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Todos os capítulos de The Playboy's Forced Bride: Capítulo 61 - Capítulo 70

140 Capítulos

Chapter 62: What Innocent Looks Like

He did not know I was watching.The open study door had become so normal that neither of us thought about it anymore. He left it open because he no longer felt the need to close himself off. I walked past it because this was my home now, and the hallway belonged to both of us.But on Wednesday afternoon, I passed the door and stopped.Adrian sat at his desk with his back mostly turned to me. The room was completely quiet.On his screen, I could see part of the Hargreave correspondence file.I stood in the hallway and watched him.He worked through the documents the same way I did.That was what hit me first. Not what he was reading, but how he read it. He opened one file and kept it on screen while he pulled up another. He did not read straight through; he compared them and looked for places where things did not match. He went back and checked again. He flagged something, then removed the flag, then flagged it once more. He was being careful. He refused to trust his gut alone; he want

Chapter 63: The Story She Would Write

I started writing at midnight.I told myself it was not for filing. I needed to see the story clearly. There is a difference between raw evidence and a real story that people can understand, I had done this before with other investigations. You put it all together in sentences to feel its true shape, the writing helps you know what you really have.That is what I told myself.I opened a blank document.The words came fast.When a story is truly complete, it almost writes itself. I had carried these pieces for so long, in bits and pieces inside that boring folder, that once I started they flowed with their own energy. The opening lines came in two clean sentences, the structure fell into place without much effort.I wrote about Dominic first.The shell companies and different countries they moved through. The planning approval that should have taken two years but got pushed through in eleven weeks. The two officials whose bank accounts expanded right after that transaction. I kept the

Chapter 64: Living in the Gap

I started noticing the gap.It was not something I planned. It just happened, the same way I noticed the coffee cup being two inches off. Slowly at first, then all at once, until I could not stop seeing it.The gap between who I really was and who Adrian thought I was.I saw it everywhere now.Monday morning he sat across from me at breakfast. He had his coffee and was scrolling through his phone. He looked up and said something funny about the news. I laughed and answered back. We had three minutes of easy talk that felt like the best part of my day.But underneath it all, the folder was still hidden on my laptop. The story I wrote and deleted at midnight was gone, but the truth behind it remained. Nathaniel was probably still watching my movements. The gap sat between us like an invisible wall.I was two people in the same body. The woman who laughed at his dry jokes across the breakfast table and the woman who came here with a secret investigation and a contract that was always mea

Chapter 65: The Choice

I wrote it down.Not the full story, nor the four thousand words I had written and deleted before. It was just the choice itself, the choice in my heart. I needed to see it on paper, I needed to stop carrying it only in my head.Two lines in the small notebook I kept hidden in my bag.Finish it, file it, and leave. Or tell him, trust him, and stay.I stared at those two lines for a moment.Then I closed the notebook.I had been thinking about this for weeks, and months. If I were really honest. I had dressed it up with professional excuses, like timing, and missing pieces. The need for more information about Hargreave’s plans. But sitting there in the sitting room on a Thursday evening with the notebook on my knee, I finally saw the truth.I had been using those excuses to avoid the real reasons.And the real reasons were the ones that mattered most.The first path was the one I had always planned. I had finished the last pieces on Hargreave’s investigation, which took about two or t

Chapter 66: Hargreave Moves

I took the call in my room.Three minutes after the message came through, I closed the door, sat on the edge of the bed, and answered. My contact’s voice was sharp and urgent in my ear.“It moved tonight,” she said. She never wasted time when things were happening. “Proxy documents were filed with the registrar two hours ago. We caught it because one of our people was doing a late check.”“What kind of proxy?” I asked.“Financial controls. It targets the oversight committee for the Hargreave-Dominic joint structure. Someone is trying to shift the chair position.”I stayed quiet for a second. “Hargreave.”A short pause on her end. “How did you know?”I did not answer that. “What is the target?”“Full transfer of oversight authority. If this goes through, he takes control of the audits, the reporting, and who gets hired for external reviews. Dominic loses every way he has to track what is moving through their shared accounts.”I stood up and walked to the window. I needed to be on my fe

Chapter 67: Adrian Asks

Adrian POVI knew something was wrong before the proxy filing even happened.After eleven years of building things, you develop an awareness of the structures you created. Something in the pattern of the last seventy-two hours felt off. Not loud or obvious. Nothing I could point to in a single document or conversation, just a change in the pattern. I had been in the files since six in the morning.At noon, I had confirmed what I suspected earlier. The proxy documents were filed with too much care. The language was too precise, the timing was too perfect. This was not something thrown together quickly. Someone had planned this for months. Someone knew exactly what they wanted to hit and had built something strong enough to survive.The target was the oversight committee.The same committee Dominic chaired.I leaned back in my chair and looked at everything I had gathered. I felt the shape of it with the part of me that had learned to read situations from the inside out, not just the s

Chapter 68: Convergence

I barely slept that night.Maybe three or four hours. I was kind of restless. I was up long before the city woke up, sitting at the small desk with my laptop open. The timeline document was on the screen, and I kept running the numbers, trying to figure out how much time we actually had.There was not much time left again.Hargreave’s move against the board gave his lawyers seventy-two hours to lock things down. That meant Adrian’s team had the same short window to understand what they were fighting. Everything was speeding up fast now. Information was about to crash together from every direction.I figured I had about forty-eight hours before it all collided, whether I was ready or not.I opened the folder named Q3 Vendor Review.The shape of the problem had become clearer during the night.Adrian was working the Hargreave thread from the board side. He had the proxy documents, the legal setup, and the corporate records. His access was real and his instincts were sharp, he was three

Chapter 69: Dominic Suspects

The dinner was Adrian’s idea.It was not really about family or friendship. Adrian never did things just for show. If you looked at the guest list, the real purpose was clear. Dominic was there, two board members whose votes would matter in the coming fight. A lawyer who was supposed to look like he was there by chance, but he was not. It was the kind of dinner that looked warm and casual on the surface but worked like a strategy meeting underneath. The important talk happened in the quiet spaces between the words.I had been to enough of these dinners to know my part. I was supposed to be present, warm, and quiet. The kind of person who made the room feel more relaxed without drawing attention to herself. I had gotten good at it over the months.Tonight the tension underneath my performance was stronger than ever.Dominic arrived last.That was unusual, he was always early, it was one of his habits. He liked to be in the room first so he could study everything before others settled i

Chapter 69 A: Vivienne Reveals

The call came at eleven at night from a blocked number.I almost did not answer. But something made me pick up.“Harper.”I knew the voice before she said anything else.“Vivienne,” I said.“I wanted to call before you worked it out yourself,” she said. “It would have taken you another week perhaps two. I did not see the point in waiting.”I sat up straight at the kitchen table.“You sent the messages,” I said.“Yes.”The directness of it was almost startling.“Why?” I asked.“Because Dominic needed to be exposed before he could point at me,” she said. Her voice stayed the same. “I have spent fifteen years married to a man who plans for everything. Even his own fall. If the fraud came out from an investigation he did not expect, he would not have time to turn the story toward the people close to him. That included you. It also included me.”“You used me.”“I gave you information you needed and could not have found as quickly on your own,” she said. “That is not the same thing as usin

Chapter 70: What Adrian Doesn’t Say

He didn’t sleep that night.I knew because I couldn’t sleep either. The apartment felt different in the early hours. Adrian was on the other side of the wall, wide awake. I could feel it.I stayed in my room.Around two in the morning, I heard him move to the study room gently, unhurried. He was working through his problems alone. That was how he handled things. He sat with papers and his own sharp mind until he figured out a way forward.I lay there in the dark, listening to the quiet sound, but I didn’t go to him. That was my choice.At seven, he was at the table with fresh coffee ready, and documents spread out in neat piles. The order of the papers told me he had spent hours sharpening his thoughts thoroughly. He looked tired, not just from one bad night. This was deeper. The kind of exhaustion that comes from carrying a heavy load for days. The board fight, the Hargreave files, the proxy vote, and all the hidden pieces underneath. He had managed it all with his usual calm face, b

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