บททั้งหมดของ I BECAME THE BILLIONAIRE'S WIFE OVERNIGHT : บทที่ 181 - บทที่ 190

Emily's POV "Emily, I need you to listen to me before you panic, because what Ashford's lawyer just told me on the phone is not something I know how to say gently." Daniel's voice cracked on the last word, and I felt my whole body go cold. Nathaniel's phone was still glowing on the coffee table between us, the Chicago number blinking like a warning light neither of us wanted to answer twice in one night. I grabbed my own phone instead and called Daniel back before Nathaniel could even reach for his. "Slow down," I said, pressing the phone hard against my ear. "Tell me exactly what he said. Word for word, Daniel. I need to know exactly what we are dealing with." "A man called me an hour ago," Daniel said. "He said he worked for Foster Ashford's legal team, and he wanted to know if I would be willing to sign a statement confirming I am Marianne Hart's biological son. He said it would help my case." "What case," I said, my voice sharper than I meant it to be. "You do not have a case,

Emily's POV"Dad, I need you to tell me the truth right now, because if you knew this man's name and never told me, I do not know how many more secrets I can survive finding out about my own mother in one single week." My voice shook, but I did not take the words back.We sat in the same back office where I had once handed him divorce papers disguised as a marriage contract, where I had once watched him open a rusted tin with hands too unsteady to manage a simple latch. He looked older tonight than I had ever seen him look, older than grief alone should have made him."I did not know his name until you said it," Walter said quietly. "Foster Ashford. Emily, I swear to you, your mother never mentioned that name to me. Not once, in fifteen years of marriage.""Then how did his father end up in a letter she wrote four months before the fire," I said, my voice cracking despite every effort to keep it steady. "Dad, I need you to think hard. Is there anything, anything at all, that might exp

Emily's POV"Emily, before Nathaniel says another word, I need you to promise me you will let me finish this whole story once, start to finish, without walking out of this room." Eleanor's voice was steadier than I expected, but her hands were not.We sat in Eleanor's study that evening, the same room where Nathaniel had once confronted her about the second clause in her will, tea gone cold between all three of us now instead of two. Nathaniel had told me everything Harold revealed the moment I walked through the penthouse door, and I had not slept since, replaying the word brother in my head like a stone I could not put down."I promise," I said quietly, though every part of me wanted to run straight to Daniel's phone number instead of sitting still for one more revelation.Eleanor folded her hands in her lap, her composure cracking slightly at the edges. "Foster Ashford Senior was my husband's closest friend, before either of us married," she began. "And Marianne, your mother, Emily

Emily’s POV“Emily, before you walk through that door, I need you to understand that what you are about to hear will not be gentle.” Daniel’s voice cracked on the phone, and I had never once heard my brother sound afraid before today.I gripped the phone tighter. “I am already in the elevator, Daniel. Whatever it is, say it now.”“Foster is not just confirming what Eleanor told us,” Daniel said. “He has letters. Emily, he has letters our mother wrote him, before any of us were born.”The elevator doors opened and I stepped out into a hallway that felt too quiet for what was waiting inside it. Nathaniel was already there, standing outside Foster’s office door with an expression I could not read.“You did not tell me about letters,” I said to him.“I did not know either,” Nathaniel said quietly, and something in the way he said it made me believe him completely.We walked in together. Foster Ashford was smaller than I imagined, folded into a wheelchair by the window, an old leather box

Emily’s POV“Emily, the doctors need us to step outside right now, and I cannot make my legs move toward that door.” Daniel’s voice broke completely for the first time since I had known him, and I grabbed his hand before either of us could fall apart further.We stood together in the hallway while nurses moved past us in a blur, Nathaniel pale and silent beside me, his hand shaking in mine in a way I had never once seen from him.“He is stable,” a nurse finally told us, stepping out with careful calm on her face. “For now. But I think you should prepare yourselves. His heart is very tired.”Diane arrived twenty minutes later, still in the same clothes from the office, her eyes red rimmed in a way I had never seen on her before. “I came as soon as I heard,” she said, sitting heavily beside Daniel. “Nathaniel, is it true. What he told you about Marcus.”“It is true,” Nathaniel said quietly. “There is a file. My father’s own handwriting. Harold told us where to find it before his heart g