All Chapters of The Billionaire’s Favorite Mistake: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

"This is an offensive amount of velvet, Damien."I tossed the gold square across the couch. It bounced off his thigh and landed face down on the rug, its heavy fringe sticking straight up in the air.Damien didn't look up from his phone, though his left hand reached down to pick it up by a single thread. "It came with the place. The decorator said it anchored the room.""The decorator was robbing you," I said, pulling my knees up into the white shirt I still wore. It smelled faintly of him—clean cedar and expensive rain. "A two out of ten. Velvet is too stiff to sleep on, and the gold dots leave marks on your face if you lie down for more than five minutes. It’s a safety hazard."He finally set the phone face down on the coffee table. The screen stayed black. There were no incoming calls from Marcus, no emergency alerts from his legal team. After the voice clip leaked on the financial networks, he had simply walked out of the office, pulled the phone cords out of the walls, and sat dow

The white shirt was too big, but it was the only thing that felt safe.I sat on the edge of the large bed, my fingers blindly tracing the edge of the leather folder I had hidden away in the bottom drawer. The paper inside felt like a brand on my palms. Six days before Damien cornered me in his office with that marriage contract, his grandfather had sat across from me in a tea room downtown, his old, veiny hands pushing that exact sheet of paper across the table.“Sign it, Ellie,” the old man had whispered, his voice thin but sharp enough to cut. “Your father’s debts vanish. Damien’s board will never look into the missing customs declarations. All you have to do is make sure Damien is too distracted to fight the probate restructuring this month.”I hadn't given the old man the voice recording. I didn't even know it existed until it played on the morning news. But the signature on that paper was mine. If Damien found it, if he saw the date, he wouldn't see a woman desperately trying to k

The flashing lights from the gala still burned behind my eyelids, sharp and relentless. I stood in the center of the penthouse foyer, the heavy diamond necklace Damien had fastened around my throat three hours earlier now dangling from my fingers. Its weight felt symbolic. Beautiful, expensive, and suffocating. The grand ballroom downtown had been nothing but a stage. Calculated smiles, his hand placed with precision at the small of my back for the flashing cameras, every gesture choreographed to scream stability to the watching world.Marcus had called it a united front before we left. A display of marital harmony to stall the wolves circling the empire. Board members had studied us like hawks, searching for fractures in Damien’s armor. I had played my part perfectly, leaning into his touch and laughing at the right moments, all while my stomach twisted with the weight of secrets I carried.The moment the private elevator doors sealed shut behind us, the performance crumbled.Damien

The gold wax gave way with a sharp, dry snap.​I didn't use a knife. I dug my thumb under the crest until the heavy cream paper tore at the corner, my fingers trembling just enough to make the parchment rustle. The ink inside was dark, thick, and perfectly sloped—the kind of handwriting that belonged to an era when people still used fountain pens to disown their relatives.​Dear Eleanor,​The morning papers were remarkably loud. My husband believes a family crisis can be managed with a court injunction, but he always did confuse the legal system with his own dinner table. Let us bypass the courts.​A car will be outside your building at noon tomorrow. We will have a private luncheon at the estate to properly assess the new asset. Do try to wear something that doesn't look like it was salvaged from a French train station.​Victoria Vance.​My thumb rubbed over the words the new asset. It didn't sting. If anything, it felt familiar. Four years ago, the Vances had treated me like a line

My fingers wouldn't work.I was kneeling on the cold tiles of the foyer, trying to force my left heel into a black leather flat, but my hands were shaking so hard the shoe kept slipping sideways. The leather felt stiff. The strap was caught under my sole."Ellie, stop."Damien’s voice came from above me, but I didn't look up. I grabbed the back of the shoe, my fingernail scraping against the stitching. "I need to get my boots from the room. The flats are too small. My feet are cold. If I can just—""Ellie."He dropped his wool coat onto the bench. Before I could reach for the strap again, his hands closed around my wrists. His grip wasn't tight, but it was absolute. It stopped the frantic, useless jerking of my fingers. His skin was warm against the place where my pulse was jumping."Look at me," he said.I kept my eyes on his shirt collar. It was perfectly pressed, white and clean. It looked ridiculous compared to the panic in my throat. "The doctor said twenty minutes. That was five