Semua Bab Too late, Ex. NOW WATCH ME RISE: Bab 41 - Bab 50

In the whole of campus. Vanessa Cole was, by all accounts, a perfect nursing student.The woman who played the perfect Saint on campus. She was everything they all admired. She arrived early before classes, stayed late, and was the last to leave. She took notes in neat handwriting. She brought homemade banana bread for the cohort, remembered everyone's names, and asked about their boyfriends and their mothers' surgeries. Within three days, she was in the group chat. Within a week, she was invited to study sessions.When it came to Lillian, on campus she always acted like it never happened, she never threatened her, as if there was no beef, the way she flounced around campus. Whenever she sat next to Lillian, she never asked about Nathaniel. She was just…… there. On the periphery, smiling.It was brilliant.And it was working.Midday, Lillian watched her across the skills lab, watching Vanessa practice taking blood pressure on Maya, her touch gentle, her laugh easy. And everything cam

Bianca handled everything the photoshoot needed herself — makeup, no lights, just an extra hand for the photographer. A corner of St. Jude's pavilion at 7 a.m., where Lillian was already doing her clinical hours."Don't pose," Bianca said, directing Lillian, her hand moving left to right, angling her without making it obvious she was doing it. Maya stood off to the side."Just tell Maya that stupid story about the skeleton you named Mr. Bones."Bianca said it so deadpan that Lillian laughed before she could stop herself a real, snorting, undignified laugh, her head thrown back, her scrubs too big, her hair falling out of its ponytail.Click. That was the photo. Just a simple-looking nurse in scrubs, like any other.They tried a few more poses, but Maya kept distracting her, teasing her, and the mood was nothing like the night before. For the first time in days, Lillian felt free.That was the photo they used: A girl with a wide, open smile, nothing to hide. Just a simple nurse in scr

Lillian did not scream.She had learned, in three years of marriage to a man who punished any loud emotion, exactly how not to scream how to let terror settle into her spine instead of her throat, how to keep her face still even when her pulse was a drumbeat in her ears.She set her wet bag down very slowly by the door, her hand lingering on the strap, close to where the printed email chain waited inside like a loaded weapon."How did you get into my apartment?" Lillian asked, her voice steady, betraying nothing.She was not afraid of Patricia. Strangely, she felt something closer to confidence — the calm of someone who finally understood the game being played against her. They were not strangers circling each other in the dark anymore. Lillian understood her now, understood the shape of her cruelty and the eloquence she wrapped it in."Your landlord is a dear friend," Patricia said, lifting her teacup and sipping as though she'd been invited. Her eyes moved slowly over the apartment

Gerald Haines's office was not an office. It was a library that happened to have a desk in it.Lillian sat across from him, Adrian beside her, his knee bouncing under the table in a way she'd learned meant he was holding himself back from saying somethingWhile Gerald laid out the situation in his careful, professionally warm way. Patricia posted bail of one million dollars at 6 a.m. She is now out. She is at the Brooks estate, to which she still holds partial rights until the probate is closed. The police cannot remove her without a court order.Lillian's temper rose, out of control"She tried to poison me in my own apartment," Lillian said, her voice flat."I know," Gerald said. "And we have the recording. But her lawyer — Victoria Sloan, by the way, she is now representing Patricia, which is... interesting — is arguing that you entrapped her, that you placed the vitamin bottle, that the email chain is fabricated by Howard Greer, who has a grudge.""Victoria is representing Patrici

CHAPTER 50: The End of the DivorceEdward Harper had no idea what he had walked into.He had come because Margaret had called him crying an hour ago saying Lillian was in danger and could he come to Oakfield. He had brought wine because he always brought wine when he didn't know what else to bring.Now he stood in William Brooks's study looking at three women who looked like they had all been crying for different reasons, and one man who looked like he had been hit by a truck."What's going on?" Edward asked,confused, bewildered, afraid, his voice lost in his breath.No one answered, his question changed nothing, everyone that sat up was caught in the crosshair of Wlliam Brooks, will clause except clueless, harmless, sift-hearted Edward.Their silence was grief of their own doing. Nathaniel stepped forward, ignoring Patricia completely, and looked at Lillian."Are you okay?" he asked, his voice low. Breaking the silence. "Adrian called me. He said you ran here."Lillian looked at hi