All Chapters of Priced By My Billionaire Nemesis: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

The reception unfolded like a continuation of the ceremony’s illusion, louder and brighter, as if noise itself could drown what had already fractured. The hall opened wide to receive them, all chandeliers and pale florals, the scent of sugar and wine layered over cut grass still clinging to fabric and shoes. Music swelled on cue, warm and practiced, wrapping the room in celebration that felt rehearsed down to the breath.Lena moved beside Adrian with a posture that belonged to a bride in photographs. Her back was straight, her chin lifted, her smile carefully measured. Each step carried the faint tremor she could not still, a vibration that traveled from her arm into his when he held her, subtle enough that no one else would notice. Adrian noticed. He noticed everything now, and each detail fed the heat he kept banked behind his eyes.From his side, the room was a calculation he had already lost patience with. Faces blurred into polite shapes. Congratulations landed like static. Appla

He released me abruptly, stepping back as if touching me had burned him. His hands curled into fists at his sides, his restraint visibly cracking now.“You disappeared,” he went on. “You vanished without explanation. You let me believe you chose him. And now you stand here and expect me to believe this—this helplessness?”His eyes raked over me, slow and merciless.“Tell me something,” he said quietly. “Would you give me the same surrender?”The question stole my breath.I stared at him, my pulse roaring in my ears.“Would you?” he pressed. “Are you that easy when you’re cornered? When someone wants you badly enough?”My face burned—with humiliation, with fury, with a twisted, unbearable ache that had nothing to do with morality and everything to do with need.His words hit harder than any insult because they weren’t aimed at my pride.They were aimed at my reality.I took another step forward without thinking, the movement almost involuntary, like my body was trying to close the dist

And for the first time that night, I let myself cry.Not because I was weak.Because whatever I had been holding together finally gave up.His fingers at my jaw felt like a verdict.Not gentle. Not cruel either. Just deliberate—measured in the way of someone testing the shape of something that already belonged to him and deciding what to do with it. I hated how my body reacted. How my breath stuttered. How my knees softened when everything inside me screamed that I should pull away.I didn’t.That was the worst part.His thumb pressed beneath my chin, rough enough to demand my attention, tilting my face up until I had no choice but to look at him. His eyes were darker now, stripped of ceremony, stripped of restraint. Whatever had held him together in public had cracked, and what stood in front of me was not a groom or a husband—but a man standing at the edge of something ugly and willing.The champagne hummed through my veins, dulling the edges just enough to make everything worse. My

Adrian woke to the sound of knocking.It took a moment for the noise to register as external, to separate itself from the dull ache behind his eyes and the heavier weight across his chest. The knock came again—measured, professional, unmistakably real.Breakfast.Of course it would be breakfast.The world, infuriatingly intact.He lay still for a few seconds longer, staring at the ceiling, letting the reality of the night finish settling into his bones. The alcohol had long burned off. Whatever numbness it had provided was gone, leaving him with sharp clarity and nowhere to hide.Lena was curled against him.Not carefully. Not politely. Her body was pressed to his with a kind of unguarded closeness that made his chest tighten. Her head rested against his shoulder, her arm slung across his torso as if she belonged there, as if this was not a mistake or a consequence but something habitual.His arm was around her.That realization landed harder than the knock.He had told himself—sworn—

Adrian stood near the glass wall of the conference room, hands relaxed at his sides, posture immaculate, as three senior associates spoke animatedly about the wedding. He listened without interrupting, his expression composed, his attention appearing polite and engaged. From the outside, he looked exactly as he was supposed to look. Calm. Grounded. Newly married in a way that suggested intention rather than compromise.“You were both stunning,” one of them said, smiling broadly. “Honestly, it was impossible not to notice how in love she looked.”Another nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. She practically glowed. You could tell she adores you.”Adrian inclined his head in acknowledgment, the movement minimal. The praise did not warm him. It tightened something low and sharp in his chest. In love was a phrase people used when they mistook choreography for truth, and Lena had always been excellent at choreography. He pictured her at the altar, hands folded, eyes steady, lips curved into somet