All Chapters of The Disgraced Husband Is the Septamillionaire Heir: Chapter 271
- Chapter 280
307 chapters
CHAPTER 213
The image refused to leave her mind. Sebastian Mitchell, the man whose name alone could shake boardrooms across Ashford Hills, had burst through that hospital door like a child running to greet his favorite person in the world. Arms wide open. Face lit up with pure, unfiltered joy. Not a trace of the cold, calculating CEO the entire city feared and respected.Vivian sat in the corridor outside Carden's room, her back straight against the chair, her fingers lightly tapping against her knee. Carden had fallen asleep twenty minutes ago, and she had quietly stepped out to give him space. But her mind was anything but quiet.Sebastian's excuse kept replaying in her ears. Carden saved his life once. That was the story. That was the neat little explanation he had wrapped up and handed to everyone like a gift.Vivian's eyes narrowed at the wall across from her. She had watched men express gratitude before. Her grandfather had saved a business partner from bankruptcy years ago and the man had
CHAPTER 214
The afternoon sun pushed through the hospital window in long, warm strips that fell across the floor of the small waiting area outside room 412. The corridor was quiet. A few nurses passed by at distant intervals. The smell of antiseptic hung in the air, softened slightly by the arrangement of white lilies sitting in Madison's basket.Vivian sat with her back straight and her ankles crossed, holding a cup of tea that had already gone cold. Beside her, Madison had her legs tucked under herself in the chair, her dark hair falling loosely over her shoulders. The basket of fruits and flowers sat on the small table between them.For a while, it had been comfortable. Easy conversation about the company's new partnership agreements. A brief exchange about a restaurant that had opened near the Prescott district. Small, normal things that made the world outside this hospital feel like it still existed.Then Madison glanced toward the closed door of room 412. The lightness on her face shifted.
CHAPTER 215
"How can you be sure?" Madison pressed. "You told me yourself that the people behind all of this were connected to a massive criminal organization. Do you honestly believe they will just let everything go because Carden beat them once? These people do not give up, Vivian. They regroup. They come back harder. And when they do, they will come for you again because you are the easiest way to get to him."Vivian's fingers stilled in her lap. She did not respond immediately.Madison pulled back slightly in her chair, watching her friend's face. "I am not saying this to hurt you. I am saying it because you are the most important person in my life and I cannot watch you walk into something that is going to destroy you while convincing yourself it is the right thing to do.""I am not convincing myself of anything." Vivian's eyes moved back to Madison. Cold. Direct. "I made a decision with a clear head.""A clear head." Madison let out a short, humorless breath. "Vivian, you were kidnapped. Yo
CHAPTER 216
The cold tea sat forgotten on the table between them. Neither woman reached for it. The corridor outside had grown quieter in the past few minutes, the foot traffic thinning to the occasional nurse walking past with a clipboard. Inside this small waiting area, the air between Vivian and Madison had taken on a different texture. Heavier. Charged. Like the moment before a storm decides to break.Vivian set her cup down with a soft, deliberate click against the table. She turned to face Madison fully, her spine straight, her shoulders back, her cold blue eyes settling on her friend with the kind of steadiness that did not waver."Let me say something." Her voice came out even. Unhurried. "You have been talking for the last twenty minutes about what Carden might do or what he might bring into my life. What danger might come. What problems might follow." She paused. "But not once have you mentioned what he has already done."Madison opened her mouth. Vivian continued before she could."He
CHAPTER 217
Madison hesitated. Her chin lifted slightly, refusing to back down. "I said you are staying out of guilt. You feel responsible for how badly you treated him and now that he has been injured, you do not know how to walk away without feeling like a terrible person."Vivian stood up.It was not dramatic. She did not push her chair back with a loud scrape. She simply rose from her seat, slowly and deliberately, and looked down at Madison with eyes that carried a coldness so complete it felt like the room temperature had actually dropped."I have sat here and listened to every word you said." Her voice was quiet and precise. Every syllable placed carefully. "I let you question my marriage. I let you question my choices. I let you talk about Carden like he was some virus that infected my life. I listened to all of it because you are my friend and I respect that you are worried about me."Her jaw tightened. "But you do not get to stand there and tell me what I feel. You do not get to take ev
CHAPTER 218
The hospital room had settled into the kind of quiet that only exists late in the day when the busiest visiting hours are over and the world outside has started to slow down. The heart monitor beeped at its steady pace. The evening light coming through the blinds had turned from gold to a deeper amber, stretching long shadows across the floor.Vivian sat in her usual chair, hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed on the middle distance somewhere between the window and the wall. She had been quiet for several minutes after Madison left. Not the comfortable quiet she sometimes shared with Carden. A thinking kind of quiet. The kind that meant something was being assembled inside her that she had not yet found the words for.Carden watched her from the bed without pressing. He had learned by now that pushing Vivian was like trying to rush water uphill. She would get there on her own terms or not at all.Then she shifted in her chair. Her hands unfolded and settled flat against her knees. She
CHAPTER 219
Sebastian looked between the two men. The patriarch had already turned toward the elevator doors with the settled confidence of someone who had already decided the matter was closed. Sebastian exhaled through his nose and shrugged one shoulder."One drink."Twenty minutes later, the three of them sat inside the lounge on Prescott Avenue. Low amber lighting. Leather seats. The murmur of distant conversations and the soft clink of glasses. The kind of place that absorbed noise instead of amplifying it.Richard turned his glass slowly on the table, watching the liquid shift. "I keep thinking about when Carden first showed up at our gate. My father bowing to him like he was someone important." He shook his head once. "I thought the old man had finally lost his mind."The patriarch made a short, satisfied sound. "I had not lost anything. My instincts were simply better than everyone else's.""Your instincts have been wrong before.""Name one time."Richard opened his mouth. The patriarch p
CHAPTER 220
Derek crossed the lounge with the kind of walk that expected rooms to rearrange themselves around him. His grandfather followed two steps behind, his posture measured and deliberate. The noise of Prescott Avenue vanished as the door swung shut behind them.He stopped at the edge of the table and let his eyes move across the three men sitting there. Sebastian. Richard. The patriarch. His gaze settled for just a beat longer on Sebastian before the practiced smile spread across his face."Well. Small city after all." Derek gestured loosely at the booth. "Mind if we join?"The patriarch tilted his head toward the empty seats across the table. Not a warm invitation. More the kind of nod a man gives when he cannot be bothered to argue.Harold shook hands with Richard and gave the patriarch a respectful dip of the chin before sliding into the seat beside his grandson. A waitress appeared within seconds. Harold ordered. Derek ordered. The introductory pleasantries that follow whenever two gro
CHAPTER 221
The change in the atmosphere was immediate and physical. It moved through the table like a cold draft under a door.Richard's hand tightened around his glass. He did not speak but the line of his jaw went rigid. The patriarch's expression did not shift dramatically. It simply settled. The way a sky settles just before the weather turns serious.Sebastian put his glass down. He placed it on the table with a soft, even sound. His hands rested on the table in front of him, completely still. When he looked at Derek, his face carried no anger. No visible irritation. Just the same unreadable calm that had made him one of the most feared men in every boardroom in Ashford Hills."Let me stop you there." Sebastian's voice was quiet. Not aggressive. The kind of quiet that makes people lean in despite themselves. "Nobody at this table truly understands the full scope of what Carden did. Not me. Not Richard. Certainly not you." He held Derek's gaze without blinking. "What I do know is that he wal
CHAPTER 222
Richard sat without speaking. His arms were crossed. His eyes were down on the table in front of him. He did not look at Derek. He did not offer a nod of sympathy or a quiet word of acknowledgment. He sat in absolute silence and let that silence say everything that needed saying.Derek looked at Richard. Waited. Nothing.He looked at Sebastian. Sebastian had picked up his glass again and was looking somewhere across the lounge with the disinterest of a man whose attention had simply moved on.The humiliation did not arrive loudly. It settled over Derek slowly, like cold water rising around him. No one had raised a voice. No one had called him a name. They had simply turned away. Dismissed him with the ease of people who did not need to fight because they had already won the room entirely.Harold filled the gap with a question directed at Richard about a property development near the Greyford waterfront. Richard answered. The conversation resumed around Derek as if he had already left.