All Chapters of Beautiful Betrayal: Chapter 191 - Chapter 194

"Sit down."Valduz did.Violetta immediately started fixing his hair with quick, efficient movements, like she was annoyed the world kept falling apart long enough to interrupt her work.Across the room, Perry's keyboard clicked nonstop.Fast.Sharp.Loud enough to scrape against Valduz's nerves.The apartment felt too bright.Too awake.No one here seemed to know how to relax anymore."How is home?" Valduz asked, mostly to break the pressure building inside his head."As bad as expected," Violetta answered without looking at him. "Power struggles. Old rules. Men pretending the world still works the way it did fifty years ago.""Traditionalists," Perry muttered from across the room.Her fingers never stopped typing."They want control without understanding how much the world has already changed.""I get that," Valduz said quietly.Violetta snorted."My father still thinks he's in charge."There was no heat in her voice.Just cold irritation."He isn't.""You talked to him?""A few tim

"Like Nathan," Valduz said quietly. "No one calls me that anymore."Hope Elara frowned, trying to follow where the conversation was going."I use Valduz Ryker now. It reminds people who I am."A bitter smile touched his mouth but never reached his eyes."And who he is."Something changed in his expression.Not fear.More like the tension of someone who had spent too much of his life beneath another man's shadow."Everyone knows I'm his heir," Valduz continued. "And everyone knows what comes with that."But Hope Elara barely heard the rest.One thing he'd said earlier kept echoing in her mind.Her heritage.A cold feeling crept up her spine."What are you hiding from me?" she asked again.This time, Valduz didn't avoid the question."Your heritage."Hope Elara went still.Her heritage.Her mother.The pieces connected so suddenly that she almost stopped breathing."You know something about my mother?"Her voice cracked."And you said nothing?"Disbelief quickly turned into anger."Afte