All Chapters of His Tamed Wife, The Wild Heiress: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Chapter 81: MortifiedADRIAI was a fool.That was the conclusion I had arrived at, sitting on the edge of the bed upstairs for the thirty seconds between the door closing and Damien's voice coming up from the bottom of the staircase. Thirty seconds was not a lot of time to conduct a thorough self-assessment, but I had been doing this long enough to work efficiently under pressure, and the conclusion was clear.I was a fool, and I had kissed my husband in his kitchen without being asked to, and he had kissed me back in a way that had temporarily removed my ability to think in complete sentences, and then three people had walked in with Thai food and I had fled upstairs like a teenager, and now I was going to have to go back down there and sit in a room with all of them and be a person.Brilliant. Exceptional operational planning.I stood up. Fixed my hair. Composed my face. Did the thing I had been doing for eighteen months, which was arrange myself into the version of myself that cou

Chapter 83: Anything But The ObviousADRIA"I'm changing it," Marcus said, pressing buttons rapidly. The channel cycled through several options—a cooking show, a news segment, an advertisement for insurance—before landing on something sufficiently neutral. A nature documentary. An aerial shot of a coastline.Nothing in the room moved for a moment.Then Robert, in a voice that suggested he was a man who had survived a great many things and intended to survive this one as well, said: "Those are very nice cliffs.""Yes," Thomas agreed, with the energy of someone grabbing a lifeline. "Very dramatic coastline. Where is that?""Norway, I think," Robert said."Looks like Norway.""Could be Iceland.""Iceland's further north."They conducted this conversation about Norwegian or possibly Icelandic cliffs with the dedicated focus of men who had collectively decided that geography was the topic now and geography was going to continue being the topic for as long as required."Marcus," Damien said

Chapter 85: ConfessionADRIA"He was losing until Friday night," Elijah agreed. "The hit and run footage changed things. Him turning in front of a car to shield her—that moved a lot of votes." He paused. "There are currently forty-seven thousand comments on the original poll. I have read a significant portion of them for research purposes. The general sentiment is that Damien is finally acting like a man who deserves her, and people want to see if it continues.""What about Kieran?" I asked."Kieran is still very popular. His percentage went down but his absolute support stayed roughly stable—new voters came in for Damien rather than Kieran losing votes. The dining room clip is still circulating. Someone made a forty-five second edit of every time Kieran and Adriana have been in proximity with a Taylor Swift song over it and it has two point three million views.""Which song?" Sophia asked."Cornelia Street."Sophia put her hand over her mouth."That's a choice," Marcus said."It's a

Chapter 87: ProcessingADRIA"It means," he said carefully, "that whatever you decide, you're not going to come out of this badly. The public sees a woman who has been treated poorly, who has weathered multiple difficult situations with grace, and whose husband is now visibly, publicly trying. Whatever happens next—that's the foundation.""I haven't decided anything," I said."I know," he said. "I'm just making sure you know you have options."Sophia had been quiet for a few minutes, which for Sophia meant she was building toward something. "Can I ask something?""Yes," I said."Last night. After the friends left." She paused. "What happened?"I thought about last night. The house quiet after Marcus and Thomas and Robert had gone. Damien and I in the kitchen cleaning up the takeout containers with the slightly careful awareness of two people who hadn't finished a conversation and both knew it. The way he'd said goodnight at the bottom of the stairs, his hand briefly at my waist, a que

Chapter 89: Refusal To SabotageMARCUS"No," Amber agreed. "They don't. But they also don't have employment histories with gaps that don't match the timeline of their stated activities. And they don't have—" She tapped the folder. "I had someone run a search. Adriana Chen has almost no digital footprint before three years ago. No social media, no old accounts, no mentions in any records before the point where her documented history begins."Robert had stopped looking at his menu. He was looking at Amber with an expression that was more attentive than his usual manner.Thomas was looking at his hands.I was thinking about several things simultaneously. About Adriana in the hospital, feeding Damien grey eggs with the easy competence of someone who was comfortable taking care of people. About her observation on Hanley, delivered in four words, that had been more accurate than anything I'd said to Damien about his board situation in months. About the grocery store video, which I had watch