All Chapters of The Billionaire's Secret Bride: Chapter 421 - Chapter 430

Point of View: Elena“Mrs. Sterling, I called your husband first, but I would rather speak to you. A Hart should hear this from a friend. Bring Richard’s shares to my door by midnight, or the world learns you were bought like a coat.”The words landed like a slap. I did not move. The clock on Alexander’s desk said ten forty, and the rain tapped the window as if it wanted in.“I am not a coat, Mr. Pruitt,” I said.“Of course not. Coats are paid for.” He laughed softly, like a man tasting good wine. “You were paid for with a mansion and a surname. Your great grandmother paid for that mansion with her fingers. Do you see how it looks?”“What do you want?” Alexander asked. His voice was low and dangerous.“Three small things. Richard’s shares, signed over to the Pruitt Family Trust. Your signature on a letter calling Eleanor’s ledger a fake. And Mrs. Sterling’s silence.”“Her silence,” Alexander said.“A quiet wife is a lovely thing.”My hands began to shake. I pressed them flat on the de

Point of View: Elena“Grandpa Richard, tell me again about the lady with the thimble. Mommy was not listening the first time. Mommy is always looking at the fence now. Why is Mommy looking at the fence?”Claire’s voice floated across the garden, bright as a bell. I stood on the terrace with a cold cup of tea, pretending to read. It was Sunday morning. The rain had finally stopped, and the pear tree hung heavy with drops that fell and fell like slow clocks.I had not slept. I had walked every room of the house three times. The guards stood at the gate in their dark coats, and I hated how normal that looked.Richard sat in the wicker chair under the tree, a blanket over his knees. Claire sat on the grass at his feet with Rabbit in her lap, and her small hand rested on his shoe.“She was a seamstress,” Richard said. His voice was thin, but he spoke with care. “She came to the back door of the hotel every spring. Always on the same morning. She wore a gray scarf and carried a pie in a clo

Point of View: Elena“I think you should leave, Alexander. Just for a while. If I am the name on that claim, then I am the danger in this house, and I will not let it fall on you.”I said it in the car, with the rain starting again and my hands pressed between my knees. Alexander had driven us away from the Sterling tower without a word. Now he pulled to the curb beside a closed flower stall and turned off the engine.“Say that again,” he said quietly.“I am the reason Pruitt can hurt you. My name. My blood. If I go, he has nothing to hold.”“Elena.”“I mean it. I could take Claire to my mother’s. For a month. Until Naomi and Marcus finish digging.”“Look at me.”I did not want to. If I looked, I would break. But I turned my head, and his face was only inches from mine, and it was not angry. It was stripped bare.“Last night you told me never to decide what you can carry,” he said. “Today you are deciding what I can carry. Do you hear it?”I opened my mouth. Closed it.“I am not stron

Point of View: Elena“Do not come closer, child. Stand under the work light where I can see your hands. A Pruitt once took everything from a Hart, and old guilt makes a very careful guard, dear.”The stage of the Delancey Theater was black and cold. One bulb burned on a tall metal stand, throwing a yellow circle onto the boards. Beyond it, the empty seats rose into darkness like the ribs of a sleeping animal. I could smell dust and cold wood and the faint sweet ghost of old perfume.I stood in the circle of light with my heart hammering. Margaret sat on a folding chair at the edge of the shadow, wrapped in her long coat, her hands folded over the head of a cane.“I am alone,” I said. “As you asked.”“Your husband is outside.”“He is in the car. He promised to stay there.”“That was clever of him.” A tired smile. “Sit, Elena. There is a second chair.”I sat. The wood creaked. Neither of us spoke for a moment, and I became aware of every small sound, the click of the cooling pipes, the

Point of View: Elena“It says a Hart may claim the house and its name, Alexander. The whole first hotel. Pruitt did not lie about that. We could lose everything this morning, and I am the one holding the page. Tell me what to do.”I whispered it in the vault corridor, with the cream colored paper trembling between my fingers. The steel walls hummed. Behind us, Ms. Ortiz was speaking quietly to two officers, and Edmund Pruitt, still smiling, was being led toward the stairs with his coat folded over his arm.“Read it from the beginning,” Alexander said. “Slowly. Out loud. Everyone here is on our side.”Naomi held her recorder out. Marcus stood close. Iris pressed her back against the cold wall. I took a breath and began.“Agreement. Made this day at the house of counsel. Eleanor Sterling, wife of Aldric Sterling, and Lydia Hart, seamstress, agree to the following.”My voice shook. I steadied it.“One. The sum of twenty five thousand dollars given by Lydia Hart for the building of the fi