All Chapters of Bound By A Billion-Dollar Lie: Chapter 191 - Chapter 200

Damon's POVThe phone slipped out of my hand and hit the marble floor, but I did not bother to pick it up. Jackson had been arrested. The message from my contact inside the Reed building was only one line long, and it was enough to turn my whole morning into a disaster."Get in here!" I shouted.My personal assistant rushed into the office with a tablet pressed against his chest, his face already pale. He had worked for me for six years and he knew what my voice sounded like when things went wrong."Sir?""Book me a flight out of London. Tonight. No, this afternoon. Any city that is not this one.""Sir, your schedule shows a lunch with…""Cancel it, fucking cancel all of it!" I slammed my palm on the desk. "Every meeting, every call, every dinner. Then empty the safe into the black case and shred whatever is left in those drawers."He typed on the tablet with shaking fingers. "Yes, sir.""Fucking move! I don't have all the time in the world!"He ran out, my hand wriggling the neck-tie

Bianca's POVThey gave me a grey room, a metal table, and a chair bolted to the floor.I sat in it for three days, and every day the same men in the same suits came in with the same folders. They asked me the same questions in different words. I answered every one with a story, and every story fell apart before I finished telling it.On the first day, the investigators laid out the fake deals. On the second day, they laid out the rest. The bank accounts I had opened in Anastasia's name. The emails I had sent as her. The signatures I had practiced for months until my hand could copy them without thinking. The calls where I had used her voice, her title, and her face to open doors that were never meant to open for me."It goes back further than we thought, Miss Reed," the lead investigator said, sliding a page across the table. "Identity manipulation, financial fraud and a pattern of schemes against your own sister.""That's not what happened.""Then tell us what happened."“Where's my

Nikolai's POVThe first week without the old contract was the strangest of my life.On the first morning I reached for my planner out of habit, hunting for the rules I had followed for so long. Where I could go, who I could see, what I could say. Then I remembered they were gone, and I lay back and stared at the ceiling.Anastasia slept beside me, her hair spread across the pillow and one hand resting on her belly. Nobody was forcing her to stay, and she was still here. That one difference changed everything.Mornings changed first. We ate breakfast at the kitchen island, and I burned the eggs three days running while she laughed at me over the rim of her cup. Some mornings neither of us spoke, and the quiet felt warm.We went back to work that week, though not the way we had before. No cold meetings, no messages passed through Elias. We sat at the same table in my office with two cups of tea going cold and built a new structure for the merger. It was harder than I expected, because c

Anastasia's POVBy the time my third trimester began, I could no longer see my own feet.Time had rushed past me. One day I stood under the Eiffel Tower, and the next I stood before a mirror with a belly so round that my old dresses hung like tents. My back ached, my ankles swelled by evening, and hunger struck at the strangest hours. Still, I had never been happier.Nikolai changed too, and watching him was the best part.He never missed an appointment, not even the day he moved a board meeting with a single phone call. He sat in the small chair in the doctor's office with a leather notebook on his knee and wrote down every word. He asked about sleep, diet, and exercise. He asked about the heartbeat, the baby's position, and how many weeks remained before the hospital bag should be packed."Your wife is doing perfectly," the doctor said at my twenty-eighth week checkup. "You can relax.""I am relaxed," Nikolai said, sitting stiff as a board.I turned my head to hide my smile."Mr. St

Anastasia's POVI looked up. Nikolai stood in the doorway with his jacket over his arm and his tie already loosened. His eyes went to the paper in my hand, then to my face."I'm sorry. I did not mean to interrupt.""You didn't." I folded the letter with care. "Come in."He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. "Is it from Bianca?"I nodded and handed him her letter. He read in silence with his jaw tight, and then I gave him mine. When he finished, he set both pages on the nightstand and looked at me for a long moment."You are a better person than I am.""I'm not sure that's true.""I would never have written this." He took my hand. "Are you all right?""I don't know yet." I leaned my head against his shoulder. "I feel tired and sad, and lighter than I have in years."We stayed that way for a while. His thumb traced slow lines over my knuckles, and the lamp glowed low and warm. Little by little, the air between us changed.I lifted my head and found him already watching me.