All Chapters of In Love With The Hot Billionaire.: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

95 Chapters

~Problem Solved~

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINECamille's POV The penthouse was completely still by three in the morning.I sat cross-legged on the bed with the laptop balanced on my knees and the black card on the duvet beside me and I looked at both of them in the dark.The card caught the glow of the laptop screen and held it. Such a small thing. Matte black, minimal, the kind of card that did not need to announce itself because what it represented did the announcing on its own. He had placed it on the table between us without hesitation, without asking the number, without doing any of the calculations that any reasonable person would perform before sliding their resources across a table toward someone else's problem.‘I didn't ask the amount.’ Oh how my stomach did a little flip when he said that.I picked it up. Turned it over in my fingers. Set it back down.I had been sitting here for forty minutes already, the laptop open to the transfer portal Julien had sent in one of his earlier messages, the one th

~It's Thursday~

CHAPTER EIGHTYCamille's POV The light had barely touched the curtains when the phone buzzed.I was already half awake, the way I had been most of the night, skating the surface of sleep without going under properly. I reached for the phone with the automatic dread that had become my first morning instinct and read the notification and felt my stomach drop.It was from Julien.Then I saw a screenshot. The transfer confirmation I had deleted at three in the morning now resurrected in his hands, the reference number and the amount and the timestamp all clearly visible. He had taken a screenshot and sent it back to me like a trophy.Below it, one line.‘Smart move. But you still owe me for the years I put up with you. Consider this interest.”I stared at it.I read it twice. I read it three times. Something moved through me that started in my chest and worked its way outward and entirely unlike the fear that had been living in that space for weeks. This was not fear. Fear was what he ha

~One Million~

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONEI did my hair the Sunday way.It took longer than usual because my hands were not entirely cooperative this morning, still carrying some residual trembling from last night and from Julien's message and from the general accumulated weight of the past several weeks settling into my fingers like something physical. I stood at the mirror and worked through it slowly, section by section, until it fell the way Noé had specified, soft and wavy, the way that had apparently been reported to Luca as evidence of effort.When I was done I looked at my reflection for a moment.I looked like someone who had slept three hours and cried into a pillow and sent a text to her ex husband at dawn that she did not regret but would probably think about for a long time. I looked like someone wearing the blue dress with the buttons that a seven year old had selected with the authority of a person who knew things.I looked, underneath all of that, like someone who was going to have to say th

~Protected~

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWOHe was still looking at me over those glasses.The card rested in his hand and the distance between us felt dangerously small. The towel remained wrapped low around his hips exactly as it had been since he stood up. His bare chest rose and fell with steady breaths, the damp skin catching the light from the monitor, the tattoo across his shoulder and arm standing out boldly against all that exposed muscle and strength.I waited for him to say something.He said nothing for long enough that the silence became its own kind of pressure, the specific weight of a man who understood that most people would fill quiet with words if you let it stretch, and who had apparently decided to let it stretch until I did exactly that.I did not fill it.I was learning.Then he leaned forward slightly, gray eyes sharp behind the dark frames."What did you say earlier, Camille?"The question caught me off guard again. Heat flooded my face as I remembered the soft curse that had slipped

~Chosen For Me~

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREEI made it back to my room on legs that were still not entirely trustworthy.What I had encountered had left something buzzing under my skin that I could not name and did not want to examine too closely, a frequency that had settled into my chest somewhere between *dismissed* and the way his hand had closed around the card. I pressed my palm flat against my sternum for a moment, standing in the middle of my room, and breathed until the buzzing quieted to something manageable.Then I saw the bed.I stopped.The clothes were laid out with a care that was immediately, unmistakably not Margot's doing. Margot was efficient and thorough and arranged things with the brisk practicality of someone working through a list. This was different. This had been considered.A cream blouse, so soft that when I touched it the fabric moved like water under my fingers. A tailored midi skirt in a warm ivory, the weave of it with a give to it that I recognized as deliberate. A light coat

~At The School~

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOURThe school gates were already busy when we arrived.Noé walked through them like someone who had been anticipating this moment for days, which he had, his chin slightly lifted, his school bag riding his shoulder with more dignity than usual. He had been preparing for this the way he prepared for things that mattered, with the focused energy of someone who had arranged something and intended to see it through properly.Other parents were gathered in clusters near the entrance, the particular social geometry of a school morning, familiar groupings and established conversations. I felt them notice us before I saw them noticing. The slight shift in attention, the way conversations paused and eyes moved and the noticing was done with the polite subtlety of people who had been raised to stare without appearing to.Then the staring became considerably less subtle.It started with the group of mothers nearest the gate. One of them looked up, clocked Adrien in the dark suit

~Best Team Ever ~

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVELunch was laid out in the main hall, long family tables dressed with the cheerful effort of a school that had been planning this for weeks. Noé navigated us to a table with the authority of someone who had scouted the location in advance, which knowing Noé was not outside the realm of possibility.We sat. Noé between us initially, then migrating to my side when the food arrived, which meant Adrien was across the table and slightly to the left, close enough that the quiet logistics of the meal required a constant low level of coordination. Passing things. Fielding Noé's questions. Responding to whatever he was currently narrating, which had moved from the memory box to a detailed account of why his tower design during the earlier activity had been structurally superior to Felix's despite Felix's claims to the contrary."Felix used too many big blocks at the top," Noé explained to neither of us specifically. "Everyone knows the heavy things go at the bottom. It's gra

~The Weight Of Pretending~

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIXThe group photo was Miss Claire's idea.She arranged us with the practiced efficiency of a woman who had been herding families into configurations for years, parents behind, children in front, everyone close enough together that the frame would capture the warmth she had decided the morning deserved to be remembered by. Other families shuffled into position with the mild cooperative chaos of the end of a long day.Noé had different ideas."No," he said, when Miss Claire gestured him toward the front row. "We're doing a family hug one."Miss Claire blinked. "A family hug one?""All together. Close." He looked at us with the authority of a director who had already visualized the shot. "Papa on one side, Camille on the other, me in the middle. And an actual hug. Not a standing near each other one.""Noé," I said."It's a family photo," he said simply. "It should look like a family."There was no reasonable argument against the logic of this. Adrien looked at me with an

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

The school gates were already busy when we arrived.Noé walked through them like someone who had been anticipating this moment for days, which he had, his chin slightly lifted, his school bag riding his shoulder with more dignity than usual. He had been preparing for this the way he prepared for things that mattered, with the focused energy of someone who had arranged something and intended to see it through properly.Other parents were gathered in clusters near the entrance, the particular social geometry of a school morning, familiar groupings and established conversations. I felt them notice us before I saw them noticing. The slight shift in attention, the way conversations paused and eyes moved and the noticing was done with the polite subtlety of people who had been raised to stare without appearing to.Then the staring became considerably less subtle.It started with the group of mothers nearest the gate. One of them looked up, clocked Adrien in the dark suit, and her conversati

CHAPTER EIGHTY EIGHT

I made it back to my room on legs that were still not entirely trustworthy.What I had encountered had left something buzzing under my skin that I could not name and did not want to examine too closely, a frequency that had settled into my chest somewhere between *dismissed* and the way his hand had closed around the card. I pressed my palm flat against my sternum for a moment, standing in the middle of my room, and breathed until the buzzing quieted to something manageable.Then I saw the bed.I stopped.The clothes were laid out with a care that was immediately, unmistakably not Margot's doing. Margot was efficient and thorough and arranged things with the brisk practicality of someone working through a list. This was different. This had been considered.A cream blouse, so soft that when I touched it the fabric moved like water under my fingers. A tailored midi skirt in a warm ivory, the weave of it with a give to it that I recognized as deliberate. A light coat in pale camel that w

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