All Chapters of The Billionaires Greatest Regret: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

POV: Roman Ashford "Tell me what he meant," Roman said. "Right now. I don't care who is listening." He had not moved since Boyd spoke. He stood in the middle of the boardroom with his hands at his sides and the color gone from his face, a big man who suddenly looked like he was balancing on the edge of a roof. Around him the donors had fallen back, murmuring. Vivienne was at his elbow. She could feel him shaking through his sleeve. "Roman," she said softly. "Not here." "He said my father." "I heard him." "My father died in a car accident when I was eleven. Edmund Ashford. I have his watch. I have his handwriting on the back of a hundred photographs." His voice cracked. "What is that man talking about?" Boyd sat down again and arranged his cuffs. He looked, if anything, relieved, like a man who has finally put his last card on the table. "I think it would be kinder to see for yourself. Your mother kept the proof in a safe. Behind the bed, in the room with the blue curtains. The

POV: Leo Ashford"He's not answering," Priya said. "Third call in a row."She stood at the window of the Westchester kitchen with a phone in one hand and a cold cup of tea in the other. It was past midnight. The lamps were low. At the table, Maya sat with her laptop open and her hair in a messy knot, while Thomas dozed against her shoulder with a cello score folded under his cheek. Leo paced the length of the room."Who?" Maya asked."The U.S. Attorney's office. I left two messages. A man with a very tired voice told me they'd 'review the materials in the ordinary course.'""In the ordinary course," Leo repeated. "Which means Tuesday.""Possibly next month.""We don't have a month.""I know." Priya set down her tea. "Boyd moved faster than we did. He filed a probate claim on the Volkov estate before we'd even opened the safe. By tomorrow morning, it'll be in the papers. 'Ashford Heir Revealed as Mobster's Son.' Every donor in the country will see it.""Then we get ahead of it," Maya s

POV: Vivienne Ashford "You must be the new heir," the stranger said. "I came to see what my father left behind." He stood on the front step of the Westchester house at eight in the morning, with a single leather bag at his feet and rain beading on the shoulders of a camel coat. He was forty-one and looked older around the eyes. Tall, dark, clean-shaven, with a jaw Vivienne recognized before she understood why. She had seen it across her own breakfast table for thirty years. Roman stood in the doorway with a coffee mug in his hand. He did not speak. The mug trembled very slightly, and a thin line of steam shivered above it. "Alexei," Katya said from the hall behind him. Her voice cracked on the second syllable. "You came." "I told the bank I would." "You didn't tell me." "You didn't ask." His eyes moved past Roman to his sister, and for one unguarded second something raw crossed his face. Then it was gone. "Hello, Katya. You look well." "Six years, and that's what you say?" "W

POV: Vivienne Ashford "Read it again," Roman said. "Slowly. I want every word." Arthur held the small gray notebook open under the lamp. They sat in the study of the Westchester house, the door closed, the house asleep around them. Vivienne beside her husband. Katya on the sofa with her knees drawn up. Alexei by the window with his arms folded, silent, watching Arthur's hands as if the pages might burst into flame. The old lawyer cleared his throat. His voice was dry as paper. "Eleanor's entry, dated March 2022. 'Had Dr. Wehrli in Geneva run the test I have wanted to run for fifty years. Sent my own blood and Roman's, from the glass he left at Christmas. Result arrived today. Edmund Ashford is his father. Ninety-nine point nine percent. I have sat in the garden for three hours and cannot stop laughing.'" Roman made a sound. It was not quite a word. "'All my life I told myself he was Dmitri's. I told myself I had spoiled my only child with lies. It was the other way round. I lied

POV: Vivienne Ashford "I do not like this," Alexei said. "I want it noted that I do not like this." "Noted," said Roman. "A black car at the airport. A private club. A lunch." He stood at the window of the hotel suite in Geneva with the lake spread like pewter below him and the Alps floating faint and white beyond. "It is how my father used to trap people. He would be so courteous they forgot to run." "Then we won't forget." "You say that with such confidence." "I'm hiding how terrified I am." "Ah." Alexei glanced back. "That is what I thought." It was nine in the morning. The suite smelled of coffee and fresh pastries. Vivienne sat on the sofa with a hotel pad on her knee, scribbling. Priya had her laptop open on a writing desk. The others were next door, Maya and Thomas, Leo with the baby asleep in a travel crib, Katya and Henrik with their boys. It was the most people Vivienne had ever tried to protect in one hotel. "The club is called the Cercle des Banquiers," she said.