Semua Bab The Billionaire's Chosen Bride: Bab 1 - Bab 10

The machine beside her father's bed beeped in a slow, steady rhythm. Layla had memorized that sound over the past week. She could hear it in her sleep now.A nurse slipped in to check his vitals, jotted something on a clipboard, and gave Layla a small, tired smile on her way out. It was the kind of smile that didn't promise anything. Layla had learned to stop looking for promises in it."You should go home," her father said. His voice had gone thin, but there was still warmth in it."I'm fine, Baba.""You have been here every night.""Where else would I be?"He tried to smile, and it cost him something. She saw it in the way his breath caught. "Sleeping in your own bed. Taking care of your sister and brother.""Mrs. Alvarez is watching them. They're fine.""Layla." He said her name the way he always did when he wanted her full attention. "You cannot carry everyone forever."She didn't answer that. She reached for the paper cup on his tray table instead and helped him take a sip of wat

The flight from London had taken seven hours, and Ethan Harrington had spent every one of them working. Contracts. Term sheets. A due diligence report his team had chased for four months. By the time the car pulled up outside Harrington Group's Manhattan headquarters, the deal was finally signed, and he hadn't slept more than a handful of hours in three days.He didn't feel it. He never let himself feel it, not during business hours.Daniel Brooks was waiting for him in the lobby, two coffees in hand, one of which he passed over without being asked."You look like hell," Daniel said."Good morning to you too.""I'm serious. When's the last time you slept in an actual bed?""Define recently." Ethan took the coffee and started toward the elevators, Daniel falling into step beside him the way he had for the past twelve years, ever since business school, ever since the two of them had built half of Harrington Group's current strategy over late nights and cheap takeout."The London deal cl

Three weeks after the funeral, Layla's life had settled into a rhythm that left almost no room for grief, which she suspected was the entire point of staying this busy.Mornings belonged to Mrs. Chen's twins, two eleven-year-olds who needed help with math homework before school and paid better than Layla had expected for the privilege. Afternoons belonged to the accounting firm downtown, three days a week, part-time work that kept her skills sharp even as it paid barely enough to matter. Evenings, when she had the energy left for them, belonged to a second tutoring client near Grand Regent Hotel, a task that required crossing half the city on the subway after a full day already behind her.She was crossing that half of the city now, moving fast down a crowded sidewalk near the hotel's entrance, her bag heavy with textbooks she hadn't had time to return to the library.She almost missed the commotion entirely.A small crowd had gathered near the hotel's grand entrance, the kind of crow

The tea with Evelyn Harrington had gone better than Layla expected, warm and unhurried, filled with easy conversation about gardens and old books and nothing at all about money or grief. Evelyn had asked about her mother's cooking, of all things, and Layla had found herself describing recipes she hadn't thought about in years, the particular way her mother used to burn the edges of every loaf of bread just slightly, on purpose, because her father claimed he liked it that way.Ethan had been there too, quieter than his grandmother, but attentive in a way that surprised her, asking careful questions about her work, listening to her answers like they actually mattered. At one point Evelyn had excused herself to speak with the housekeeper, leaving the two of them alone for nearly ten minutes, and the conversation had continued easily enough, no longer stiff with formality the way it had been on the sidewalk, though neither of them had strayed into anything personal enough to feel uncomfor

Layla called Sophia before breakfast, unable to wait any longer with a decision this large sitting unspoken in her chest."Say that again," Sophia said, once Layla had finished explaining. "Slowly. Because I don't think I heard you correctly.""Ethan Harrington proposed marriage. Yesterday. Over coffee.""The billionaire. The one you swore was just being polite.""That one."There was a long pause on the line, the sound of Sophia setting something down, a cup or a plate, with exaggerated care. "Okay. I need you to walk me through this from the very beginning, because either I'm still asleep, or my best friend just told me she got a marriage proposal from a man she's met exactly three times.""Four times, if you count the wedding I haven't agreed to yet.""Layla.""Sorry. I'm nervous. I make bad jokes when I'm nervous.""You make terrible jokes when you're nervous," Sophia corrected. "Start from the beginning. Don't skip anything."Layla told her everything, the will, the six month dea