All Chapters of The Billionaire's Showgirl: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

88 Chapters

Chapter Seventy-One

Beth moved into my house with two suitcases, one oversized tote bag, and enough emotional support snacks to survive a natural disaster.I found her in my kitchen wearing fuzzy socks, my old pink robe, and the guilty expression of someone who had already opened three cabinets and judged me.“You own one pan,” she said.I stood in the doorway with two security guards behind me and Luca’s driver waiting outside like I was visiting a crime scene instead of my own house.“I own more than one pan.”Beth opened the drawer beside the stove and lifted a spatula with a melted corner.“Sweetie, this is not a cookware collection. This is a cry for help.”For the first time all day, something in my chest loosened.Not all the way.Not enough.But enough that breathing did not feel like work.Luca had not wanted me to come.That was becoming his favorite hobby.Not

Chapter Seventy-Two

I noticed Luca did not go to bed because I woke up at three in the morning and his side of the mattress was still untouched.At first, I thought he was in the bathroom.Then I thought he was on the phone.Then I lay there in the dark, listening to the silence of his penthouse, and realized I could not hear him breathing beside me because he had never been there at all.The bedroom felt too large without him.Which was ridiculous.The room was enormous with or without Luca Moretti in it. The kind of enormous that made my entire house seem like a guest closet. The ceiling was high, the windows were endless, the furniture was expensive enough to look uncomfortable, and the sheets probably had a better credit score than I did.Still, without him, the room felt empty.I pushed the blanket aside and sat up.For a moment, I stayed very still, waiting for the fear to settle.It always came first now.Before thought

Chapter Seventy-Three

I made Luca sit down because asking him clearly was not working.He stood in his office surrounded by screens, reports, and the kind of exhaustion that made his beautiful face look carved too sharply from stone. He looked like a man who had convinced himself that if he remained upright long enough, nothing else could fall apart.I took his hand.He looked down at our joined fingers like he did not understand what I was doing.“Come with me.”“Sienna—”“No.”His eyes lifted to mine.The word surprised him.Good.I was tired of being the only one surprised by how terrifying our lives had become.“You are going to walk away from the desk,” I said. “You are going to sit on the couch with me. And for ten minutes, you are going to be a person instead of a security system in expensive pants.”Brian made a strangled sound behind us.Luc

Chapter Seventy-Four

Social media exploded before sunrise.Not quietly.Not in the slow, manageable way a rumor sometimes spread through group chats and fan pages before the rest of the world caught up.No.This was instant.Violent.Everywhere.By the time I sat up in Luca’s bed with my phone clenched in both hands, the fire footage had already been clipped, reposted, slowed down, zoomed in, narrated over, argued about, and set to at least six different dramatic songs.My name was trending.Euphoria was trending.The Cashmere Crown was trending.And Luca Moretti was apparently no longer a man.He was a moment.A headline.A fantasy.A billionaire savior wrapped in smoke and tailored black clothing.I stared at my screen, horrified.Then I scrolled.Which was my first mistake.One video showed the hallway outside Euphoria just after the alarms began. Dancers and crew

Chapter Seventy-Five

Luca caught me reading the comments because I laughed once.Not a normal laugh.A horrified, strangled little sound that came out of me before I could stop it.From the other side of the bedroom, where he had been speaking quietly to Brian on the phone, Luca looked up immediately.“What?”“Nothing.”His eyes narrowed.I locked my phone.Too late.The movement was suspicious.Luca ended the call with one sentence.“Send me the updated list.”Then he set the phone down and looked at me with the kind of focus that made casino executives confess things they had not even done yet.“Sienna.”“No.”“I haven’t asked anything.”“You were going to.”“I was.”“And the answer is no.”His mouth curved slightly.That was my first warning.Luca Moretti smiling when he was amused was dangerous in a very specific way. Not dangerous like guns or fire or mysterious maintenance workers. Worse. Dangerous like a man who had discovered a weakness and intended to enjoy it.“What were you reading?” he asked.

Chapter Seventy-Six

The interview was not my idea.That felt important.If anyone later accused me of intentionally participating in the public unraveling of my own private life, I wanted the record to show that I had been sitting peacefully in Luca’s penthouse, drinking coffee under the supervision of two security guards and one very judgmental news cycle, when his public relations team descended like well-dressed vultures.“It is not an interview,” Luca said.I stared at him.Across the room, three people in sleek suits were arranging lights near the windows. Another woman was steaming a jacket. Someone else had placed fresh flowers on the table, which felt like a terrible choice considering the week we were having.“Then why is there a camera?” I asked.Luca did not blink. “It is a controlled statement.”“With a host.”“A journalist.”“And multiple cameras.”“Controlled cameras.”I turned to Brian, who stood near the doorway with his arms folded and an expression that said he had lost several battles

Chapter Seventy-Seven

For one impossible second, nobody moved.The room was still full of interview equipment, lights, cables, makeup powder, half-empty coffee cups, and people who had been smiling only moments earlier because Luca Moretti had just called me the love of his life on live television.Then Brian said the fire started in my dressing room, and every soft thing in the penthouse died.Luca’s hand tightened around mine.Not enough to hurt.Never enough to hurt.But enough that I felt the shock move through him before his face changed.“What did you say?” he asked.Brian’s expression remained carefully blank.Too carefully.“The origin point was beneath Miss Vale’s dressing station.”My stomach dropped.Beneath.Not near.Not outside.Beneath.The room tilted slightly, and I had to remind myself that I was standing on solid floor. Marble. Expensive. Perfectly polished. Not backstage concrete. Not a dressing room with lights around the mirror and costumes hanging from metal racks.Not the place wher

Chapter Seventy-Eight

Official functions were not as glamorous as they looked from the outside.From the outside, they were crystal chandeliers, champagne towers, silk dresses, polished smiles, and photographs taken under flattering light.From the inside, they were war.Quiet war.Perfumed war.War with assigned seating and tiny appetizers I was not sure anyone actually enjoyed.My first week as Luca Moretti’s very public fiancée involved two charity events, one private donor reception, three business dinners, and a press appearance for New Zenith that required me to stand beside a scale model of a city that looked more real than my life did.Everywhere we went, people watched me.Not subtly.Not kindly.They watched my dress, my posture, my hands, my smile. They watched to see whether I reached for the wrong fork or laughed too loudly or seemed impressed by things they thought should be ordinary.They watched to see if the showgirl knew how to behave in their world.And Luca watched them watching me.Tha

Chapter Seventy-Nine

For a few seconds, I stayed frozen in the hallway.Not because I had never been insulted before.I had.Dancers were insulted all the time. Sometimes by directors who thought cruelty was the same thing as high standards. Sometimes by drunk men who mistook a costume for permission. Sometimes by women who looked at sequins and saw something cheap instead of something heavy enough to leave marks on your shoulders.But this was different.This was quieter.Cleaner.The women in the sitting room laughed like they had never needed to throw a punch because the world had always handed them sharper weapons.“She has no idea what she’s stepping into,” one of them said.“Of course she doesn’t,” another replied. “Girls like that don’t think long-term.”Girls like that.My fingers curled against my palm.“She thinks she won the lottery.”&ld

Chapter Eighty

Luca’s hand slipped free from mine.That was when I moved.Not because I was braver than him.Not because I was less angry.Because I knew exactly what Luca Moretti looked like when he was about to end someone, and Eleanor Whitcomb had just aimed her polished cruelty at Beth.My Beth.The woman who had moved into my house because she did not want it sitting empty like a warning.The woman who had held me in my kitchen until I laughed for the first time after the fire.The woman who loved loudly, fiercely, and without asking whether anyone in the room considered her acceptable.No.Absolutely not.I stepped in front of Luca before he could take another step.His body went still behind me.“Sienna,” he said quietly.I did not look back.If I looked at him, I might let him handle it.And I could not.Not this time.Eleanor’s smile sharpen

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