Priced By My Billionaire Nemesis のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 101 - チャプター 110

The call came an hour later.Adrian was alone in the sitting room, the lights dimmed low, the city outside reduced to a distant grid of motion beyond the glass. He had not changed out of his jacket. He had not sat down. He stood where he had been standing since Kessler left, hands braced against the back of a chair, his thoughts looping not around words but images.The retching.The way her shoulders had curled inward as if her body no longer obeyed her.The controlled calm she had forced onto her face afterward, as if pain were something to be managed privately rather than acknowledged.His phone rang.He answered on the second vibration.“Yes.”Kessler did not waste time.“Congratulations are in order,” he said. “Mrs. Vale is approximately eight weeks pregnant.”The words landed without warning.For a fraction of a second, Adrian did not breathe.His mind stalled, as if the information had arrived faster than his body could process. The room felt suddenly smaller, the air heavier, h

The moment the technician stepped out, something shifted.It was not dramatic. It did not announce itself. It simply changed the way Adrian moved.He reached for Lena first, not the door, not his phone, not instructions.His hand slid under her elbow as she tried to sit up, steady and careful, the grip firm enough to support her weight without pulling. She felt it immediately. The attention. The intention. He waited until her feet touched the floor before releasing her, watching her face as if balance had become something fragile and worth guarding.“Slow,” he said quietly, not an order, not a warning.She nodded, surprised by how much she appreciated the reminder.When she stood, a faint dizziness washed through her. Not enough to panic, just enough to make her blink and pause. Adrian’s hand returned to her back without hesitation, flat and warm between her shoulder blades, anchoring her until the room stopped tilting.She did not pull away.He helped her into her coat himself, lifti

I knew before we arrived that Adrian meant to announce the pregnancy, not because he had told me, but because of the way his hand stayed linked with mine in the car, steady and intentional, as if the connection itself carried meaning beyond comfort. His grip was not tight and not possessive, but deliberate, his thumb moving slowly across my knuckles in a grounding rhythm that felt practiced, as if he were reassuring himself as much as me. He had barely spoken since we left the penthouse, but his silence was not cold or withdrawn. It felt contained and purposeful, like a decision already made and carefully held in place.I watched the city pass outside the window, familiar streets blurring together, and tried to prepare myself for what I knew was coming. The knowledge sat heavy in my chest, not with fear exactly, but with awareness. Once spoken, it would become real in a way nothing else had yet. Words had weight. Announcements changed the shape of things. I had learned that the hard w

Jaden did not pace. Pacing suggested agitation, and agitation suggested loss of control. He had learned long ago that control was not maintained through movement, but through stillness. He stood at the window of his office instead, hands folded neatly behind his back, posture composed and exact, watching the city operate beneath him with the same indifferent efficiency he demanded of himself.Traffic obeyed pattern. Pedestrians followed invisible routes carved by habit rather than choice. Money moved through hands and screens in places that did not look like transactions at all. Everything worked because people believed it was supposed to.Belief was leverage.Behind him, the office remained quiet in the expensive way that absorbed sound rather than echoing it. Dark wood lined the walls, polished but unadorned. Frosted glass filtered the daylight without offering transparency. There were no photographs, no personal effects, nothing that invited curiosity or sentiment. He had stripped

Lena did not think about her birthday until the day itself arrived.It was not avoidance so much as reprioritization. The calendar had rearranged itself around other things. Meetings ran longer than planned. Calls came late and stretched past intention. Evenings ended earlier than expected, and mornings began before she had fully decided to be awake. Life had narrowed in a way that felt practical rather than diminished, and dates that once carried emotional weight now passed quietly, noticed only when something external insisted on being seen.The notification appeared while Lena was seated at the small table in the hospital lounge, her coffee cooling beside her untouched. She was reviewing blood counts she already knew by memory, scrolling more out of habit than necessity, her attention divided between the numbers on the screen and the distant hum of the building around her. A gray banner slid across the top of the display.Unavailable.She frowned briefly, distracted by the interrup