All Chapters of The Billionaire's Hidden Price : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Lyra POV I put the ring back on, but that didn't mean I was at peace. Not even close.By midday, the mansion had settled into its usual rhythm. Staff moved quietly through the halls, and security stood at their posts like statues. Everything ran like a machine: precise, efficient, and cold. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I sat at the edge of the window seat in my room, knees pulled to my chest, watching the city below as if it held answers I hadn't yet thought to ask for.My mother was stable. Christopher had confirmed that through a brief, formal message delivered to my phone by someone I didn't ask for. Martin was being monitored, which I hated the sound of but accepted because the alternative was worse. And Alexander Dayn was somewhere in this same building, doing whatever powerful men did when the world wasn't looking.I tried not to think about him, but I failed.—-----------It was the smell that found me first.Rich, warm, and unmistakably coffee. It drifted under the d

Lyra POV I stood in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom that still didn’t feel like mine, tugging at the hem of my simple gray sweater. It was one of the few pieces I’d brought from my old apartment. It was soft, cozy, and worn at the cuffs, nothing like the designer clothes Alexander had filled the closet with. Today, I didn’t want to look like Alexander King’s wife. I just wanted to look like Lyra. Like someone who could walk into a hospital and face her mother without the weight of this ridiculous contract crushing her chest or a lot of people rushing to take my signature.My hands shook a little as I brushed my hair back into a ponytail. Mom had been stable, the nurses said, but stable wasn’t the same as awake and smiling. And Martin… God, Martin. I hadn’t spoken to him properly since the wedding. A few vague texts, that was all. He deserved better. He’d been my rock for years after Dad’s disappearance, through Mom’s illness, and through every late-night worry session

Lyra's POVThe jet smelled like leather and money. It was obvious. I had never been on a private jet before. I didn't know what I expected, something flashy maybe, gold fixtures, and a flight attendant who looked like a model. But it was quieter than that. Much calmer than I expected. The kind of luxury that didn't need to announce itself. Cream seats, soft lighting. A silence so complete you could hear yourself think, which was the last thing I wanted right now. I pressed my forehead against the cold oval window and watched the runway disappear beneath us.Somewhere below, in a private medical facility I had never visited, my mother was sleeping in a bed she hadn't chosen, in a building paid for by a man she had never met. And Martin was sitting in his small apartment with a locked box under his bed that neither of us fully understood yet. And I was here. On a jet bound for Monaco.Wearing another outfit I didn't pick, carrying a bag I didn't buy, sitting across from a man I had marr

Alexander’s POVI found her at twenty past eleven.She was standing near the far end of the corridor where the windows looked out over the water, her back straight, her arms loosely folded. She had one hand pressed flat against the glass, the same way she pressed her palm against the jet window this morning. Like she was taking the temperature of something. Like she was deciding whether it was safe.I had watched Celeste walk away from that corridor fourteen minutes ago.I had given Lyra the time she needed. Now I crossed the corridor and came to stand beside her. She didn't look surprised. She didn't look rattled either, which I had half expected. Instead, she looked the way she looked when she was processing something, quiet and inward and working through it with that relentless private determination that I had come to recognize as distinctly hers."What did she say?" I asked."A version of the truth," Lyra said. "Wrapped in a warning.""Which part do you want to know is real?" I as

Lyra's POV We landed just before four in the morning.I went to the facility before I went anywhere else. The night staff met us at the entrance, and a security team I recognized from the mansion flanked the corridors. The building was quiet and clean and smelled like recycled air and something faintly medicinal. I hated it a little. But it was safe, and "safe" was everything right now to me.My mother's room was at the end of a corridor on the second floor.I pushed the door open slowly. She looked smaller than I remembered. That was always the thing that hit me hardest, the shrinking. The woman who had once seemed like the largest and most permanent thing in my world, lying under hospital sheets looking like something that needed protecting. Her breathing was steady. The monitors beside her beeped in their slow, reliable rhythm. Her hands rested on the blanket, thin-fingered and familiar. I pulled a chair close and sat beside her. I didn't wake her; I only sat close to her.I looke