บททั้งหมดของ THE HEIRESS GAME;REBIRTH AND RUIN: บทที่ 51 - บทที่ 60

Adeline's POVDevon did not show.I waited for twenty-three minutes in the lobby of Conrad's office building, heels in my hand, the marble floor cold against my bare feet.The security desk empty because it was eleven forty at night and the building was dark except for the emergency lighting and whatever fluorescent strip was running above me like an accusation.Twenty-three minutes.I knew the exact number because I had watched every one of them on the clock above the lifts, willing them to change faster and then slower and then willing Devon to materialise from one of the elevators with a flash drive and an apology.He did not.At midnight I put my heels back on and walked out.I cried in the car.Not the quiet kind. The ugly kind, the kind I had been keeping a tight lid on for approximately six hours while I sat in that bar and ordered two more drinks than I should have.And refused the bartender's cab offer with a confidence that the floor beneath my heels had not entirely support

Adeline's POVThe silence on the drive back was the loudest thing I had heard in weeks.Not the silence of an empty house or a waiting room or a conversation that had run out of words. This was different. Completely still, completely mine.The silence of a woman who had decided something and had not yet opened her mouth to say it but felt the decision settling into her bones like concrete setting.I did not cry.I noticed that. Noted it the way you noted a significant change in a set of numbers.Without drama, just accurately. I had cried in a car park last night and cried in a boardroom two days before that and cried in a hospital corridor and in a bedroom and in my childhood home.And somewhere between Mikhail's front door and the dual carriageway I had apparently run out.First Conrad.Now Mikhail.I was done falling to pieces over men. I had a finite supply of pieces and I could not afford to keep distributing them.I texted the secretary general from the driveway."Running lat

Adeline's POVJackson did not look like a man with good news.He looked like a man with information. Which was different, which was sometimes better and sometimes considerably worse.And I had learned over the past several weeks to tell the difference before I decided how to feel about it."Walk with me," I said.He fell into step beside me without a word.My office was exactly as I had left it that morning.Briefing notes stacked, coffee cold, my father's view sitting outside the window like it was waiting for him to come back and reclaim it. I shut the door, dropped my bag on the chair, and turned to face Jackson."Sit," I said. "Talk."He sat. He had a slim folder with him that he placed on the desk between us but did not open yet."I'll start with the part that's most urgent," he said. "Devon Ashworth is being watched."I kept my face exactly where it was."Watched how," I said."Conrad has people on him. Has had for about a week. Maybe longer, but a week is what I can confirm.

Adeline's POVI did not turn around.I was still holding Mikhail's hand and still shaking from two impacts on a dark highway and the last thing I had any intention of doing was turning around to look at Alice Badger.Standing in a driveway that was not mine in a life I had not asked to be complicated by.Then she spoke."Interesting timing."Two words. Delivered with the particular lightness of a woman who had decided that amusement was more cutting than anger and had been right about that for a long time.The irritation that moved through me was so clean and sudden it almost pushed the fear out entirely.I felt Mikhail's grip around me tighten.The pressure of a man who could read exactly what I was about to do and had decided he wasn't going to let me."It's not safe," he said. And he said it to the general air, which meant he was saying it to Alice as much as to me. "Whatever the reason for the visit, tonight is not the night. It's not safe out there and I am not letting anyone le

Adeline's POVHe was fine.The doctor said it plainly and without preamble.Vitals stable, no structural damage, the spike had been stress-induced and had resolved itself within minutes of us leaving the room. He was fine. He would continue to be fine provided they avoided anything that agitated him and gave his body the uninterrupted rest it was still asking for.I stood there and heard the words and something in me released so suddenly that my stomach turned completely over.I thought it was relief.I made it approximately forty seconds before I knew it was not only relief."Bathroom," I said to no one in particular, and walked fast.Natasha caught the door before it closed.I did not have time to tell her not to. I was already at the basin, and what was left of yesterday's nothing came up quickly and without any of the warning that might have allowed me to handle it with more composure.Her hand gathered my hair back without being asked.The hand of a woman who had done this befor