Semua Bab The Billionaire's Showgirl: Bab 131 - Bab 140

By morning, three major investors had asked Luca to postpone the wedding.They did not use the word fear.Men like that rarely did. Fear was for people who could not afford consultants. Investors had concerns. They had timing issues. They had reputational sensitivity and fiduciary obligations and deeply respectful recommendations delivered through lawyers who sounded dead long before they entered the room.I sat at Luca’s dining table with my mother’s letter sealed in a protective sleeve beside me and listened to one of them explain why marrying me had become a liability.He did not say it that way either.Of course he didn’t.“Given the unresolved D’Caputo matters, Mr. Moretti,” the lawyer said from the conference screen, “the advisory group believes a temporary postponement would demonstrate prudence.”Luca stood at the head of the table, one hand braced against the polished wood. His face was calm in the way storms looked calm from very far away.“Prudence,” he repeated.The lawyer

I decided to attend the luncheon everyone clearly expected me to avoid.That was the first useful thought I had after staring at the invitation on Beth’s phone until the gold script blurred into a pretty insult.The Nevada Heritage Circle had not removed my name from the guest list. That was not kindness. It was theater. They wanted an empty chair with my name on it, a delicate little symbol they could discuss over cucumber sandwiches and chilled white wine. Poor Sienna. So overwhelmed. So unfortunate about her mother. So wise of her to stay away.I had spent too much of my life onstage not to recognize blocking when I saw it.They had given me a part.I intended to rewrite it.“No,” Luca said.We were in his bedroom three hours later, because apparently preparing to walk into a room full of old Nevada women required the kind of strategy session most people reserved for hostile mergers. My dress hung from the wardrobe door, soft blue instead of bridal white, elegant without looking li

The bride in the old records was not my mother.At least, not at first.That was the problem with every answer we found. It arrived looking solid, something we could touch, something that might finally explain why Lena Vale had been dragged from memory into evidence. Then it split open and revealed another locked room.I stared at the seating chart on Luca’s dining table until the circles and names seemed to move.The bride carried the copy out.My mother’s name sat at the center table, but the event had not been labeled as a wedding. The archived program Beth found called it the Nevada Heritage Preservation Benefit. The old society photos called it a charity dinner. The binder called it something else entirely, in coded numbers and seating notes and vendor routes disguised as flower preferences.Nothing said wedding.Nothing said bride.Except the one sentence written beside Lena Vale’s name.Beth lean

Chapter 31The dead man finally moved on-screen.For one awful second, I forgot he was dead.Don D’Caputo appeared in the old private lounge beneath Euphoria, younger than every photograph we had found but older in the eyes. The footage trembled and stuttered, its color half-bled by time and corruption. Static crawled along the edges. The timestamp flickered in the corner, missing digits, then returned in broken flashes like the machine itself was afraid to remember.He stood near the polished table where Brian and I had seen dust rings days later.Alive.Breathing.Terrified.That was the part that changed everything.Don D’Caputo had always existed in my mind as a dead power broker, a dangerous name attached to old land and fire and threats that had never fully explained themselves. But on the screen, he was a man looking over his shoulder before he spoke. A man chec

I saw myself in my mother’s arms, standing in front of a place I did not remember but everyone else seemed to fear.The photo was grainy, sun-faded, and ordinary enough to be cruel.My mother stood on the sidewalk outside The Gilded Room, one hip shifted to carry the weight of the baby in her arms. Me. A tiny fist curled against her collarbone, my face turned into the soft blur of infancy. Lena’s hair was pinned back messily, not styled for a stage. She looked tired. Young. Beautiful in a way that made my throat ache because I had only ever known the later version of her, the woman who had already learned how to make exhaustion look like routine.Behind us, the venue’s glass doors reflected a strip of Nevada sky.And inside, half-hidden beyond the glare, Ronan Kade watched.I could not look away from his face.He was younger, but the stillness was the same. Calm. Patient. Possessive of a world that had not yet decided wheth