Semua Bab THE BILLIONAIRE WHO STOLE MY FIRST NIGHT: Bab 51 - Bab 60

The penthouse was empty when I returned from the police station, and the silence was deafening.I stood in the entryway—my entryway now, legally, contractually—surrounded by Liam's wealth and taste and the ghosts of every moment we'd shared in this space. The living room where he'd first kissed me after that disastrous board meeting. The kitchen where he'd made me ginger tea at three AM. The bedroom where we'd made love just hours ago, clinging to each other like we could somehow prevent the inevitable.Now he was in a holding cell, and I was alone in forty million dollars of real estate that felt less like a home and more like a monument to everything I'd lost.My phone rang. Bennett."They denied bail," he said without preamble. "Judge cited flight risk given Liam's resources. He'll be in county lockup until trial. Six months, minimum, if we're lucky."Six months. Half my pregnancy. I'd be visibly showing before he got out. Might give birth before his trial even concluded."Can I se

The ultrasound appointment was scheduled for nine AM on a Tuesday, exactly three hours after Liam had been released from custody—again—with a stern warning from the judge about "appropriate marital boundaries" and Jennifer's supervision reinstated with even stricter protocols.We rode to Dr. Morrison's office in silence, Jennifer in the front seat documenting our departure time, destination, and the fact that Liam and I maintained "appropriate physical distance" in the back seat. Appropriate distance. As if the twelve inches between us could somehow undo the fact that we'd created a life together, that my body was changing every day because of him, that appropriate distance was the cruelest joke the court system had ever mandated."First ultrasound," Dr. Morrison said cheerfully when we arrived, oblivious to the tension crackling between us, to Jenn

Victoria Sterling wasn't Liam's ex-lover—that revelation came sixty seconds after she dropped her extortion demand, when the real threat walked through the door behind her."Mother, I told you to wait in the car." The woman who appeared was stunning in that effortless, old-money way that made my off-the-rack maternity clothes feel like burlap: platinum blonde hair in a perfect chignon, designer suit that probably cost more than my first car, and eyes that locked onto Liam with proprietary familiarity that made my stomach clench. "Liam, darling. It's been too long."Liam stood slowly, his expression shifting from confusion to recognition to something I couldn't quite identify. "Catherine."Catherine Sterling. The name hit me like a physical blow because I knew it—had seen it in the background check files,

The penthouse was suffocating in its silence.Liam stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan glittering below like scattered diamonds on black velvet, and felt the weight of what had happened in the elevator pressing down on his chest. Behind him, he could hear Sophia moving through the space—the soft click of her heels on marble, the rustle of fabric, the deliberate distance she was maintaining. They'd barely spoken since security had discreetly interrupted their heated moment with news of an urgent board matter. Three hours later, with the crisis managed and the night stretching ahead, the unresolved tension between them felt like a living thing.He'd crossed a line today. Multiple lines. The possessive display at the conference, the jealousy he'd worn like armor, the way he'd cornered her in the elevator and demanded she acknowledge the claim he

The photo of Elena changed everything—and nothing.Liam had expected the revelation to detonate their fragile new intimacy, to send Sophia retreating behind walls of self-preservation. Instead, she'd looked at him with those steady eyes and said, "We deal with your brother first. Then we deal with her. Together." That single word—together—had unlocked something in him he hadn't known was still capable of opening. Now, three days later, they existed in a strange liminal space: waiting for Marcus's detailed findings, bracing for Elena's inevitable appearance, but refusing to let his father's manipulations poison what they were building.So they'd made an unspoken pact: evenings were theirs. No talk of wills or ex-lovers or pregnant ghosts from the past. Just them, learning the small intimacies that transformed a contract into something dangerous