All Chapters of The Discarded Heiress: Married To My Ex Fiancé’s Brother: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

LenoraElias picked up before the first ring had even finished.“Lenora.” His voice was already sharp with alarm. “What’s wrong? Do you need anything?”“I got a text.” My voice came out steadier than I expected, the fury from the last couple of seconds burning away whatever was left of this morning’s grief. “From an unknown number. I’m sending you a screenshot right now.”There was silence after I forwarded the image, just long enough for me to picture his gut-wrenching surprise. Then his voice came back, several degrees colder.“Don’t respond to it,” he said, his voice rough. “Don’t call the number. Don’t do anything until I get there. I’m only a couple of minutes away from home.”The corners of my lips twitched. It was the closest thing I was getting to a smile.“I wasn’t planning on inviting them over for tea, Elias.”"I know. I just—" He exhaled, and underneath the fury I could hear just how frustrated he was. "I need five minutes to get Dominic on this, and then I'm coming home."

EliasLily broke before we even finished sitting down.Dominic had arranged the meeting under the pretense of a final payroll discussion, a loose end she had no reason to suspect was anything other than routine. But the moment she spotted the two detectives standing just inside the office door behind us, the composure she’d carefully maintained for months finally crumbled.“I didn’t know it would go this far.” Her voice cracked, and her hands twisted nervously in her lap. “I swear, I didn’t know she meant an actual fire. I thought it was just surveillance. Information gathering. She told me it was about having leverage, gathering enough information to force Lenora out of the industry through bad press. Not—not this.”“You handed over every detail of our security schedule to a woman who was planning to burn down a building,” I said, my voice flat, giving her nothing to hold on to. “At what point did you think that information was meant for anything other than that.”Lily had no answer.

LenoraReese called at seven in the morning, which should have told me something was wrong before she even said a word."I just landed," she said, voice ragged with jet lag and panic in equal measure. "Lenora, I just landed and turned my phone on and there were four hundred notifications and I think I'm going to throw up. Why didn't anyone tell me your studio burned down?""I tried calling you three times.""I was at my cousin's wedding in the actual middle of nowhere, there was no signal for a week, I didn't even know until the plane landed and my phone exploded with headlines." Her voice cracked. "Are you okay? Of course you’re not okay! Ugh, I'm coming over right now, don't argue with me.""I'm okay. Elias pulled me out before anything happened to me. The collection's gone, but I'm fine.""I'm still coming over."I didn't argue, mostly because I'd missed her more than I'd let myself admit over the last few chaotic weeks, and an hour later she was standing in my kitchen in yesterday

LenoraI glanced back at Amy, then at Reese, who was now walking toward the building. She didn’t know about this latest development, and I knew she’d either tear Amy’s head off…or mine.And the latter was more likely.I dropped what I was doing and hurried outside to meet her.“Reese,” I called out, forcing a smile. “What are you doing here?”She arched a brow.“You knew I was coming?” she asked.I scratched the back of my head. “Ah…is that so?”“Why are you acting like that?” she asked, crossing her arms.“Whatever do you mean?” I cleared my throat, looking around nervously. “I always act like this, don’t I? Am…am I acting weird?”I let out another nervous laugh as Reese stepped closer, making me stumble backward. She narrowed her eyes at me as if trying to see through the wall I was putting up.“You know you’re a terrible liar, so spit it out already.”I sighed.There was no fooling Reese.I pulled her aside and told her everything. And trust me, I mean everything. From Amy showing

LenoraElias found me standing in the kitchen that evening, still staring at Theo’s text that I couldn’t bring myself to respond to. "You've been holding that phone for four minutes without moving," he said, leaning against the doorway."I'm composing a very important sentence about vendor logistics." I lied, clearing my throat.“Well, I don’t think you’re composing anything. What I do think is that something is bothering you and you’re trying to avoid talking about it.”I set the phone down, caught. "That's an oddly specific read.""I've gotten good at reading you." He crossed the kitchen, not quite touching me yet, giving me room to close the distance if I wanted it. "Talk to me?”I exhaled, the careful composure I'd been holding on all this time suddenly cracking into tiny pieces.“I don’t know how to explain it without sounding petty. It’s… it’s Amy, you know? She apologized, and it was a good apology, actually. I meant it when I told her I didn’t need to hate her anymore. But t