Todos os capítulos de The Billionaire's Secret Bride: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

Point of View: Elena"Marry him within the week," my father said, "or I will lose everything your mother and I built, and I do not think my heart can survive losing it twice."I set down my pencil so carefully that it did not make a sound, which felt important somehow, as if the whole room might shatter if I moved too fast. My father stood in the doorway of the drafting room at Hart and Combs, gray at the temples, gray in the face, holding a folder against his chest like it might stop bleeding."Marry who," I said."A name in a contract. That is all he is to us right now. A name and a signature."Behind him, the firm my mother had built from nothing hummed along in its usual half empty way. Two drafting tables. One intern who left at five sharp because we could not pay overtime. The framed photograph of my mother on the wall, laughing at a groundbreaking twenty two years ago, her hard hat crooked, her whole face lit up with the kind of certainty I had spent my whole life trying to ear

Point of View: Elena"Where did you get that cufflink," I asked, before I had decided it was a question I actually wanted answered.Alexander looked down at his own wrist like he had forgotten it was there. We were standing in the private elevator of his building, the one that required a key card instead of a floor number, on our way up to sign the last of the paperwork before the wedding two days from now. Silver, engraved with a small compass rose, worn smooth at one edge the way things get worn when someone rubs their thumb over them without noticing."It was a gift," he said. "Why.""No reason."It was not no reason. I had seen that exact compass rose once before, a year ago, in a ballroom I had only gotten into because Priya's catering company needed an extra pair of hands and I had needed the extra hundred dollars badly enough not to ask questions. A blackout masquerade, they had called it, every guest required to wear a mask until midnight, no names allowed until the lights cam

Point of View: Elena"Breathe," Priya whispered, adjusting the last pin in my hair, "or you're going to pass out in front of three hundred people and every single one of them will post it before you hit the floor."I laughed despite myself, a real laugh, the first one all morning, and it steadied me more than any of the planner's instructions had. In the mirror behind Priya's shoulder I barely recognized the woman looking back, dark red hair swept up instead of pinned back for drafting work, a dress the color of old ivory that cost more than a year of my salary and had been delivered to my apartment two days ago without anyone asking my opinion on it first."You don't have to do this," Priya said quietly, meeting my eyes in the mirror. "There's still time to walk out that door.""There isn't, actually. My father's whole life is downstairs waiting on this.""That's not what I asked."I did not have an answer that was not a lie, so I did not give her one. Instead I asked her to check th

Point of View: Elena"Cancel the ten o'clock," his voice reached me before I even opened my eyes, already fully awake somewhere beyond the bedroom door. "Tell Marcus I'll see him when I see him."I woke up married to a stranger and reached for the wrong side of a bed I had never slept in before, my hand meeting cold silk instead of the wall I expected, and for one full second I forgot my own name.The penthouse was silent in a way my apartment never had been. No radiator knocking, no Priya banging around the kitchen two floors below, just glass and grey light and the ghost of Alexander's cologne on a pillow he had clearly not used. I lay there a long moment, staring at the ceiling I did not recognize, tracing the unfamiliar seams of crown molding until my eyes adjusted enough to remember where I actually was. A wedding band caught the light every time I turned my hand, foreign and heavy, and I made myself sit up before the strangeness of it could pull me back under the covers to hide

Point of View: Elena"I know what you're building at the old Delancey Theater. I think we should talk before your husband finds out first." The message glowed on my phone screen like a lit match I was too afraid to blow out, and I read it four times before I let myself feel the full weight of being watched by someone I could not name. I sat on the edge of the tub in Alexander's guest bathroom for a full ten minutes afterward, phone clutched against my chest, listening to the pipes hum somewhere behind the walls and trying to decide whether fear or curiosity was winning the argument in my chest. Neither one lost. They simply sat together, uneasy roommates, for the rest of the night.By morning the message had not repeated itself, and I told myself that meant it was over, the way I told myself a lot of things I did not actually believe anymore.I did not tell Alexander. Whatever secret Daniel was chasing through shell companies clearly mattered more than mine, and some stubborn, private