All Chapters of Three-Years Contract Marriage with the Billionaire : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

LENA'S "No. It didn't work.""Because you're not the scared girl he trained you to be anymore. You're someone else now. Someone stronger. Someone who doesn't shake when he threatens you."I opened my eyes and looked at my mother's headstone."She would have been proud too," I said quietly. "Mom. If she could see me now. Standing up to Dad. Not shaking. Finally telling the truth about what happened.""I think she'd be very proud."We sat there on the grass beside Sophia Carter's grave while Manhattan moved around us in the distance."Thank you for coming," I said finally."Thank you for calling me." Julian helped me to my feet. "You ready to go home?""Almost." I turned to the headstone one more time. "I love you, Mom. And I'm going to make this right. I promise."The wind rustled the trees again.Julian kept hold of my hand as we walked back to the cars.Marcus was already behind the wheel of his vehicle. Julian's driver was waiting by the other car."I'll ride with you," Julian said

Marcus had included it with a brief note: Retrieved from a source inside CPS. This was attached to the welfare concern filed in the fall, approximately four months after Sophia Carter's death. I thought you should see it.I looked at the photograph.It was a school picture. One of those generic ones taken against a sky-blue background, the kind every school takes in September where the kids sit up straight and try to look presentable. Lena was seven. She was wearing a dark blue dress with a white collar, very neat, very carefully put together. Her hair was brushed. She was looking directly at the camera.She wasn't smiling.Children in school pictures almost always smile even when they don't want to because the photographer tells them to and they're obedient. Lena wasn't smiling. She was just looking at the camera with these dark eyes that were absolutely composed, completely still, like she'd already learned at seven years old to give away nothing.Like she'd already learned that the

LENAThe table arrangement was where I spent most of my energy.Diana had done a standard round table configuration, ten tables, ten guests each, the conventional geometry of every formal dinner in the city. It was fine. It worked. It meant that at some point during the evening, every guest would have their back to every speaker, and the room would feel like a restaurant that happened to have a stage.I stood in the middle of the empty floor with Diana's layout diagram in my hand and looked at the room.Thought about what Nate had said when he first described the concept to me: We want donors to feel connected to the cause. Not like they're writing a check and going home.Thought about the difference between an audience and a community."What if we curved them?" I said."Curved the tables?""The configuration. Instead of a grid, a curve. Concentric arcs facing the platform. Closer in the center, spaced wider toward the edges. It changes the geometry of the room, nobody has their back

Lena"You are not stepping back from the gala. You are not stepping back from anything because Cassie Carter went to a tabloid reporter with a story built out of spite and anonymous sources." Something moved behind his eyes. "That's not a conversation we're having.""I know it could affect your reputation…""My reputation has survived significantly worse than a lifestyle section piece in the Herald." He picked up my phone again. Read one section. Set it down. "She photographed you outside the police station.""Yes.""You went there to speak with Detective Martinez.""About my mother." I said it carefully. We hadn't talked extensively about the investigation, he knew the broad shape of it, that I'd gone to the police about Bridget, that there was an ongoing investigation into what had happened the night my mother died. He hadn't pushed for details and I hadn't offered them, which was its own specific kind of consideration that I'd noticed and tucked away. "It's related to what I told y

JULIAN POVThe framing specialist was named Robert Aoki, and he had a studio on the Upper East Side that had been in his family for three generations. I knew of him the way I knew of most specialists in their fields, through the network of people who needed things done correctly and kept track of who could be trusted to do them.He answered on the third ring."Mr. Blackwood." He recognized my number. I'd used him once before, three years ago, for a document restoration. "How can I help you?""I have a photograph," I said. "Black and white. School picture. Approximately twenty years old. There's some age damage, minor discoloration, a crease. I need it restored and preserved.""Of course. Are you looking at a reproduction or preservation of the original?"I looked at the photograph in my hand."Both," I said. "Preservation of the original. And a high-quality reproduction. Archival materials.""Understood. Do you want it framed?"I was quiet for a moment."Yes," I said."Any specificati