The Heiress No One Wanted のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 49

Rosalie's POVVanessa turned and walked away like she'd just won something, giving her hair a toss, practically bouncing into the building. I stood there frozen, her words running on a loop in my head.Combined with how Lucian had been acting lately… I stared down at my coffee without seeing it. You already knew, didn't you? When he said we're still husband and wife — that was all it meant. Just fulfilling the terms. It was always just that. So what exactly were you expecting?But Vanessa saying it out loud like that — it stripped something off me. Some layer I'd been keeping carefully in place. Right now I had one card to play, and if my parents found out things with Lucian weren't actually good—Even bracing for the worst didn't settle anything. I was off all day, couldn't land anywhere.By the time work ended, I genuinely didn't want to move. Didn't want to walk into that dinner — me and Lucian sitting at my parents' table, making conversation, which sounds simple enough, except V

Rosalie's POV"Okay, what's going on with you?" Kate caught me in the break room and gave me a look. "Something good happen?""Nothing — just work, same as always."She squinted. "Nope. Your face is glowing."I touched my cheek. "It's probably just my blush today.""That is not blush." She raised an eyebrow, clearly enjoying herself. "I'm guessing your husband did something that put you in a good mood."Last night came back to me and my face went warm before I could stop it."See!" Kate laughed."Stop it."We were going back and forth, talking about what was going on in procurement, both of us laughing — and then Kate just stopped. Went completely still. I followed her eyes.Vanessa. Arms crossed, expression dark, staring at us."Good morning, Vanessa — sorry, were we being too loud?" Kate assumed it was her fault.Vanessa walked straight past her like she wasn't there and stopped in front of me. "Come with me. We need to talk."I glanced at Kate's uncomfortable face, then looked back

Rosalie's POV"You think the boss is gonna fire Rosalie outright?""He's at that industry conference — probably won't be back till the afternoon.""Isn't this too small to get fired over?""Small? His daughter got humiliated. How is that small?"Then a quieter voice pushed through the crowd. "Rosalie isn't like that."I turned. Kate, face flushed, talking to the people around her. "Don't take sides before you actually know what happened."The murmuring dropped a little.Celia looked at her. "Think carefully about where you're standing, Kate

Rosalie's POVTheir voices dropped after that and I didn't catch the rest.Lunch with Max moved fast. I'd expected it to stay polite and surface-level, but he was good at finding things to talk about. Turned out we'd both gone to school on the West Coast — we ended up trading stories about a terrible Italian place we'd both made the mistake of trying, and what we'd do on weekends, including this old bowling alley that was basically a college institution. The conversation closed the distance between us quickly, and pulled up memories of that time in my life I hadn't thought about in a while.Things were simpler back then. I didn't know yet that the parents I'd grown up with weren't my birth parents. None of it was this complicated.Max pushed pasta around his plate. "You ever think about going back to visit? You've probably got people from school still out there."I touched my cheek. "Actually yeah — maybe next month? Once I get through this one big design project, things should ease