Married the Right Billionaire, Now My Family Begs Me Back のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 31 - チャプター 40

CHAPTER 32The car slowed beneath the porte-cochère. Harris got out, came around, and opened Rafael’s door with the expression of a man who had been told what would happen to him if anything went wrong today and had taken it personally.Rafael didn’t move yet.“They’re going to stare,” he said.“At you.”“At both of us.” He turned his head. In the shaded car, his eyes were very dark. “I haven’t been seen outside that house for seven months. The last time half of these men saw me, I was signing something. Now I’m going to walk up those steps with a cane, and they’re going to do the math.”“What kind of math?”“The kind that asks who gets my seat if I fall.”“You won’t fall.”“You sound very sure.”“I am,” said Tatiana. “I’ll be holding your other arm.”He looked at her for one long second. Then the corner of his mouth moved, the shadow of something she was beginning to recognize as the closest he could come to laughing in public.“Then let’s go,” he said.There were eleven steps. She c

CHAPTER 34The lights in the hospital corridor came at her one by one.White. Bright. White. Bright. They streaked across Tatiana’s vision in long, dizzying smears as the gurney rattled down the corridor. She couldn’t say how long it had been since the lawn. A minute. An hour.The pain came in waves. It didn’t stay at one size. It rose from low in her belly, slowly, almost slowly, then peaked into something sharp enough to curl her whole body around it. She heard herself make a sound. It didn’t feel like it was hers.“I’m here.” A familiar voice in Tatiana’s ear. “Tatiana. I’m here.”A hand was wrapped around hers. Big, warm, and wet. It gripped her so hard her bones ached, and she held on to that ache, because it was the only thing in the whole spinning white world that stayed still.“Please,” she whispered. “The baby-”“I know.”“It hurts so much-”“I know. Look at me.”Tatiana turned her head. It used up everything she had. Rafael was running beside the gurney., There was sweat at

CHAPTER 36The emergency room was dim and humming.The machines stood along the wall in a quiet row, blinking softly. A monitor traced a green line across a black screen, up and down, up and down, with a small, systematic electronic beat. A bag of clear fluid hung beside the bed. A smaller one hung next to it.Rafael stopped just inside the room and for a moment forgot how to breathe. She looked so small. He finally walked to the bed. His knee screamed with every step. He ignored it, just as he had ignored it on the grass of the golf course this morning, in the car, or on the cold tile outside the doors of the hospital rooms. His cane was still lying in the grass somewhere, forgotten. It felt very far away.There was a chair, but Rafael didn’t take it right away. He stood and looked at Tatiana’s hand lying on the sheet, small and pale and still, with the bruise from Matthew’s grip fading to yellow at her wrist.Then he sat, slowly, and held it in both of his hands. The hand felt colde

CHAPTER 38.Oliver Kensington's car had barely cleared the gate when Rafael came down the corridor. He didn't need a cane anymore. It had been six weeks since he'd carried one, ever since the physiotherapist folded her arms in the middle of the gym, watched him walk the length of the room without faltering, and said, reluctantly, that he was being boring about it and she figured he could stop. His knee still ached on cold mornings. It would probably ache for the rest of his life. But this was so much better.The glass doors of the breakfast room were open. Claire was clearing Oliver's untouched plate with the face of a woman removing a dead mouse from a pantry. At the far end of the long table, his mother sat with her coffee and her toast, perfectly composed, and a glass of white wine that was now empty."You're drinking alcohol in the morning. Have you lost your mind, Mom?" said Rafael."I made a toast.""You really meant it.""That old man forced his way in, and I couldn't say anyth

CHAPTER 40.After hours of grinding through papers and numbers, Tatiana finally yawned. She stretched the muscles in her neck, which had started to feel stiff and uncomfortable. And the man named Rafael was truly perceptive. He noticed Tatiana's movement and immediately moved."Get some rest, Tatiana." Rafael stood, took a few folders out of Tatiana's hands, and smiled slightly when the girl finally looked up. "We'll continue this later."That sounded like a good idea. Tatiana nodded. "All right."The two of them agreed to pack the secret items back into the suitcase. And Tatiana looked at Rafael far more kindly today; she nodded and smiled in relief."Hey, thank you."One of Rafael's eyebrows went up. "Um... okay.""Okay?" Tatiana snorted, and one hand went up, pointing toward the door. "That's all you have to say after sitting in my room all day? Good night, Rafael. The door's over there, in case you forgot where it is."Rafael turned toward the door as if seeing it for the first ti