2024-08-21 09:43:49As Alex approached the house entrance, Sophia noticed that Alex
was behind her."Haven’t you had enough?"
"Believe me," Alex replied, "running into you is the last thing I wanted today."
Sophia stepped out, blocking his path.
"So, what is it then? Are you here to remind me of the biggest mistake of my life?"
"Mistake?" Alex’s tone grew colder.
"I could say the same. You think I enjoyed waking up and realizing I’d wasted my time with someone so shallow?"
"Shallow?" Sophia’s eyes flashed with anger.
"You’re just bitter because you know I’m right. You’re nothing but a loser, a gold-digger."
Alex laughed, shaking his head.
"You’re delusional. I don’t need anything from you, least of your money."
Sophia stepped even closer, her finger jabbing the air between them.
"Then what do you want? To ruin my life even more?"
"No, I’m not here to ruin anything." Alex locked his eyes with hers. "I’m meeting my fiancée."
"Your fiancée? You have a fiancée?" Sophia shocked.
"I’m here to meet someone named Sophia Lancaster at this address," Alex’s patience wearing thin.
"I’m not looking for you. So, if you can help me out, call her, and I’ll leave as soon as possible."
WTF?!
Sophia paused, her expression shifting from shock to realization.
"Wait... you're here for that Sophia Lancaster?"
Alex coldly replied.
"Yes! Can you please just get her? I don't have time for games."
Sophia bit her lip, trying to mask the confusion swirling inside her.
"There’s no need to call anyone. I’m... I’m Sophia Lancaster."
They stood there, staring at each other in stunned silence.
Just then, a voice called out from inside the mansion.
"Alexander Leonhart!"
An old man stepped out, his face lighting up with a wide smile.
"Master told me you would come today! What are you doing out there?"
"Grandfather," Sophia called.
The old man, Abraham Lancaster, turned towards them, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
He looked between them, his smile growing even wider as if he had been waiting for this moment.
"So, you've met Alex, your fiancé. It’s great to know you both know each other."
Sophia quickly interjected, "We are not—"
"Call your parents, Sophia," Abraham said, cutting her off.
"Gather everyone in the Great Hall. I have an announcement. You both are going to get married today."
Sophia stood, shocked.
"Finally, my long-held wish can be fulfilled today," Abraham’s voice trembled with happiness.
He walked over to Alex, his hand reaching out to grasp Alex’s.
"Come, let’s go to the Great Hall. You’ll meet your in-laws."
Sophia watched them walk away, disbelief and anger surging through her.
She had lost her virginity to that man, and now she was supposed to lose her future too.
"This can't be happening!"
She had dreamed of an extraordinary fiancé, someone worthy, someone heroic, not any rubbish!
Instead, she was now being handed to a man she could have picked off the street.
As CEO of Lancaster Group, known for her beauty and bright future, how could she marry such a man?
What would people think?
"No," she decided. "I'll stop this marriage, no matter the cost."
***
In the Great Hall, Abraham guided Alex to an honored seat.
"How is Master?"
"Still healthy after a hundred years," Alex replied.
"You’re young, successful, and humble. I’m fortunate to have a grandson-in-law like you. Sophia is a good person; please give her a chance to get to know you better."
Alex nodded politely, but he doubt the possibility.
Sophia didn’t look like she wanted the chance.
"Wonderful, wonderf—" Abraham laugh joyfully.
However, just then, an angry voice cut in.
"Are you insane?! Sophia cannot marry him!"
Lady Lancaster, Abraham's wife, angrily stormed into the Great Hall.
She was flanked by their two sons and two daughters-in-law, with Sophia trailing behind them.
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Chapter 805
"Thank you for coming, sir," Natasha said in the mirror. The wipers squeaked. The car smelled of leather and her coffee. "May I tell you about the Morgans?""Please."Natasha Vale had worked for him for less than two weeks, since the night the Second Queen's money built Halcyon. Outside Harland, she was the only one who knew whose money ran it. She had never once wasted a word."The old count is Thomas Morgan. The Morgans of Calder, sir. The big city, an hour up the road. Some sickness nobody can name. Every doctor in Calder has stood at his bed for two months. Every one of them went home shaking his head. They've sent to the capital for the famous one now. Dr. Henry Foster. The most famous doctor in the Empire, sir. Princes wait a month to see him. He's flying in tomorrow morning." A pause. "The family doesn't think the count will see the morning."Cold air leaked in round the door. Ahead, the first lights of Calder came up out of the dark."Why me?""Because of a meeting at six o'cl
Chapter 804
At seven o'clock, an hour before the hall, Alex's phone buzzed in the kennel yard."Good evening, sir," Natasha said. "I'm sorry to call you at home.""Can it wait? My cousin is kneeling at eight. I've been practicing my clapping.""Of course, sir. Only, you told me once: if a noble house ever needs help, I am to tell you first." A small pause. "Count Morgan is dying. The doctors say he won't see the morning—not even the next few hours. His daughter heard about the man who treated the second queen; she has asked for the Ferryman."Alex went still. He needed to secure the noble support."The Morgans," he said. "They've never taken a side.""No, sir. Tonight they might take yours." A pause. "I'm at the kennel gate. I didn't come in, sir. The dogs and I have an understanding."He looked across the wet yard at the great house. Every window was lit.He had heard Patricia's whisper on the step that afternoon. Tonight. In the hall. I'm not finished. But Patricia was never finished."She'll k
Chapter 803
At two o'clock Patricia lifted a glass of champagne on the rose lawn and said, "To Tiffany. Partner of Halcyon.""To Tiffany!" Cordelia cried, and drank hers in one go.Patricia's own glass trembled as she lifted it, and a little champagne slopped over her fingers. "This wind," she laughed. "It goes right through you."A reporter from the Westmere Gazette and his photographer stood on the grass in front of the white table under the awning. Pauline had always called the paper herself on any day the house meant to be admired. For sixty years the Gazette had printed every Tiffany party on this lawn, and never once a Tiffany who lived behind the garage. The wet grass smelled freshly cut. Two bottles sweated in a silver bucket of ice.Behind the hedge at the bottom of the lawn, Alex sat on an upturned bucket, mending a broken garden chair that nobody had asked him to mend.Nobody noticed him. That was the nice thing about being the idiot."Miss Tiffany," the reporter said, pencil ready. "Y
chapter 802
Patricia had seen the tremble go quiet. Her smile thinned, and she snapped her fingers without looking round."Waiter. Take my cousin a glass of water. From the house." She filled a fresh glass from her own jug, her back to the judges, and her right hand passed over it once, as if brushing away a crumb. "Poor thing looks dreadful."The masked waiter took it on his tray. Halfway down the room, he breathed in. Violets.Reeve's drops had always smelled like that. For two years they had gone up the tower stairs once a month in a brown bottle, forty dollars at a time, and a girl had gone a little further into the dark with every one.At the side table he poured a fresh glass from the judges' jug for Serena. The violet glass went back beside Patricia, in place of her own. Nobody ever watched the waiter.The woman judge in the grey coat leaned forward, fascinated, murmuring as Serena poured blind with her eyes shut."Mineral. She's taken the cold mineral first. Now moss. Now that grey sweet
Chapter 801
The doorman stopped him on the top step with one gloved hand and pointed at a small brass sign by the glass doors.No dogs.Alex read it carefully. Then he read the back of it."It doesn't say anything about idiots," he told the doorman, encouraged.The doorman, against every year of his training, leaned over and checked the back of the sign too.Friday had come in cold and bright, gulls screaming over the fish market. He had been up since four. The old man who ran this tower owed the harbour boss a fortune, and the boss had kept him on a leash with that debt for years. At four that morning Alex had sent Natasha one line: Buy that debt. Quietly. By breakfast, the leash would belong to Halcyon.Serena stood beside him with her mother's case. He could hear her counting."If I lose," she said, very low, "we're out of the gate tonight. In the rain.""Then I'll carry the case," Alex said. "It's lighter going downhill."Something like a laugh moved in her face. "Patricia has my mother's not
Chapter 800
At eight o'clock the black envelope lay on the white cloth in front of the Baroness, and nobody at the long table had touched their toast.The Baroness had ordered breakfast laid in the great hall this morning, not the dining room, and everyone knew why. For two hundred years Tiffany brides had stood in this hall to speak their choice, and the Baroness had always kept her hardest words for it. The hall smelled of cold butter and coffee gone bitter in the pot. Grey light lay on the silver chairs.Serena stood at the foot of the table. Her husband stood one step behind her, in his old Harland coat, with his hands folded like a boy called up in front of the class.The Baroness picked up the card with two thin fingers and read it out loud, flat and dry."Halcyon Group requests the presence of Serena Tiffany on Friday, in her own name, as an independent nose. One bench has been held for her. It will not be held for anyone else."She put it down.Then Patricia laughed. Bright and sweet, the
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Reader Comments
but he doubted the possibility
good novel
like seriously