All Chapters of Once Discarded, I Married His Dearest Daddy: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The limestone walls of Villa Seraphina were still radiating the day’s heat, but inside, the air conditioning kept everything at a crisp, artificial cool. Diane stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the master suite. She had already unpinned the Bourbon brooch. It sat on the vanity like a pile of fallen stars. The emeralds were gone too, leaving her neck feeling strangely light, exposed.She let the heavy silk of her gala dress hit the floor. It made a soft, expensive sound.In the reflection, she looked like a woman who had won, but her eyes were still scanning for the next move. Always the next move. She pulled on a robe of sheer, midnight-blue lace that didn't hide much and didn't intend to.Damien was out on the terrace. He was still wearing his tuxedo trousers, but he’d ditched the jacket and the tie. He looked out over the Mediterranean, a glass of vintage cognac in his hand. He looked like a king surveying a kingdom he was finally enjoying.Diane walked out, her ba

By midday, the high-altitude glamour of the executive floor felt like a different planet compared to the damp, fluorescent reality of the fourth floor. Marcus had spent three hours sitting in a cubicle that smelled faintly of industrial carpet cleaner and despair. His neighbor, a guy named Gary who wore short-sleeved button-downs, had spent the entire morning asking Marcus if he knew how to unjam the communal printer.Then the email came. A calendar invite. 12:15 PM: Performance Review. Office of the CSO.Marcus walked back up the stairs. He refused to take the elevator; he needed the burn in his legs to distract him from the humiliation roasting his insides. He pushed through the double doors, expecting Sarah to stop him, but she just gave him a pitying look and gestured toward the inner sanctum.Diane was sitting behind her desk. She didn't have her feet up this time. She was surrounded by hard copies of spreadsheets, a red pen held loosely in her fingers like a conductor’s baton.

The dining room at the Hotel de Paris was suffocatingly intimate. It was one of those private salons where the walls were covered in padded silk, designed to absorb the sound of high-stakes negotiations or multi-million-dollar arguments. Tonight, it felt like an interrogation room with better lighting.Marcus kept his head down, watching the candlelight dance across the surface of his heavy crystal glass. He was drinking a vintage Bordeaux, but it tasted like ash. Every time he took a sip, he looked at his ex-wife over the silver rim.Diane was a vision in slate grey. She was sitting so close to Damien that their shoulders touched every time he laughed.And then there were the Langs. Arthur and Eleanor Lang sat across the table, looking like two people who had accidentally boarded the wrong flight. They were old money, Singapore shipping wealth, but tonight they looked fragile. Beside them sat Sophia. She hadn't touched her truffles. She was gripping her salad fork like a weapon, he

The rain had stopped, leaving the asphalt of the baseline road near Roquebrune glistening like a fresh coat of lacquer. Sarah sat in the driver’s seat of a rented, completely generic grey Peugeot. She had turned off the ignition, the only sound inside the car being the rhythmic, metallic tink-tink-tink of the cooling engine.She had a long lens camera resting on the passenger seat. Her hands were cold, but her focus was total.For two days, she’d been tracking a secondary mobile number that had cropped up on Sophia’s billing data, an old perk from when Sophia still had corporate administrative access. The logs showed three calls to a private security firm in Nice. A firm that specialized in "discreet corporate intelligence." Or, to put it plainly, blackmail material.Sarah adjusted her rearview mirror.A sleek black Mercedes SUV pulled up across the narrow street, parking half on the pavement near an abandoned stone fountain. The door opened. Sophia stepped out, her head covered in

The sun didn’t rise so much as it just made the fog over the marina turn a sickly, bruised yellow.Marcus hadn’t slept. Not a wink. He’d spent the whole night pacing the length of his living room, his bare feet sticking slightly to the expensive hardwood floors he was three months behind on paying for. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw those numbers blinking on his screen.0-4-4-2-9-1.It was like a magic spell. A sequence that was going to erase Diane from his life forever. By 6:00 AM, he was already in his car, driving too fast through the winding streets, his throat raw from too much caffeine and a pack of cigarettes he’d bought at a 24-hour petrol station.He didn’t go to the fourth floor. He went straight to the law offices of Lang, Sterling & Associates.Sophia was already there, sitting in a leather chair that looked too big for her. "Did you get the verification?" she asked before the door even fully closed behind him.Marcus tossed the crumpled piece of notepad paper on