<b>Chapter </b><b>185 </b>
-HUNTER’S POV-
I watched Celine sleep in the soft morning light filtering through our bedroom curtains.
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Her dark brown hair spread across the white pillowcase like spilled ink, and one hand rested protectively over her
belly, where our baby grew.
Beautiful. Peaceful. Safe.
Everything hadn’t been the same as yesterday.
We had picked up Caesar from Caroline’s apartment after leaving the Metropolitan Club. Frederick was waiting
there too, his face heavy with the burden of apologizing that needed to be made.
“Hunter, I’m so sorry,” he had said immediately. “Caroline told me what happened. If I had known what Eleanor was nning…”
Caroline herself had been a mess of tears and guilt. She had thrown herself into Celine’s arms the moment we
walked through the door.
“I’m so stupid,” she had sobbed against Celine’s shoulder. “I thought she was finally ready to ept you.
1 would never have sent you there if I knew it was a trap.”
I had watched Celinefort my cousin despite her pain, stroking Caroline’s hair and whispering ease she
probably didn’t feel.
“We’re even now,” I had told Caroline with a small smile.
“I almost ruined your engagement party<i>. </i>You almost got my girlfriend eaten alive by society vultures. I’d say we’re perfectly matched for chaos.”
Caroline hadughed through her tears, and we’d opened a bottle of wine to toast surviving another Reid family
disaster.
<b>But </bter<b>, </b>after Caesar was tucked into bed and we were finally alone, Celine had fallen apart.
She had curled up on our bed still wearing that borrowed navy dress, her knees pulled to her chest, and cried until she had no tears left.
“Why do they hate me so much?” she had whispered. “What did I ever do to deserve that?”
I had tried teasing her out of the darkness, making jokes about my mother’s ridiculous attempts at maniption.
But when that failed, I had pulled her close and made her a promise.
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“No one will hurt you again. Not my mother, not society, not anyone. I won’t let them.”
She had looked up at me with those dark eyes I loved so much. “Why?”
I had lifted her chin, forcing her to meet my gaze. “Because you’re my world. My life. My future wife.”
Her smile had been hesitant, fragile. “I thought you were joking about that.”
Thad clutched my chest in mock offense. “Joking? About marrying the most incredible woman I’ve ever known?
Woman, you wound me.”
Herugh had been the first real one I’d heard from her all day. Soft and genuine and everything I wanted to
protect.
“There’s the smile I want to see every day,” I had murmured, pulling her onto myp.
What happened next had been slow and gentle and desperate all at once.
I had kissed away her tears, my hands finding the zipper of that borrowed dress, peeling it away from her skin like
armor she no longer needed.
She was pregnant, fragile in ways that terrified and awed me, Every touch had been careful, reverent. When Iy
her back against our pillows, she was naked and beautiful and mine.
“Are you sure?” I had whispered, my hand tracing the slight curve of her belly.
Her answer had been to pull me down for another kiss, her legs wrapping around my waist in invitation.
I had taken my time with her, worshipping every inch of skin, every soft gasp that escaped her lips. When I finally
moved inside her, it was with the kind of gentleness I hadn’t known I possessed.
She was silk and warmth and home. Her body weed me like it had been made for this, for us, for the life we
were building together.
We moved together in the darkness, her hands in my hair, my name falling from her lips like a prayer.
When she came apart beneath me, her back arching off the bed, I followed her over the edge with a groan that came from my soul.
Afterward, I had held her until she fell asleep, my hand protective over our child.
Now, watching her sleep, I felt <b>that </b>same fierce protectiveness surge through me. But underneath it was something darker, something that had been building since I first saw that video,
My phone sat on the nightstand, and against my better judgment, I reached for it.
The video from yesterday had gone viral.
Millions of views, thousands ofments, most of them as cruel as the women who had orchestrated Celine’s
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humiliation.
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“Gold digger finally put in her ce.”
“About time someone told her the truth.”
“Hunter Reid can do so much better.”
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My hand clenched around the phone, my jaw grinding with barely contained rage. These people didn’t know her. They didn’t know her strength, her kindness, the way she made Caesarugh, or how she fell asleep reading pregnancy books.
All they saw was someone they deemed unworthy of their world.
They were about to learn exactly how wrong they were.
I slipped out of bed carefully, not wanting to wake Celine, and headed for my study. It was time to make some calls. Starting today, I was going to systematically dismantle every person who had hurt her.
Beginning with my mother.
The Aurelia Hotel’s conference room buzzed with the kind of energy that meant serious money was about to change hands.
Board members, investors, and department heads filled the space, all waiting for our quarterly review meeting to
begin.
1 had deliberately chosen this venue instead of our usual boardroom. The Aurelia’s lobby was always full of guests, staff, and most importantly, people with cameras.
What was about to happen needed witnesses.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began, standing at the head of the polished table. “Before we begin today’s agenda, there’s a personnel matter that needs addressing.”
That’s when the conference room doors burst open.
Eleanor swept in like she owned the ce, her heels clicking authoritatively against the marble floor,
She wore a cream–colored suit and the kind of confident smile that suggested she had no idea what wasing.
“Sorry I’mte,” she announced to the room. “Traffic was absolutely…”
“You weren’t invited,” I said quietly.
The room went dead silent. Every head turned between my mother and me, sensing the Tension in the air.
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Eleanor’s smile faltered slightly. “Don’t be ridiculous, Hunter. This is the quarterly review. Of course, I was invited.”
“You’re right. You usually would be.” I straightened my tie, my voice carrying <i>to </i>every corner of the room. “But that was before yesterday.”
“What happened yesterday has nothing to do with business…” <fnfa50> The rightful source is F?nd-Novel</fnfa50>
“Doesn’t it?” I pulled out my phone, the video already queued up. “Everyone here has seen this, I’m sure. My mother and her friends systematically humiliated the woman carrying my child. Recording it for entertainment. Offering her money to disappear from my life.”
Eleanor’s face flushed. “Hunter, this is neither the time nor the ce…”
“You’re wrong again, Mother. This is exactly the time and ce.” I looked around the room at the faces watching us. Some shocked, some fascinated, allpletely interested.
“Effective immediately, Eleanor Reid is being removed from all business operations. She will <i>no </i>longer have ess topany ounts, decision–making processes, or confidential information.”
The murmur that went through the room was electric. Vincent, standing by the wall, didn’t even try to hide his
smirk.
Eleanor’s calm crackedpletely. “You can’t do this to me! I own as much of this business as you do!”
Haughed, but there was no humor in it.
“Do you? Are you talking about the business you stole from my father’s first wife? The woman whose entire legacy you erased so you could y queen of the corporate world?”
The room was so quiet I could hear people breathing.
“You’ve never truly owned anything, Mother. All you do is take. Take things that don’t belong to you. Take credit for other people’s work. Take whatever you want without caring who gets hurt in the process.”
Eleanor stepped closer, her voice rising. “I am your mother!”
“And I regret it.” The words came out t, emotionless. “As much as I hate being brought into this world by you, I will never let you control my life again.”
Something snapped in Eleanor’s eyes<b>. </b>Before I could react, her hand flew across my face in a sharp p that echoed through the silent room.
Security started moving forward, but I held up a hand to stop them.
I smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant expression.
“That,” I said, my voice soft and deadly, “was a mistake.”
I leaned close to her ear, close enough that only she could hear my next words.
“This is thest time you will ever raise a hand to me. The next time you try, you might consider yourself dead to <ol><li>me. Dead.” </li></ol>
I pulled back, my smile widening as I watched her face go pale.
“Now,” I continued in my normal voice, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I suggest you live a quiet life. Gossip with your good–for–nothing friends. Stay away from me and my family.”
“I am your family!” Eleanor’s voice was shrill now, desperate.
“You were. But now I have something worth protecting.”
“This is all that wretched girl’s fault!” Eleanor’s mask slippedpletely. “She’s nted her thorns in you, turned you against your mother!”
Iughed, genuinely and delighted.
“Yes, I guess she has. And Mother? I don’t want her to ever take them out.”
I turned toward the door, then paused.
“I want you out of these premises before I return from lunch. If you’re not gone, security will escort you out.”
I started walking again, then stopped one more time.
“Oh, and stop barging into my house like <i>you </i>own the ce. Sally is getting annoyed with the interruptions. The mansion belongs to Celine now anyway. It’s in her name. Only she decides who gets to enter.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
I walked out of that conference room knowing that every phone in the vicinity was recording, that this moment
would be online within minutes.
Good.
Let the world see exactly where Hunter Reid’s loyalties lie.
Let them know that Celine wasn’t just my girlfriend or even my future baby mother.
She
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