บททั้งหมดของ The Replacement Wife : บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

CHAPTER 41: SLEEP DEPRIVATIONSleep deprivation is a special kind of torture, and Helena Grace Laurent is a surprisingly effective torturer for someone who weighs seven pounds.She wakes at three in the morning the way she wakes at every other hour: completely, urgently, with the full conviction of someone whose needs are the only needs that exist.I'm already sitting up before I'm fully conscious. Two weeks of this has rewired something in my brain, some alarm system that now operates independently of actual sleep. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and realize Dominic isn't there.I find him in the nursery, standing at the changing table in the dark with the focused expression of a man performing a task that requires concentration. Helena is on the mat, unhappy about the situation, making her feelings known. He has the tab of the new diaper half-fastened and his hands are moving with the particular careful speed of someone who has done this enough times to have a meth

CHAPTER 43: THE TAKEOVER THREATNothing kills a peaceful family dinner quite like discovering someone's trying to steal your husband's company.Dominic is on the phone before the TV screen finishes loading the headline. He's moved to the study, pacing the length of it in the way he paces when he's managing something that requires physical containment, his voice low and clipped through the half-open door.I sit with Helena in the sitting room and watch the financial ticker scroll. Thirty percent of Laurent Industries shares, purchased through what the news anchor is describing as multiple investment vehicles. The bid values the company at two billion dollars. The buyer is, as of right now, unnamed.Helena is awake and fussing, picking up what the room is broadcasting. Felicity, without being asked, lifts her from my arms."I've got her," she says. "You two figure this out."I look at her once to confirm she means it, and she does, and I go to the study.Dominic is off one cal

CHAPTER 45: ISABELLE'S STORYIsabelle is still here in the morning.I'm the one who made that happen. When Dominic came back from his call at midnight and found her in the sitting room, still holding Mara, still in the coat with the milk stain on the shoulder, he looked at her the way you look at something you want removed. I put my hand on his arm. Not a grab, just a touch. He understood.She's in the guest wing. The baby slept through, apparently. I know because I heard nothing, and in this house I hear everything now.Helena wakes at five-thirty. I feed her, change her, get her settled in the bouncer with the mobile turning above her head. Dominic is asleep, finally, after three in the morning when we both gave up on the Sokolov problem until daylight. I let him sleep.I make coffee and I sit at the kitchen table and I wait.Isabelle comes down at seven. She's cleaned herself up. The coat is gone, replaced with a grey jumper that belongs to the house, one of the spares Mrs.

CHAPTER 47: SOKOLOV'S PLAYThe letter arrives on a Tuesday.Not an email. An actual letter, printed on heavy cream paper with a law firm's letterhead at the top, delivered by courier to Laurent Industries' legal department at 9 AM and sitting on Dominic's desk by nine-fifteen. I know all this because Dominic reads it to me over the phone while I'm feeding Helena, his voice carrying the particular flatness it gets when he is managing something he hasn't yet decided how to feel about.Sokolov's legal team is calling it an acquisition proposal. The language is careful and corporate and very specifically kind. They cite recent performance figures. They cite market conditions. They use the word opportunity four times in two pages, which is the kind of word that means something different depending on which side of the table you're sitting on. From where they're sitting, Laurent Industries is a company that has been through internal turbulence and could benefit from a period of s

CHAPTER 49: THE BURNER PHONEI didn't try to unlock it that night.I stand in the dark hallway for another minute, just holding it, and then I put it back exactly where I found it., deep in the left pocket of Isabelle's coat., and I hang the coat on the rack and go back to bed.I lie there for an hour, not sleeping, the house settling around me in its familiar night sounds.The thing about finding something you weren't supposed to find is that you have two choices. You can use it immediately, when your hands are still warm from it and your mind is still loud. Or you can wait, and think, and decide what you actually want to know before you go looking for it. The second way is harder. It's also the only way to do it without making a mistake you can't take back.I wait.In the morning I get up before anyone else. I feed Helena. I make coffee. I listen to the house, Mrs. Chen's footsteps starting in the kitchen at six-thirty, the water running in the guest wing bathroom at te