meeting there, things falling through at the last minute in ways that were starting to feel less like bad luck and more like something deliberate, but I couldn’t prove anything and I had no time to chase shadows when the ground was already shaking under my feet. I knew this wasn’t the best time to walk into Adrian Westwood’s

Chapter 25

Joseph’s POV I grabbed the divorce papers from the bed and walked out, my feet already moving before my brain had finished processing everything I had just read. I went straight downstairs and into the sitting room and stopped. Fiona was curled up on the couch with a bowl of sugary snacks in her lap, completely absorbed in whatever she was eating, and Julie was beside her with her eyes fixed on the television. I crossed the room and snatched the bowl from Fiona’s hands. “Hey!” Fiona looked up, startled. I wasn’t in the mood. I turned to Julie and held the divorce papers out toward her. My hand was not entirely steady, and I didn’t care, “Did you know about this?” Julie looked at the papers, and her expression shifted immediately. She sat forward and took them from me slowly, her eyes moving across the page, and I watched her face for any sign that this wasn’t news to her, any flicker of recognition that would tell me she had known before I did. But her eyes widened, and her bro

Chapter 26

Adrian’s POV I walked Mira back to her room and waited until she sat down before I spoke. “Are you okay?” My voice came out quieter than usual. She nodded but didn’t say anything, just sat there with that look on her face that she had been wearing since the kitchen incident, the one that told me she was holding a lot more than she was showing and had decided not to let any of it out right now. “Did they do anything worse?” I asked directly, “Anything beyond what happened downstairs?” She shook her head. I looked at her for a moment, then stood up straight, “Stay in here, I’ll have the maid bring you something to eat, don’t come out for now.” She nodded again without questioning it, and I turned to leave. Her phone rang. I glanced back automatically and caught the name on the screen before she tilted it away from me, Joseph, sitting there flashing on the screen like it had every right to, I watched her press the red button without hesitating, and set the phone face down on the

Chapter 27

Mira’s POV My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Joseph again. I looked at the screen and pressed the red button, dropped the phone beside me on the bed, and went back to staring at the ceiling. My eyes were swollen, and my chest hurt. The phone lit up again, Joseph. I pressed the red button again without even picking it up properly, and this time I turned it face down so I wouldn’t have to keep seeing his name, out of sight wasn’t the same as out of mind but it was something. I lay there for a while longer, then reached for my phone again and scrolled to Ann’s name and pressed call. It rang twice before she picked up. “Mira?” Her voice came through immediately, already carrying that particular tone she used when she could tell something was wrong before I had said a single word. I opened my mouth to say something normal, something that would ease into the conversation properly, and instead, I just started crying. Ann let me go for a moment before she spoke. “Tell me what happene

Chapter 28

Joseph’s POV Thomas picked up on the third ring and told me to come to the house. I was already reaching for my car keys before he finished the sentence. The drive over gave me enough time to think through how I wanted to approach this because Thomas was not a straightforward man; he had a way of making you feel like you were the one asking for too much, even when you were the one holding the cards, so I needed to be clear, and I needed to be ready. He was sitting in the living room when I walked in. He gestured to the seat across from him, and I sat down. “Mira got married,” I said, keeping my eyes on his face. He nodded slowly, “I heard.” “Not just married,” I said, “but to Adrian Westwood.” I was watching him carefully, and I caught his expression just for a second. Something shifted in his expression, and then it smoothed back out, and he was looking at me with the same unbothered face he had walked into this conversation with. “I saw it on the news,” he said, “same as eve

Chapter 29

Mira’s POV I was in the middle of a very deep sleep when the noise started downstairs. I opened my eyes slowly and stared at the ceiling, listening. It was loud, voices overlapping and the sound of movement, and my mind immediately went back to the last time something like this happened, which was Jessica and the whole gate drama, and I was not ready for another round of that so early in the morning. After a few minutes, the noise died down, and I exhaled slowly and closed my eyes again, grateful, already halfway back to sleep when a knock came at my door. I groaned into my pillow, “Come in.” The door opened, and one of the maids stepped inside, looking genuinely apologetic about disturbing me. “I’m sorry, ma’am, your father is downstairs, he’s asking for you.” I opened my eyes fully. My father? I sat up slowly and pushed my hair back from my face and just sat there for a second letting that information settle, Thomas showing up at this house unannounced on a random morning was

Chapter 30

Mira’s POV I was already pushing my chair back when my father’s hand came down on my arm. “Mira, sit down,” he said quietly, “you owe Joseph at least this one conversation.” I looked at his hand on my arm then I looked at his face and the anger sitting in my chest was so hot I could barely breathe around it, I wanted to ask him if he knew, if he truly had any idea what those six years looked like from where I was standing, if he knew about the seven pregnancies I lost one after the other, if he knew about the stairs and what Julie did to me, if he knew I had bled myself dry over and over again for a daughter who looked me in the face and called me a maid while her real mother laughed behind closed doors, if he knew all of that and still thought I owed Joseph a conversation. But I wasn’t ready for that conversation today. I didn’t have the strength for it, and this wasn’t the place for it either, so I pressed my lips together and sat back down and said nothing, and Thomas stood up

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