All Chapters of Priced By My Billionaire Nemesis: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

…FIVE DAYS LATERThe oncology wing had never felt heavier.Its walls were the same pale, forgiving beige; the same slow-moving nurses drifted from station to station; the same soft hum of IV pumps filled the air. But today, something had changed. Adrian could feel it in the way his fingers gripped the wheelchair handles a little too tightly… in the way his breath sat too high in his chest.His mother was weaker.Not the gentle kind of weakness that came after a bad night of sleep.Not the kind soothed by broth and warm blankets.No—this was the type that made his throat tighten.The type that reminded him of time slipping through fingers that could no longer close.Evelyn sat with her shoulders too slumped, her scarf too carefully wrapped, her breaths thin. She had insisted on walking, but Adrian refused. Today he didn’t trust anything—not gravity, not her balance, not fate—to treat her gently.He pushed the wheelchair slowly down the familiar corridor toward the chemo suite. Nurses g

The moment I stepped out of the hospital, the cold hit me like a slap—sharp, biting, immediate. Winter had draped the parking lot in a thin veil of frost, the kind that crept along the pavement like a warning. I pulled my coat tighter, tugging the collar up to shield my throat from the wind. I hadn’t expected to stay that long. I hadn’t expected Evelyn Vale to take my hand. I hadn’t expected to say yes to lunch. And I definitely hadn’t expected Adrian to look at me with a kind of fury that wasn’t just anger—it was fear wearing steel.I reached the crosswalk, rubbing my palms together as I waited for the light to change. A five-minute walk brought me to the bus stop, where I sat on the freezing bench, watching my breath fog the air. My phone buzzed. Unknown Number. Again. My stomach dropped. I didn’t answer. It buzzed again. I assumed it was the unknown number and just ignored it.A sleek black sedan rolled up beside me—slow, too slow—and the passenger window slid down. A familiar voic

Lunch stretched longer than I expected. Evelyn insisted I sit beside her, insisted I try everything she’d prepared, insisted I tell her stories—light ones, warm ones—about the kindergarteners I taught. She found it delightful, and when she said, “You must be a gift to those children,” I nearly forgot how tight the walls around my ribs had become lately. Even Adrian looked surprised when she joked about me “corralling tiny humans,” though his expression shifted quickly back into the cool detachment he wore like tailored armor.For a little while, Evelyn almost looked like a woman hosting a friend. Not someone fighting for her life. Not someone whose body was betraying her cell by cell. She laughed softly at my stories, asked about my favorite books, held my hand whenever she made a point. It was easy—too easy—to forget how much pain she must have been hiding. A hint of color warmed her cheeks, and she seemed determined to gather every scrap of normalcy the afternoon could offer, as tho

The ride to my parents’ building turned into the kind of silence that didn’t feel empty so much as overloaded. Every breath felt like a question. Every unspoken word pressed against the windows until I was half convinced the glass would crack before either of us did. The hum of the engine, the faint hiss of the heater, the soft whoosh of the tires over uneven asphalt—all of it blended into a background noise that made the silence between us feel even louder.Adrian drove with both hands tight on the wheel, fingers wrapped so firmly around the leather that I could see his knuckles pale in the passing streetlights. His jaw worked, the muscles tightening and releasing with every turn we took deeper into my neighborhood. Whatever warmth he had shown in the kitchen earlier, when his mother laughed and he almost, almost smiled, was gone. It had sunk beneath something far harder and sharper, a layer of ice over deep water.He looked like a man forcing himself to stay contained because if he

My mother gasped, one hand flying to her chest and the other tightening around the dish towel. My father’s mouth fell open slightly, his eyes jumping from Adrian to me and back again, trying to connect dots he didn’t know until this moment had existed. My own jaw nearly hit the floor, and the only reason it didn’t is because I was clenching it hard enough to make my teeth ache.Adrian remained perfectly composed, his thumb brushing once, almost absently, over the back of my hand in a move that looked tender and possessive and calculated all at once.“She hasn’t accepted,” he continued in that same measured tone. “I’ve given her time to think—two days.”My father’s shoulders dropped a fraction with relief that there was at least some kind of process. “Marriage,” he said slowly. “So soon?” He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time, like he was trying to place his little girl and this adult woman in the same frame and failing.“I’ve known her many years,” Adrian replied wi