Lahat ng Kabanata ng CEO, Take Your Filthy Money and Get Out: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

Asher's voice held no warmth at all. He sounded like a different man.Emma trembled. No matter how badly she behaved, Asher had always spoken to her with endless gentleness and patience. She had never seen her father this furious.Even Regina startled at his tone, and her hand let go of Emma's without thinking.Emma didn't move. She looked up at her father, at a face she had never seen on him before, and her chin started to shake. She looked at Regina, who said nothing at all, and then back at Asher, and the tears spilled over."Emma." He did not raise his voice.Her shoulders jerked. She turned to Leo with her face streaming and got it out at last, small and unwilling. "I'm sorry."Asher frowned, strode to Emma, and crouched in front of her. His sharp gaze pinned her in place. "Look at me, Emma. Where did you learn those things about children without mothers and evil stepmothers? Who taught you to speak that way?"Emma finally broke. Tears poured down her face as she shouted stubbornl

Eleanor was speechless. She stared at Asher in the driver's seat, her thoughts tumbling into chaos."Julian?" Her voice tightened. "How do you know that name?"Eighteen years ago, a fire had broken out in an abandoned warehouse outside San Francisco.Eleanor, still a child, was trapped inside. A boy ran into the flames and carried her out.Before he left, Eleanor caught his sleeve and asked his name. The boy told her it was Julian.She had carried that name in her heart for eighteen years. She owed him her life and had never stopped being grateful for it. But that was all it had ever been. She had met Julian once, for the length of a single night. How could she possibly love him? The idea was absurd.Asher's hands tightened on the wheel until the veins stood out across the backs of them. He turned and looked at her, unreadable."You call his name in your sleep."Eleanor froze."More than once," he added.He did not say the rest of it out loud.When Eleanor married him he had been nobod

Asher's arrival changed the air in the Montgomery hall.He came in, gave Damien one brief look, and let his eyes rest on Eleanor in the borrowed white shirt a second longer than he had meant to.He crossed to her, put a hand lightly at the small of her back, and inclined his head to Helen. "Asher Grayson. Eleanor's husband."Eleanor frowned up at him. "How did you know I was here?"He had meant to take her out to dinner that evening. She had been put through enough at that school, and he had wanted to make something of the day. She hadn't answered her phone, so he had James find out where she was, and the address that came back was this one. His first thought had been Damien Montgomery. His second, once James finished checking, was that Eleanor had studied piano under the old woman who lived here, years ago. That settled him. His wife was loyal to anyone who had ever been good to her; if she was close to the grandmother, naturally she saw something of the grandson. It did not improve h

The midnight-blue gown flashed beneath the crystal lights.Eleanor's hands stopped above the keys, her fingers trembling with rage and humiliation.She watched Asher approach with Regina on his arm, one step at a time, and the last thread of her reason snapped.A jarring note rang out.The harsh mistake shattered the music and pierced the silent hall.The crowd gasped, and several famous classical critics frowned.Regina seized on the error at once.She looked toward the piano and raised her voice so that everyone around them heard it. "Aren’t all the guests here distinguished pianists? Who is this lady? A piece that simple, and she still can't get through it."Heads turned toward the stage. Asher turned with them, and went still. It was Eleanor at that piano."And at an event like this," Regina went on pleasantly. "Whoever chose that song for her? Or did she pick it out herself? Has your husband walked out on you as well?"The murmuring around them grew louder.Asher's brows drew toge

Emma struck the granite floor at the bottom of the terrace stairs with a sickening thud and lost consciousness."Emma!" Eleanor's heart seized. She shoved past the stunned Regina and raced down the stairs in her heels.People in the reception hall heard the scream and poured through the glass doors. Within seconds, the stairway was surrounded.Eleanor dropped to her knees on the cold floor, her hands trembling as she reached to examine the back of Emma's head.Before she could touch Emma's hair, Regina came down the stairs and pushed Eleanor away."Don't touch my daughter." Regina gathered the unconscious Emma into her arms, her face white.Then she looked up at Eleanor, and her voice rose clearly over the crowd. "It was her. Eleanor pushed Emma down the stairs. Somebody call an ambulance. She tried to kill my daughter."Shock erupted through the crowd, and accusing stares cut into Eleanor like knives.One hour later, outside the emergency room in a private hospital's VIP wing.The sha