All Chapters of The Billionaire's Curvy Bride: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

RYKER’S POVBy eight in the morning, the stock ticker running across the bottom of the television monitors in my executive suite was a bloodbath.Kane Corp shares had taken a four percent hit at opening bell, but the true carnage was localized entirely around the subsidiaries managed by my cousin, Marcus Kane. The headlines were relentless, flashing in bright yellow text across every major financial network:KANE CORP EXECUTIVE MARCUS KANE ACCUSED OF EXTORTION BY VIVIAN MARLOWE. MARLOWE ESTATE IN FREEFALL: ALLEGATIONS OF STAGED ACCIDENTS AND FABRICATED TRUST CLAIMS.I stood behind my desk, holding a cold cup of untouched black coffee, watching the media swarm outside the court building downtown. My personal security detail had locked down the entire executive floor of Kane Tower. Marcus was currently trapped in his corner office three floors below me, surrounded by his personal legal defense team and two federal compliance officers who had arrived unannounced thirty minutes ago.My de

RYKER’S POVThe emergency session of the Kane Corporation Board of Directors lasted precisely fourteen minutes.I stood at the foot of the long granite table, watching the digital voting tally lock into place on the primary display screen. Twelve votes in favor of immediate removal. Zero opposed. Zero abstentions.Marcus’s seat at the far end of the room remained empty, his leather chair pushed back, a abandoned leather binder left sitting on the polished surface like a relic of a fallen regime."The resolution carries," the board secretary announced, her voice flat and formal. "Marcus Kane is hereby stripped of his title as Executive Vice Chairman, his corporate voting privileges are revoked, and all access to subsidiary liquidity accounts is permanently suspended pending federal inquiry."Grandmother Elise sat to my right, her hands resting quietly over her silver-headed walking stick. She didn't look triumphant. She looked like a seasoned monarch who had simply pruned a diseased br

RYKER’S POVThe master suite of the Kane estate was enveloped in a heavy, suffocating quiet. Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a dark rain fell over the sprawling manicured lawns, blurring the city lights on the distant horizon into soft streaks of amber and gray.I stood near the tall mahogany bookshelf in the corner of the room—a corner I had rarely visited during the five long years of my arranged marriage. On the second shelf, nestled quietly behind financial volumes, sat a small, leather-bound notebook with silver embossing on the spine. It was a ledger of personal expenses Selene had kept during her time living under my roof, left behind on the marble vanity on the exact day she signed our divorce papers without asking for a single cent of the Kane fortune.I pulled it from the shelf and opened it with slow, hesitant fingers.Every entry was written in her neat, precise hand: modest grocery receipts, art supplies purchased with her own independent earnings, and tiny, m

RYKER’S POVThe rain had stopped by midnight, leaving the glass facade of Kane Tower reflecting the cold amber streetlights of Midtown. I sat behind my grandfather's heavy mahogany desk, the expansive office lit only by a single green banker's lamp.Grandmother Elise’s words in the conservatory had echoed in my thoughts for twelve continuous hours: A woman protecting something far more precious than her own life... she builds a fortress.I slid my laptop across the leather blotter, opening a secure, end-to-end encrypted channel. I didn't call the corporate security team…Marcus had compromised half our internal security detail over the past five years. Instead, I placed a direct call to Harrison Marsh, a retired federal intelligence analyst who owed my late father a personal debt of honor."Ryker," Marsh’s gravelly voice came through the encrypted speaker. "I heard about Marcus and the girl. Messy business.""The corporate audit is handling Marcus," I said, my voice flat, clipped, and

RYKER’S POVThe hands of the antique brass clock in the conservatory anteroom clicked steadily toward eleven o'clock.For the first time in my adult life, my hands were visibly shaking.On the polished iron tea table beside me lay the thin leather portfolio delivered by Dr. Lin’s courier the previous afternoon...the certified paternity panel, the Saint Jude birth registration, and the handwritten clearance note bearing Selene's elegant signature. Every single document was a stark, undeniable testament to a reality I had been completely blind to for four agonizing years.I was a father.The word felt heavy, sacred, and terrifying, burning through the icy numbness that had encased my spirit since the collapse of the lake house lie. I had spent half a decade consumed by corporate maneuvers, defending a false savior, and treating the bravest woman in New York like an unwelcome ghost in my halls. And all the while, in a snow-covered sanctuary outside Zurich, Selene had been cradling my son