Chapter 101 — Sunday Dinners

Mara POVThe first Sunday my father comes to the estate, I spend the entire drive over inventing reasons it might go badly.They have never been in the same room. Gregory Cross, who built a company on the principle that control was love, and Thomas Quinn, who spent two years learning to want things he used to take for granted. They are, by any reasonable measure, not obvious candidates for friendship.I share none of this with Lucien, because he would give me the look, and I'm not in the mood for the look.The look would be correct, but still.Gregory meets us at the door, which he doesn't usually do. He nods at me, ruffles Eliana's hair in the careful way he's been practicing for three months — he takes it seriously, the hair-ruffling — and then he looks at Thomas in the wheelchair and says, "Thomas." Extends his hand.Thomas takes it. "Gregory." His grip, I notice, is firm. "Nice place.""It's too large," Gregory says. "Come in."That's it. That's the whole introduction. They go ins

Chapter 102 - Home

Mara POVSurprisingly, Gregory was so happy about the suggestion; The renovation takes four months, which is faster than anyone expected and slower than my father wanted, because Thomas Quinn at sixty-two with returning use of his legs is not a patient project manager.He has opinions about the kitchen layout. Strong opinions. He relays these to the contractor through Rosario, who has become both his physical therapist and his unofficial communications director in the way that happens between people who have spent a great deal of time together achieving something difficult.Gregory has opinions about the connecting garden wall. Specifically about the gate.The contractor, a calm man named David, calls Lucien on a Thursday evening to say that one of the primary clients has strong opinions about the gate hardware and could Mr. Cross perhaps come by.Lucien goes to the estate the next morning and finds Gregory with three hardware catalogues open on the table and a very specific vision, a

Chapter 103 - Ever After

Mara POVThe table seats fourteen now, which requires the two long tables pushed together and a rotation of who brings what, managed by Diana on a shared spreadsheet and which Helena has declared "excessively organized," and which she follows anyway.It's a Sunday in July, warm enough that the garden doors are open, the light going gold in the way that July light does in the early evening — not dramatic, not trying, just the color of a day that has been good and knows it.I used to count bills the way other people count blessings. $847,000. $1.2 million. $500,000. Numbers that lived behind my eyes when I tried to sleep. Now I count chairs around a table and find that I have run out of room.Diana is on the phone in the corner of the garden, talking to someone in Edinburgh who has, over the past eight months, evolved from "a colleague" to "someone she works closely with" to simply a name we all know now and don't comment on, because we have learned from watching Diana that the fastest w

All Chapters of The Billionaire’s Debt Bride: Chapter 101 - Chapter 103

Chapter 101 — Sunday Dinners

Chapter 102 - Home

Chapter 103 - Ever After