บททั้งหมดของ His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns: บทที่ 281 - บทที่ 290

[POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Home / Eleanor's Office]Eleanor read the forty-seven pages in forty minutes.Lewis sat across from her in her office and drank the coffee her assistant had brought and waited. Eleanor read with a pen in her hand, marking pages without expression, which was how she always read documents that were going to require her to dismantle them.She finished. Set it down. Capped the pen."It's not as strong as he wants you to think it is," she said."Tell me what it actually says.""He's claiming that you used Sterling Industries resources to fund a coordinated campaign to suppress Sienna Park's professional reputation following her stalking conviction. He argues that her conviction was itself influenced by your legal team's conduct, specifically that evidence was shaped rather than discovered." She flipped to a marked page. "He's also claiming emotional distress on Sienna's behalf, which he's funding as a third-party claimant because Sienna agreed to sign o

[POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Neutral Café, Stockbridge]Sienna had chosen the meeting place herself.A small café in Stockbridge, the kind that had mismatched chairs and served good coffee and attracted nobody who worked in finance or law. Lewis arrived first and sat facing the door, which was habit.She came in at ten past nine. He almost didn't recognize her.Not because she'd aged badly — she hadn't. She looked well, actually. But the particular quality she'd always carried, that sharp constructed-for-attention energy, was gone. She wore a plain coat, no visible effort, the look of someone who had stopped performing for rooms she entered.She sat across from him."Thank you for coming," she said."Thank you for the warning."The server came. They both ordered coffee. The small ritual of that gave the silence somewhere to go."Why did you pull out?" Lewis asked. He kept his voice neutral. Not hostile, not warm. Just direct."Because Morton told me what he was using the lawsu

[POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Grace's Bedroom]Grace's bedroom had a system.Lewis had known this in the abstract for years — Yessica had mentioned it, the other children had complained about it — but sitting in it for the first time with nowhere else to be, he understood it properly.The books were organized by colour, not subject. The drawings on the wall were arranged by what Grace called "feeling" — the cheerful ones near the window, the serious ones above the desk, the ones that were "both at the same time" in the corner by the door. Her stuffed animals occupied a specific shelf in a specific order that Grace had explained once and expected never to explain again."The green ones are on the left because green is a morning colour," Grace told him now, following his gaze."What's an afternoon colour?"She considered this with the focused attention she brought to questions she found genuinely worth answering. "Yellow. Or that orange that's almost yellow. Not proper orange. Pr

[POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Bedroom]He waited until the house was quiet.Grace asleep. Ethan in his room with the light still on, probably reading. Rose's door closed, the faint sound of music through it — a sign she was okay, not shutting out, just existing.He found Yessica in their bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed with her phone in her lap and the particular stillness that meant she was doing nothing on purpose.Lewis closed the door. Sat beside her."Grace said something to me two nights ago," he said. "She said you seemed tired in a way that isn't regular tired." He paused. "And Ethan said he saw you in the garden late. Sitting alone after you thought everyone was asleep."Yessica looked at the phone in her hands."Both of them noticed," Lewis said. "Independently. Within two days.""They're observant children.""Yes. Because you raised them to be." He kept his voice quiet. "Yessica. Talk to me."She set the phone on the nightstand. Turned it face-down. Crossed h

[POV: Rose] [Location: Edinburgh — Front Garden / Kitchen]She'd heard what he said.The whole speech was for you.She stood in the front garden with the sketchbook in her hands and told herself it wasn't a big deal. Claire was dramatic. Claire made everything into a thesis. It didn't mean anything specific.But her hands weren't working properly anymore and the drawing she'd been doing of the neighbor's gate looked wrong and she couldn't find where she'd gone off."Come inside," Lewis said. "I'll make tea.""I'm fine out here.""I know. Come inside anyway."She followed him in because arguing would have required a reason and she didn't have one.He made tea the way he always made it — without asking how she wanted it, because he already knew. Milk, no sugar, the bag left in for exactly long enough. He put it in front of her and sat across the table and didn't say anything immediately, which was something she'd started to appreciate about him in the last two weeks.He didn't fill sil