All Chapters of THE BILLIONAIRES CONTRACT WIFE: Chapter 21 - Chapter 26

Chapter 21Elena's POVFor six days, it rang so loudly in my ears.That was how long I had until I would stand in front of a thousand strangers and promise to love a man who had not once said he loved me."Hold still," the seamstress muttered through a mouthful of pins. "You breathe like a bride who wants to run.""I'm not running.""Your shoulders are."I forced them down. In the long mirror, a woman in ivory silk looked back at me, pale and straight-backed. Behind her, Emily sat cross-legged on a velvet sofa with a box of macarons in her lap, pretending not to cry."You look," Emily said, "like a woman who has already won.""I look like a woman who is being pinned.""Same thing, in this city."I laughed, and the seamstress sighed, because laughing moved my ribs. But it was the first real laugh I'd had since the garden room.The days after the Kingsley gathering had been a storm of planners and lists. And the wedding coordinator, had arrived at the mansion with three assistants and a

Chapter 23Elena's POVThe aisle was forty-one steps long. I counted them, because counting was easier than thinking.Evans had promised the world a Kingsley wedding. Alexander had given him eighty guests, six photographers chosen by Marcus's office, and a venue Evans could not enter without an invitation: the Wren Room, a glass-roofed conservatory on the Upper East Side that Alexander had owned for ten years. White orchids climbed the pillars. Morning light fell through the glass in long, clean bars.It was beautiful. It was elegant. It was also, I understood, a wall.He had not canceled the public wedding. He had simply taken the public out of it.I had spent five days in that same careful silence with him. He had not asked about the car outside the café, and I had not asked about the trust amendment on my phone, the one I had read until the words stopped looking like words. We were two people walking around the same hole in the floor, politely, so neither of us would fall in.Now I

Chapter 25Alexander POVThe dining room had been set for fourteen.Crystal caught the light from the chandelier. The long table gleamed under white linen. Staff moved with quiet precision, pouring wine, adjusting place settings, vanishing when not needed. I stood near the head of the table and watched the room fill.Richard arrived first, as expected. My father moved through the space with the same measured authority he had always carried, greeting relatives with brief nods and the occasional clipped word. His gaze found Elena the moment she entered at my side.She wore a simple black dress. No heavy jewelry except the sapphire at her throat. She did not cling to my arm. She did not smile too widely. She simply stood there, calm, and let the room look at her.Conversations paused.“So this is the new Mrs. Kingsley,” Aunt Margaret said, voice carrying farther than necessary. She was my mother’s younger sister, sharp-eyed and never shy about stating the obvious. “Alexander, you always