บททั้งหมดของ The Billionaire's Bargain: บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 16

~XAVIERBy the time I stepped into my study, Joe was already there, waiting beside the desk with a tablet in one hand and a slim file in the other.He did not speak immediately, which was one of the reasons I trusted him. He had worked with me long enough to know when silence was more useful than questions.I crossed the room, loosened the knot of my tie, and set the untouched coffee cup I had carried from breakfast on the desk. Through the tall windows behind me, the city stretched wide and confident beneath the morning light, but my attention was no longer on the skyline or the meeting I was meant to prepare for.It was upstairs.On the woman sitting at my dining table with bruises she had not yet stopped trying to hide.“She ate a little,” Joe said at last.I looked up. “A little is better than nothing.”He gave a small nod. “She seems calmer than yesterday.”“She is not calm,” I said, pulling a file toward me without reading it. “She is trying.”Joe said nothing, but the silence b

~SHARONAfter the call ended, I remained seated on the edge of the bed with the phone still pressed against my ear, even though the line had already gone dead.Those words would not stop circling in my head. I had always known James had taken something from me. He had taken my confidence, my peace, my freedom, and the part of me that still believed life could be kind. But hearing Sia say he might have stolen my songs too made the damage feel larger. It meant the loss had not only been emotional. It had been deliberate, planned, and profitable.I lowered the phone slowly and stared at the floor. This was James, the same man who smiled when I cried and locked me away while calling it love. Still, the thought struck me differently because music had once been the only place where I felt most like myself. Even after I stopped singing in public, I kept writing. I told myself it was enough to pour everything into words and melodies and let the world hear them through someone else if I had to

~SHARONMy fingers tightened around the phone until they hurt.You can block the others, Sharon, but hunger always brings you home.For a second, I could not breathe. The room seemed to shrink around me, and every ugly memory attached to James’s voice came rushing back. He did not need to stand in front of me to make my body remember fear. He only needed a screen, a few words, and the confidence that I still belonged to him in some broken way.Xavier took one look at my face and knew something had changed.“What is it?” he asked.I did not answer immediately. I simply held the phone out to him because I did not trust my voice. He took it, read the message once, and lifted his eyes back to mine. His expression changed quietly, like a door shutting somewhere deep behind his face.“He’s using other numbers now,” I said at last.“Yes,” Xavier replied.“He keeps finding me,” I whispered. “Even here.”Xavier set the phone aside. “He is finding your number, not you.”“That does not feel very