جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 40

*Grace's POV* The ballroom hummed around us, completely oblivious to the venomous warfare happening at our table. I looked up at Victoria Sterling. My heart was hammering a frantic, terrified rhythm against my ribs. My hands were trembling so badly I had to clench them tightly in my lap to keep them hidden beneath the table. But I did not break eye contact. "You are mistaken, Ms. Sterling," I said. My voice wasn't loud. It was polite, steady, and entirely soft. But it was the first time I had spoken to her with complete, unyielding conviction. Victoria paused. Her cold, victorious smile faltered for a fraction of a second. She clearly hadn't expected the "fragile little mouse" to speak back. "Excuse me?" Victoria scoffed delicately, adjusting her grip on her champagne flute. I took a slow, measured breath. I channeled every ounce of Grandmother Eleanor's elegant menace. "You assume my husband is a man who can be manipulated by politics," I continued, keeping m

*Grace's POV* The entire ballroom stopped breathing. The frantic whispers, the sound of the paramedics rolling the gurney away—it all instantly vanished. Alexander stood between me and Victoria Sterling. He did not yell. He did not raise his hand. The sheer, suffocating weight of his lethal aura rolled over the massive room like a physical shockwave. The temperature in the ballroom felt like it dropped twenty degrees. Victoria’s cruel, mocking sneer froze on her face. She took a tiny, instinctive step backward. Her expensive high heel wobbled. Alexander stepped forward, closing the distance between them. He was a foot taller than her. His massive chest and broad shoulders completely eclipsed her vision. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back in a casual military parade rest. He leaned down. His face moved incredibly close to Victoria's cheek. My breath caught painfully in my throat. A sharp, ugly, violent spike of pure jealousy pierced dire

*Grace's POV*I stared blindly at the ceiling of the guest bedroom. The heavy, suffocating memory of Alexander’s storm-gray eyes in the dark SUV replayed in my mind on a continuous loop. *“What are you hiding from me, Grace?”*My stomach twisted into sick, heavy knots. I rolled over and buried my face in the soft pillows. My entire body physically ached. My knees were deeply bruised from kneeling on the hard marble floor. My arms felt like lead from performing chest compressions. But the physical pain was absolutely nothing compared to the mental exhaustion. The guilt of hiding Grandmother Eleanor's baby demand was completely crushing me. I had absolutely no idea how or what to tell him when he inevitably asked again. And he *would* ask again. The Supreme Commander did not let things go. Suddenly, my cell phone vibrated violently against the wooden nightstand. 

*Grace's POV*Our Fathers spent the whole day here bickering with each other and eating the pastries they brought with the delicacies prepared by henri( the head chef). It was fun and lively. I enjoyed watching my father so relaxed and laughing freely, it made me forget everything that had occupied my wandering mindThey left late in the eveningThe paparazzi  also left after realizing they wouldn't get what they wantedAnd I was left completely alone with my husbandThe massive, heavy mahogany doors of the Master Suite clicked shut behind us. The silence in the room was completely deafening. I stood awkwardly near the center of the dark, sprawling bedroom. The sheer size of Alexander’s private sanctuary was entirely overwhelming. It looked bigger than It was the first day I slept here.It smelled intensely of his expensive cologne and  clean rain. I just

*Mia’s POV*Scaling a heavily fortified military compound at six in the morning was not on my weekend bingo card. But my best friend had just performed hands-only CPR on national television in a ripped designer gown. The entire internet was losing its mind over the "Vanguard’s Angel." And Grace wasn’t answering her phone. I had called her exactly fourteen times. It went straight to voicemail every single time. Knowing Grace, she was currently hyperventilating in a closet somewhere, She needed her best friend. She needed a massive bag of sour cream and onion chips, and she desperately needed this nine-dollar bottle of convenience store wine I was currently clutching to my chest. I stood at the base of the massive, eight-foot stone wall surrounding the South Garden of the Reeves Estate. I was currently staring up at the sheer rock face, mentally calculating if my combat boots had enough grip to scale a heavily fortified military compound.I took a deep breath, shoved the bag of chi