บททั้งหมดของ The Billionaire’s Secret Heir: บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

Vivian held absolutely still.She was essentially a statue at this point, spine rigid, breathing minimal, every muscle in her body committed to the single goal of not disturbing the man whose arm was draped across her waist with the relaxed, unconscious certainty of someone who had found what they were looking for and stopped looking.Time moved strangely in the dark.Her back had begun to register a formal complaint somewhere around the ten-minute mark. By the time the grip around her waist finally, gradually, imperceptibly began to loosen, the long lashes settling still, the tension in his brow smoothing out into something genuinely peaceful, she had lost track of how long she'd been lying there performing her best impression of a throw pillow.The moment the arm went slack, she moved.Slow. Precise. Off the bed, phone retrieved, three careful steps to the door, handle turned with both hands to prevent any soundThe door clicked softly shut behind her.Vivian stood in the hallway an

The night wind hit her face like cold water.The engine underneath her was screaming.Vivian pushed the accelerator all the way down and held it there.Her bike wasn't the Tomahawk. She had built this one herself, sourced the parts, done the modifications, learned what she needed to learn in the years when learning things was the only productive response to having nothing. The engine couldn't match Zachary's on raw power. She knew that going in.She wasn't racing his engine.She was racing his two-minute handicap and every corner he hadn't memorized the way she had.---The track disappeared under her wheels in dark segments, each curve arriving and passing before it fully registered. This was the state she chased when everything else felt like too much, the particular clarity that came when speed reduced the world to the next fifty meters and nothing else had any jurisdiction over her.She had needed this tonight.The plan had been forming since the KT meeting, sharpened through thre

"Alright." Vivian pressed two fingers to her own temple and accepted the situation with the weariness of someone who has run out of better options. "I'll find you something for the fever. Go back to the room and wait, I'll bring water."She looked at his face.A sick Ethan Hartwell, she thought, is considerably more difficult than a healthy one. At least when he was operating at full capacity, the authority was predictable. Like this, fever-flushed, grip on her wrist loose but persistent, jaw set with the stubbornness of someone who refused to admit they felt terrible, he was something else entirely.The grip eased.She went to the bathroom cabinet, found the fever medication on the second shelf, filled a mug with warm water from the dispenser, not too hot, not cold, the temperature that was actually useful and carried it back to the bedroom.The room was dim, the small bedside lamp throwing warm orange light across the familiar space. Her space. Her sheets, her pillow, her particular

Crystal's bravado collapsed so fast it was almost anticlimactic.Vivian had already lost interest."Just wanted to mention," she said, glancing at Crystal's mouth with the detached observation of someone noting a minor detail, "you've got lipstick on your teeth."She turned left into the audio trials room without looking back.Behind her, Crystal's frantic voice chased her through the closing door: "Don't act so smug, Vivian Rong! You think auditioning for the theme song is some brilliant strategy? Keep dreaming! Nobody's going to pick you, you're nobody, you've always been nobody"A woman with a bruised ego, Vivian thought, settling herself at the piano bench, sounds exactly like that.---The staff member running the audio trials had the specific energy of someone counting the minutes until this was over. He handed her a form without looking up from his phone, gestured at the room, and said flatly: "Fill it out, pick an instrument, perform."Vivian took the form, filled it in effici

The game was over.Less than two weeks back in New York, and the careful architecture she had built, the distance, the secret identity, the plan to take Rosie back quietly once the time was right, had collapsed in a single conversation in a VIP lounge.She hadn't been ready.She had planned for more time. Had expected the search for Room 808's occupant to take months, not days. Had operated on the assumption that men like Ethan ran empires, not investigations into one-night encounters from five years ago.The television dramas that depicted CEOs spending decades figuring out who their child's mother was had, she now understood, been setting entirely unrealistic expectations.Ethan watched the realizations move across her face with the patience of a man who had already thought through every branch of this conversation and knew which one they were on."Vivian."She looked at him."Our child needs a complete family."The words landed quietly in the room.Her mind moved fast, old argument