All Chapters of THE HEIR'S UNWANTED BRIDE: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

CELESTE'S POV"Run it again.""I have run it four times, Celeste.""Run it a fifth. I don't care if your eyes are bleeding. Run it again."Damien did not argue. That alone told me how many weeks we had actually been at this, because the Damien I married three months ago would have told me the math does not change no matter how many times you ask it to. This Damien just leaned back over the terminal and typed the same account number in again, patient in a way that had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with exhaustion.It was week five. I had stopped counting the nights and started counting the folders instead, a stack of them fanned across the dining table that used to hold flowers and now held bank statements printed on paper too thin for how heavy they'd gotten.Five weeks of dead ends. Five weeks of shell companies that dissolved the moment you got close enough to touch them, accounts that closed themselves like something programmed to do exactly that on a schedule. F

CHAPTER 63: WHAT THE OWNERSHIP PROVESCELESTE'S POV"One page," the investigator said. "Out of seven years of files. One page.""How," I said. "The fire took everything. You told us that yourself.""The fire took the originals. It didn't take a copy sitting in a filing cabinet across town."Damien was already on his feet. "What copy.""Insurance," the investigator said. "Before a clinic like that can open its doors, the insurance company makes them copy the intake ledger. Once a year, mailed off, filed somewhere nobody ever looks again. In case of exactly this kind of fire.""So somebody in an insurance office has been sitting on this for twenty-three years," I said, "and never once thought to mention it.""Nobody asked them. Until today."It was still the same night. Or the same very late hour that pretends to be morning if you look at a clock and refuse to believe it. We hadn't slept since the license. Margaret's name, folded under a maiden surname, was still sitting in my chest lik

CELESTE'S POV"Celeste." Damien's voice was low. "We should go."I didn't move."Celeste.""I heard you," I said.The investigator was already at the car, phone to his ear. Damien stayed one step behind me. Close. Not touching."Do you want to sit," he said. "In the car. Just sit.""I want to stand here a little longer.""Okay."He didn't argue. He just stood there in the cold with me, hands in his pockets, waiting.*The drive back was silent. Streets waking up like nothing had happened in them all night. A man walked a dog. A bakery pulled up its shutters.At the penthouse, he opened my door before I could reach for the handle."I can walk," I said."I know."He walked beside me anyway, all the way to the elevator.*Inside, I sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at nothing.Damien didn't ask if I was okay. He went to the kitchen. I heard the kettle, cups. He set one in front of me. I didn't touch it."You don't have to talk," he said. "I'm not going anywhere.""You have a company

CELESTE'S POV"The Delacroix seating chart is wrong again." Margaret set her fork down without looking up. "I asked for the Ambrose family near the window. You've put them by the kitchen doors.""I'll fix it.""You always say that.""I'll fix it," I said again, and reached for my water glass.She waited. I could feel her waiting, the old rhythm of it, the pause where I was supposed to apologize twice, maybe three times, where my voice was supposed to climb half an octave and give her something to correct. I drank my water instead.Howard cleared his throat into the silence and asked the housekeeper for more bread. Nobody answered him."Did you hear me," Margaret said."I heard you the first time too."Something crossed her face then, quick, gone before I could name it. Not anger. Anger she wore easily, like a coat she kept by the door. This was something underneath the coat. She picked her fork back up and didn't say anything else for the rest of the meal.*"She noticed," Damien said

CELESTE'S POV"You didn't have to come down," Marcus said, low, at my elbow. "Security can walk him out.""I know.""That's not the same as should.""I didn't ask what it was the same as."He fell back a step and let me through the glass doors alone.Howard was standing in the middle of the lobby like he owned the marble under his shoes, yesterday's shirt, a wrinkle down the collar he'd clearly tried to smooth and failed. He saw me and something in his face rearranged itself, fast, into an expression I recognized from twenty years of watching him perform for rooms."Celeste.""You came here drunk.""I came here to talk to you.""Those aren't opposites, but they're not the same thing either.""Can we sit down somewhere.""We're fine here.""Here." He looked around at the receptionist, at the two men in suits pretending not to listen. "Here.""You wanted an audience for the merger. You can have one for this too."He exhaled through his nose, the sound he used to make right before he tol