Todos os capítulos de The Billionaire's Secret Bride: Capítulo 321 - Capítulo 330

Point of View: Elena"Don't move her. Not yet."The paramedic's voice cut through the warm gallery light like something from another world entirely, and I remember thinking, absurdly, that Eleanor's mural was still smiling down at all of us while my whole body went cold from the inside out. Alexander's hand had not left mine since the moment I said his name, and I could feel him shaking even as his voice stayed perfectly, terrifyingly calm for the room."Talk to me," he said, kneeling beside the chair Grace had eased me into, his eyes never once leaving my face. "Elena. Stay with me. Look at me, not the ceiling.""I'm here," I managed, though the tightening beneath my ribs had come back twice more in the last ten minutes, sharper each time, and some small, clinical part of my brain was already counting the seconds between them the way I'd read about in every pregnancy book I'd told myself I didn't need to finish. Twelve weeks was too early for this. I knew that much even through the f

Point of View: Elena"I have been sitting on this couch for four days, Grace, and I am fairly certain I have memorized the pattern in the ceiling."Grace laughed from the doorway of the apartment, arms full of folders she insisted on bringing me despite Alexander's very clear instructions that no theater business was to cross this threshold until the two week mark. "I brought the good kind of trouble," she said, settling into the chair across from me, setting the folders down like a peace offering. "Not the kind that requires you standing up."The good kind of trouble turned out to be a letter from one of the school's largest donors, a Mrs. Whitfield who had funded three full scholarships the previous year, informing us she was reconsidering her pledge for the coming term pending, in her words, a closer look at how the program's funds were actually being allocated."She's never asked for that before," I said, reading it twice to make sure I hadn't missed something obvious. "Not once i

Point of View: Elena"I know that name."Isabel said it quietly, staring down at the single page Grace had finally managed to pull together, a consultant's name attached to three different donor lunches across the past month, each one followed within days by a letter expressing sudden concern about the school's finances. I had insisted on being there when Grace brought the findings, over both Grace's and Alexander's objections, on the condition that I stayed seated the entire time and let someone else do the talking if my back started acting up."Where from?" I asked, watching Isabel's face carefully."Daniel Reyes worked for my family's firm four years ago," Isabel said slowly, something hard and unreadable moving behind her eyes. "Before I forced him out for exactly this kind of thing. Quiet pressure campaigns against organizations connected to people he considered enemies. He's very good at making something look like due diligence when it's actually sabotage dressed up in a suit."

Point of View: Elena"Absolutely not. You are not walking into that school today."Alexander's voice carried the particular flat finality he rarely used with me, and under any other circumstance I might have laughed at how thoroughly the tables had turned since the early days of our marriage, when I was the one enforcing boundaries against a man who barely understood what they were. But Grace had just called to say Mrs. Whitfield herself was at the school, unannounced, asking pointed questions of the staff, and every instinct I had was screaming that this was the moment someone needed to be there who actually understood what was happening well enough to answer them honestly."I'm not asking your permission," I said, already reaching for my coat despite the twinge in my back that had become a familiar, low background hum over the past week. "I built that school out of nothing. I am not going to let a dead man's grudge burn it down while I sit on a couch memorizing the ceiling.""You ar

Point of View: Elena"Elena. Elena, look at me."Alexander's voice found me through a haze of sudden, sharp pain low in my abdomen, entirely unlike the mild tightening I'd grown used to over the past two weeks, and I realized dimly that I was gripping the arm of the gallery chair hard enough to leave marks in the wood. Mrs. Whitfield's confrontation had resolved itself an hour earlier, gracefully, with a promise to donate double what she'd originally pledged out of what she called guilt for ever doubting me, and I had allowed myself, foolishly, to relax for the first time in days."Something's wrong," I said, echoing the exact words I'd used two weeks earlier, except this time the fear in my own voice frightened me more than the pain did."Stay with me," Alexander said, already lifting me carefully, his voice steady even as his hands weren't. "Marcus, call ahead, tell them we're coming."The drive to the hospital happened in the same fractured pieces as the first time, Alexander's han