All Chapters of The billionaire i Married by mistake : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

The morning sun broke over Portobello Road not in its usual lavender-tinted, nostalgic glow, but in a raw, sharp silver that cut cleanly through the dust lingering near the ceiling of 12 Portobello Road. For four hundred and thirty years, the routine of The Petal Pages had been as predictable as clockwork: the creak of the floorboards in C-sharp, the cold lie of the corner heater, the £0.10 Tesco instant coffee, and the precise, mechanical exchange of scripted dialogue between a Rose and a Leo.Today, the silence in the shop felt heavy, dense, and electric.Rose Thirty-Ninth stood behind the counter, dressed not in the climate-vaulted £29.99 Zara strawberry dress, but in a simple, oversized slate-grey linen shirt and comfortable trousers. Beside her, Leo Sterling XXXIV sat at Table 1, his hands wrapped around a ceramic mug. The Primark hoodie featuring thirty-six carefully placed cut-outs hung over the back of his chair, completely untouched.There were no plastic safety scissors on t

The autumn sky over Shoreditch turned a deep, bruised cobalt as the city lights began their quiet, automated illumination along Portobello Road. Inside The Petal Pages, the shadows were no longer fixed in rigid, multi-generational geometry. They softened, stretched, and blurred into the natural rhythm of a bustling neighborhood evening.Rose Thirty-Ninth leaned back against the mahogany counter, wiping down the surface with a damp cotton cloth. The laminate had been stripped away three days prior, revealing the dark, honest grain of the original wood beneath. It bore small, faint scratches—tangible marks left by four centuries of tea cups, coin exchanges, and resting elbows.Sitting at Table 1 was no longer a ghost or a proxy reciting a script about stroller factories. It was James XXXV, surrounded by five digital slates and three thick, leather-bound ledgers retrieved from the basement archives. Beside him sat Leo Sterling XXXIV, carefully cross-referencing global distribution nodes

The morning sun over Shoreditch didn't creeping through dust-motes like an ancient relic; it flooded the floor of 12 Portobello Road in broad, clean geometric slates. The dark mahogany counter, fully freed from its multi-century laminate shell, caught the autumn light in deep amber tones.At 6:30 AM, Rose Thirty-Ninth stood at the rear workbench, her hands white with sourdough flour. She wore a simple dark apron over her linen shirt, her grey eyes focused entirely on the tactile rhythm of shaping loaves for the morning rush. There was no internal clock ticking toward a ten-year script, no mental tally of how many identical Zara dresses remained in a Mayfair vault. There was only the elasticity of dough, the rising temperature of the stone oven, and the sharp, invigorating scent of crushed cardamom.Beside her, Leo Sterling XXXIV was assembling the espresso station. He didn't pull lever mechanisms with mechanical, linear sweeps designed to mirror twenty-seven dead ancestors; he adjuste

The first heavy snowfall of December arrived in Shoreditch overnight, blanketing Portobello Road in a thick, mute wool that swallowed the hum of early-morning mag-transit lines. By 5:00 AM, the streetlights cast long, amber pyramids across untouched drifts, making the dark timber framework of 12 Portobello Road look like a wooden island in a sea of silent white.Inside, the shop was already warm. The cast-iron radiator beneath the front window clinked softly—a rhythmic, reassuring metallic heartbeat that had entirely replaced the cold, silent deception of the previous centuries.Rose Thirty-Ninth stood at the center of the kitchen workbench, her hands dusted with dark rye flour. She wore a thick charcoal-grey wool jumper over her open-collared linen shirt. Beside her stood three wide wooden troughs filled with fermenting dough, their surfaces rising under damp linen cloths, breathing out a rich, sour-sweet perfume of wild yeast, roasted malt, and crushed caraway.There was no counting

The early spring light broke over Shoreditch in long, pale ribbons of gold that washed cleanly through the floor-to-ceiling glass of 12 Portobello Road. By 5:00 AM, the city’s atmospheric scrubbers had cleared the lingering chill, leaving the morning air smelling crisp, sweet, and faintly of damp river stones. Inside, the mahogany floorboards rested in comfortable silence—no longer creaking in a forced C-sharp register, but settling naturally as the shop warmed.Rose Thirty-Ninth stood at the central kitchen counter, her hands dusted with coarse wheat flour. She wore a simple charcoal-grey apron over an open-collared linen shirt, her grey eyes calm and clear as she divided fresh sourdough into round wooden proofing baskets. There was no internal clock counting down to a ten-year generational loop, no mental inventory of identical Zara dresses, and no script demanding her obedience. There was only the steady elasticity of the dough, the hum of the stone hearth, and the rich, earthy sce