All Chapters of THE HEIR'S UNWANTED BRIDE: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

CELESTE'S POV"Ten minutes," a voice said through the door, muffled, from the top of the stairwell. "Just so you know."I didn't answer. I didn't have ten minutes to spend answering.I set the empty box back exactly where it had been and crouched down to look under the shelf instead, because if someone had already gone through this one, they might have dropped something doing it, and people in a hurry always dropped something.Nothing under the shelf. Just dust, and a dead moth, and more dust.My phone buzzed against my hip.Nadia. Forty minutes left. Still breathing?Still breathing, I typed back. Found something.What.Not sure yet. Give me the forty minutes.That's not what we agreed.It's what you're getting.I put the phone face down on top of the box and went back to the folder, the one with the torn strip still caught in the binder clip, and turned to the page behind the gap.November. Untouched, as far as I could tell, the ink steady and old and faded to brown at the edges the

CELESTE'S POV"This is a formality," the lawyer said, not looking up from his folder. "We don't expect it to take long.""Then you won't mind if I sit in," I said.He looked up then. His name was Renner, one of the three attorneys my father had left after the last two firms dropped him, and he had the particular smugness of a man who had rehearsed this meeting in a mirror before walking into the room."This concerns the restructuring terms," he said. "Financial matters. I don't think—""I read every page of the restructuring terms before it was signed," I said. "Twice. I think I can follow along."Damien didn't say anything. He was at the head of the table with his hands folded and his expression doing the thing it did in rooms like this, flat and unreadable, giving nothing away to the men across from him, but I felt him watching me sit down anyway.Adrian slid a folder across the table toward me without being asked."You'll want this," he said quietly.Renner cleared his throat and s

CELESTE'S POV"Say it again," I said."Celeste.""That's not what I meant and you know it.""I know exactly what you meant."He still hadn't moved. Neither had I. The lights hummed overhead, too bright for whatever this had turned into."Then say it.""I want you." His voice didn't rise. Not even with his pulse visible at his collar. "I have wanted you since the second week, and I'm done pretending that's a sentence I can take back.""You could still take it back.""Do you want me to.""No.""Then stop giving me the chance to."He crossed the last of the distance himself. His hand found my jaw before it found anything else, careful in a way nothing about the last four months had been. When he kissed me it wasn't careful. Four months of careful had used itself up somewhere in the last five minutes.I pulled back only far enough to speak."The door.""Locked ten minutes ago.""You locked it before I said anything.""I locked it when Adrian left. I didn't want to find out empty-handed."

CHAPTER 48 CELESTE'S POV "Sit down," I said again. "I heard you the first time." "You didn't move." "I'm aware." He finally let go of the door. Three steps, no more, and he took the chair across from my desk instead of the one beside it — the interview chair, the one clients sat in when they wanted something from Harrington and weren't sure they'd get it. "That's a strange chair to pick," I said. "It's the only one that isn't yours." "Meaning." "Meaning I didn't want to sit somewhere that made this easier than it is." I put the pen down. Careful, deliberate, the way I put things down when I needed my hands to stop before they did something without asking me. "So say it," I said. "Whatever it is." "I don't know how to start." "You never don't know how to start. You started a hostile takeover with less hesitation." "That's business." "And this isn't." "No." He rubbed a thumb along the crease of his trousers, a motion I'd never once seen him make in seven years of watch

CHAPTER 50: ADRIAN SEES ITCELESTE'S POV"You didn't answer my question," Adrian said."Which one.""Fight the vendor's revised terms, or sign and move on.""Fight the penalty clause. Let the rest go.""Good read." He didn't look at me. "You're better at this than you were six months ago.""Six months ago I didn't know what a penalty clause was.""You do now.""Does that scare you? Losing your only excuse.""Terrifies me."We reached the elevators. Silence. A different silence than before."Adrian.""Hm.""You've been weird since the meeting.""Tired. Not weird."Still. Too still. I'd seen that stillness on Damien. I knew the cost of it."Weird how," he said, before I could push."Quiet. You squared your papers twice.""You counted.""I notice things."The doors opened. He hit his floor, not mine. He wanted this to keep going."I'm fine," he told the doors."You said that already.""I'll say it again.""Doesn't help."Almost a smile. Didn't reach his eyes. "Relentless.""I've been tol