Lahat ng Kabanata ng THE BILLIONAIRE WHO STOLE MY FIRST NIGHT: Kabanata 91 - Kabanata 100

Hope opened her eyes for the first time on day seventeen, and Liam missed it because he was in the hospital cafeteria forcing down coffee that tasted like exhaustion while Sophia sat vigil alone.She called him immediately, her voice breaking with joy and terror in equal measure, and Liam ran—actually ran through hospital corridors despite his still-healing spine, despite nurses calling after him about protocol, despite everything except the desperate need to see his daughter awake and aware. By the time he reached the NICU, scrubbed and gowned with hands that wouldn't stop shaking, Hope's eyes had closed again, but Sophia's face held an expression he'd never seen before: wonder mixed with the crushing responsibility of being seen by the tiny human they'd created.

Sophia's therapist asked the question six weeks into treatment, during a session where Sophia had been describing Hope's sleep schedule instead of addressing anything meaningful: "When was the last time you felt safe?"The question stopped Sophia mid-sentence about feeding routines, stopped her entire practiced deflection, and forced her to actually think. When had she last felt safe? Before the contract marriage? Before her father's coercion? Before she'd learned that loving someone meant becoming a target for everyone who wanted to hurt them? She sat in the therapist's office—neutral beige walls, carefully positioned tissues, the kind of aggressively calming decor designed to make trauma feel manageable—and couldn't identify a single moment in the past year when she'd existed without some level of hype

Sophia's mother walked through the apartment door carrying enough food to feed a small army, took one look at her daughter's exhausted face and h

The 3 AM feeding on day fourteen of being home was when Sophia finally understood what Dr. Martinez had been trying to tell her about surrenderin

The gallery was quiet in the late afternoon light, dust motes dancing through the tall windows that faced the street. Sophia stepped back from the wall where she'd just hung a new piece—an abstract in blues and grays that reminded her of the ocean she'd grown up near but had forgotten to miss until recently."That one's going to sell," Marianne said from behind the desk, not looking up from the invoice she was reviewing. At seventy-two, Sophia's part-time assistant had more opinions than energy, but both were valuable. "Someone will walk in, see it, and just know."Sophia smiled. "You said that about the last three pieces.""And I was