Lahat ng Kabanata ng Dumped By The Billionaire : Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 70

“You think you’ve won?” I hissed into the phone, voice raw, brittle with frustration and fury.The office was dark except for the cold glow of the monitors, each one displaying a battlefield of numbers, graphs, and blinking red alerts. Emma’s fingerprints were everywhere—rumors planted in whispers among the board, media outlets subtly swayed, investors panicked—but I refused to show weakness. My hand tightened around the receiver. “You haven’t even scratched the surface of what I can do.”Silence. I knew she was listening, enjoying every millisecond of my fury. And I hated that I cared. Hated that she still had the power to pull me into a game I couldn’t play openly, not while Sabrina’s safety hung in the balance.I slammed the receiver down and leaned back, hands braced against the desk. My chest ached—not from the numbers, not from the crumbling empire—but from the absence of her. Sabrina. The thought of her, safely removed from this chaos, yet utterly unreachable, twisted inside me

“They think they can break me?” I muttered, voice sharp, eyes narrowed as I stared at my reflection in the black glass of the city skyline outside my window. The office lights of the high-rise across from mine twinkled, a mockery of the world I had just decided to take by storm. My heart still ached, still throbbed for Drake Peterson, but the ache was no longer paralyzing—it was fuel.I leaned over my desk, hands shaking slightly as I opened the first of the encrypted files I had requested from old contacts in the industry. Every client, every portfolio, every insider note that hinted at Emma Brookes’ manipulations and the subtle erosion of Drake’s empire—I had it all. And now… it was time to act.I smirked, a dangerous curve of my lips. Let her underestimate me. Let everyone underestimate me. That’s their first mistake.I began drafting my first moves, carefully, calculatingly. The investors who had been subtly nudged by Emma’s whispers? I would counter them with data t

“Why does heartbreak always sound like a dare instead of an ending?”The words slipped from my lips before I could stop them, whispered into the stillness of my tiny apartment like a confession meant for the walls. The city outside hummed with distant traffic, but inside, everything felt suspended—breath, time, pain, hope—caught between what I had lost and what I didn’t yet know how to build.I stared at the blank sketchpad in front of me.Blank, just like my future.Or maybe… not.I exhaled slowly and picked up my pencil.My fingers trembled. Not from fear—no, from pressure. The kind that came when your soul was crowded with too many emotions and nowhere to pour them. Rage. Loss. Love. Obsession. Grief. Longing. Desire. The ghost of Drake Peterson’s voice still echoed in my head, his last cold words looping endlessly.Take the money. Leave. Disappear.So I did.I left his world.But I didn’t leave myself.The pencil touched paper.A soft, hesitant line curved across the page. Then an

“You’re late.”“I know,” I said breathlessly, shoving the glass door open with my shoulder while juggling three boxes of materials. “But the supplier changed the drop-off time and—”“And you still look like you fought a dragon,” Lila finished, eyeing my smudged jeans and paint-streaked hands.“Details.”The small office smelled like fresh wood, metal dust, and ambition. Sunlight poured through the tall windows, illuminating half-built tables, scattered tools, and sketches taped messily across the walls. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t polished. But it was alive.My dream had a heartbeat now.And today, I was about to bring in the people who would help keep it alive.Three chairs stood in front of my desk—mismatched, secondhand, slightly crooked. I’d spent hours arranging the space to look professional despite our limited budget. The chipped table now gleamed. The walls were freshly painted. Even the cheap coffee machine hummed optimistically.“You nervous?” Lila asked, leaning against

“Who the hell even is Mendoza?”I froze mid-step, my hand hovering over the boutique’s glass door, as the words echoed through the chic SoHo showroom. The voice belonged to a sharply dressed woman in her forties, a buyer whose reputation had built and broken careers in a single lunch meeting. She clicked her pen deliberately against her pristine notebook, the sound like a metronome counting down my professional death.I swallowed, forcing my expression into calm professionalism. “I’m Sabrina Mendoza,” I said, letting my voice steady itself even though my heart was hammering like a drum in my chest. “I represent my own line, Mendoza Luxe. I believe our pieces could complement your boutique perfectly.”Her laugh wasn’t just dismissive—it was the kind that carved spaces in your soul, that made you question your existence in front of her. “Complement?” she repeated, rolling the word as if it were sour on her tongue. “Sweetheart, you’re unknown. I don’t do unknowns. I do what sells. And I