Semua Bab The Billionaire’s Secret Heir: Bab 31 - Bab 40

Victoria Hartwell had not come to this event for any of the people currently in it.She moved through the cluster of socialites that surged toward her the moment she entered, smiling, nodding, extracting herself with the practiced efficiency of a woman who had been navigating rooms like this for forty years and walked in a straight line toward the one person she hadn't expected to find here.She reached out and took Vivian's hand."I didn't think I'd run into you." The warmth in her voice was entirely genuine. "What a fortunate coincidence."Vivian stared at her.Of all the people who could have walked through that doorWhy, she thought, with a helplessness that had nowhere to go, does the Hartwell family materialize everywhere I go?Victoria caught her expression and laughed, a real laugh, bright and unguarded, pressing Vivian's hand between both of hers. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Last time I wanted to take you to lunch properly, you slipped away before I had the chance." H

The CEO's office at Hartwell Empire Group occupied the entire top floor of one of Midtown Manhattan's most recognizable towers. Floor-to-ceiling glass on three sides. A view of the city that made the rest of the world look small.Cameron Reid had been in it for three hours and was running out of material."I'm just saying" He spread his hands toward the man behind the desk, who had not looked up once in the past forty minutes. "At some point, you have to talk to her. Like, with words. Voluntarily. Without engineering an incident first." He reached for the water glass beside him and drained it. "Are you actually pursuing this woman or are you just cataloguing her reactions to unexpected situations?"The pen moved across the page. Ethan said nothing.Cameron leaned forward. "Has she rejected you? You can tell me. I won't laugh." A beat. "I might laugh a little. But I'll do it quietly."The pen stopped.Ethan looked up.His eyes moved to Cameron with the particular quality of attention t

"I know," Ethan said.There was a smile in his eyes. Not on his mouth, just there, quiet and certain, in the dark depths of his gaze.Vivian buried her face in her coffee mug and drank.He's laughing at me, she thought. He is absolutely, definitely, laughing at me.She drained the rest of her cup in two swallows without tasting any of it, and when she looked up, Ethan's mug was less than half empty.She stood. "I'll get a refill. Stay here."The excuse to remove herself from the immediate vicinity of that expression was the most urgent priority she had right now. Twenty-something years of carefully maintained composure, dismantled in one conversation about instant coffee and coffee mugs. Spectacular.She was halfway to the kitchen when his voice reached her."I'd like to take a bath."Vivian stopped walking.She stood with her back to him and processed this sentence at a speed that was probably visible from the outside.A bath. In her bathroom. Ethan Hartwell wanted to use her bathroo

In the urgency of the moment, the formality dissolved completely.Vivian pressed her palm to his forehead.Pulled it back immediately.Burning. Not warm, burning. The kind of heat that meant the body was fighting something hard and losing ground."You have a fever?" She stared at him. "You were completely fine ten minutes ago. How does someone spike a fever like this in the middle of a shower? That's not"She stopped reasoning about it. Reasoning could happen later."Get up." She got an arm under his and pushed to standing. "I'm taking you to the hospital.""Get out."The words came through his teeth, low, forced, each one clearly costing him something. His hand came up and pushed weakly at her arm, his jaw locked so tight the muscles in his face had gone rigid."Get out.""Absolutely not." Vivian pushed his hand back down and held it there. Her voice came out sharper than she intended, frayed at the edges with something that was trying very hard not to be fear. "You're in my apartmen

He had been watching her since the bathroom.Not obviously. Not the way most people watched, openly, waiting to be caught. But with the quiet, accumulated attention of a man who collected details and held them until they formed a picture.The acupuncture technique that mapped his meridians with the familiarity of someone who had treated this condition before. The herbal preparation sitting ready in her refrigerator, not bought today, not prepared in response to his arrival, but already there, already portioned, already familiar with its own bitterness. The candy produced from her pocket at precisely the right moment, as though she had done this before and knew what came after the medicine.None of it was coincidental.And this condition, his condition, was not something that existed in any database or medical record. He had spent years making certain of that. Every specialist who had seen him had been sworn to discretion. Every search query returned nothing. Whatever this was, it exis