บททั้งหมดของ THE CONTRACT BRIDE’S REVENGE : บทที่ 101 - บทที่ 110

OLIVIA’S POVThree days of it.That was how long I had been carrying the distance without saying anything about it. Three days of breakfasts that were correct and dinners that were warm enough and conversations that covered the surface of things without going underneath them.Three days of the study door closed at midday.Three days of lying awake in the dark turning the same question over and not arriving at any answer that did not hurt in one direction or another.I had not chased it.I was not going to chase it.Not because I did not want to. Because I understood, at a level below strategy, that chasing Jaden Parker toward something he had decided to step back from would not produce the thing I wanted. It would produce a version of it. A managed, careful, controlled version that arrived because I had pushed rather than because he had chosen.I did not want the version that arrived because I pushed.So I carried the distance.And I got up on the fourth morning and went downstairs an

JADEN’S POVThe article dropped on a Wednesday morning at six forty seven AM.I know the exact time because I was already awake when the notification came through. Not from restlessness. From the specific alertness of someone who had known something was coming and had been sleeping lightly for three days in anticipation of the sound of it landing.I had been in contact with the journalist, Sarah Jules, for six weeks.Not directly. Through a channel clean enough that nothing could be traced back to me in a way that would compromise the story’s independence. The story needed to stand on its own. Needed to be verifiable from the documents themselves without my fingerprints visible on the framing. The moment it became my story rather than the evidence’s story it became something that could be dismissed as vendetta.I had been patient about that.Eleven years of patience had made six weeks feel like nothing.I sat up in bed and opened the article on my phone.Read it once quickly to get th

JADEN’S POVI had watched a lot of press conferences in my career.They were a specific kind of theater. Everyone in the room understood the rules. The person at the podium had prepared for a defined set of questions and was managing the room toward those questions. The journalists had their own agenda and were managing toward that. The cameras were capturing both agendas simultaneously and the audience at home was watching the gap between them.I had watched enough of them to know that the interesting moment was never in the prepared statement.It was always in the gap.The four second pause. The micro shift in posture. The specific quality of silence that fell when a question landed somewhere the preparation had not reached.I stood at the window of my study with Ethan beside me and the television mounted on the far wall playing the Cross family press conference live and I watched for the gap.Ethan had positioned himself slightly to my left. Not beside me exactly. The specific dist

OLIVIA’S POVOn a Thursday afternoon, the notes arrived. Not through any digital channel. Not through the social media message that Elena had sent the first time, the one that had arrived on my phone with its careful phrasing and its woman to woman appeal that I had screenshot and shown to Jaden and eventually acted on at a café in the west side of the city.This was different.A handwritten envelope. My name on the front in handwriting that was neat and deliberate, the handwriting of someone who had been taught to write properly and had maintained the habit. Delivered to the house address by what Clara told me was a private courier service, not a standard delivery company, the kind that charged considerably more because what they were actually selling was discretion.I picked it up from the hall table where Clara had left it.Looked at my name on the front.Turned it over.No return address.I opened it in the sitting room.The note was three paragraphs.Written on heavy paper. The

OLIVIA’S POVElena had chosen the café.I had written back through the number she had included at the bottom of the note, a personal number she had specified was not connected to anything Adrian paid for, and she had replied within the hour with an address and a time.Saturday. Eleven AM. A place called Maison Petit on the west side.Not a well known location. The kind of place that existed quietly in its neighborhood without advertising itself. Small. Good light. The kind of café that attracted regulars rather than foot traffic, which meant the staff knew their customers and strangers were noticeable enough that anyone following Elena in would be visible.She had chosen well.I arrived eight minutes early.Ordered a coffee. Chose a table near the window but not directly against the glass. Watched the door.She came in at exactly eleven.She looked different from the wedding photographs.I had been prepared for the gala version of Elena Cross. The silver dress and the precise handshak