All Chapters of The Billionaire's Exchanged Bride : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Ariana pov~"Right. Just an office file," I echoed, forcing a tight, unconvincing smile as I tried to step back.The words tasted like metal. In my anxiety to brush it off and escape back upstairs, I completely dropped the carefully curated cadence of breathless, dependent compliance that the real Aria always maintained around him. I didn't flutter my lashes, I didn't lean into his touch for reassurance, and worst of all, I spoke with a sharp, defensive snap that belonged entirely to me, not my twin.Ethan didn't let me step back. His fingers tightened slightly around my chin, not enough to bruise, but enough to hold me completely captive.His dark obsidian eyes swept over my face, stripping away the polite facade. The blind, all-consuming adoration that usually clouded his gaze when he looked at me suddenly fractured, replaced by a cold, razor-sharp analytical focus."You're not asking any follow-up questions," Ethan noted, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous whisper that scrape

"Ariana pov"The heavy click of the bedroom door latching shut sounded like a gunshot in the silent hallway. My heart hammered against my ribs with a frantic, sickening rhythm as I stared at the spot where Ethan had just vanished. *His international security team.* If they pulled a complete, unredacted file on the woman living abroad, they would instantly discover that the person registered under that passport wasn't a distant sibling—it was me. The entire foundation of my stolen life was about to implode, and I had mere hours before the truth caught up to the fiction. Panic surged through my veins, hot and sharp, driving me up from the settee. I hurried down the hall and pushed open the door to the master suite, ready to fight, to argue, to weave another frantic layer of lies just to buy myself a few more days. Instead, the words died instantly in my throat. Ethan had stripped off his suit jacket, tossing it carelessly over the velvet bench. His crisp white dress shirt was unbut

Ariana ~The air in the study went completely dead, charged with a sudden, lethal tension. I stood frozen beside the mahogany desk, the confidential manila folder still open beneath my trembling fingertips. Every drop of blood rushed to my head, and my heart hammered a frantic, deafening rhythm against my ribs. I had been caught red-handed snooping through his most secure files. There was no escaping it, no clever excuse left to invent. Ethan didn't shout. He didn't slam the door or storm across the room in a blind rage. Instead, he simply closed the heavy oak door behind him with a soft, deliberate click, locking it with a turn of the brass deadbolt. Slowly, measured stride by measured stride, he walked toward me. His dark obsidian eyes were unreadable, fixed entirely on my face with a terrifying, piercing intensity. When he reached the desk, he didn't look down at the open dossier exposing my secrets. He just stopped mere inches from me, towering over my frame, his jaw locked ti

Ariana ~The high-society committee meeting had ended an hour ago, but my nerves were still fried. Sitting in the quiet sanctuary of our private lounge on the penthouse floor of the estate, I poured a glass of iced water, trying to stop the nervous tremor in my hands. The two-year mark was looming, but every time I thought of Ethan, my heart melted. I couldn't leave him. I *wouldn't*. I was going to figure out a way to tell him the truth.Then, the private phone in my handbag began to vibrate. Not my official phone. The secondary burner—the one only *one* person on this planet had the number to. My breath hitched. My fingers trembled so violently I nearly dropped the device as I pulled it out. The caller ID displayed an international number, scrambled and unlisted.I pressed the phone to my ear, my voice barely a whisper. "Hello?""Pack your bags," a sharp, familiar voice cut through the speaker, cold and demanding. "I'm already on the plane. My flight lands in four hours, and I exp

Third person pov ~"Find her."The command sliced through the suffocating tension of the study like a jagged piece of glass. Ethan stood behind his desk, both hands planted flat on the dark mahogany, his knuckles white and trembling with a lethal mixture of rage and terror. Marcus stood on the other side of the desk, his tablet glowing with live satellite tracking screens and international flight databases. "I've already deployed the private aviation team, Boss," Marcus reported rapidly, his fingers flying across the screen. "We're pulling radar logs from every private runway within a two-hundred-mile radius of the estate. If Ariana took a jet, we'll have her tail number in less than twenty minutes—""I don't want a tail number in twenty minutes, Marcus," Ethan growled, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying register that vibrated through the room. "I want her actual coordinates *now*. Tap the regional cell towers. Ping the secondary satellite array. I don't care if you have to o