<b>Chapter 187 </b>


    -CELINE’S POV-


    The boutique was the kind of ce I would have walked past without a second nce six months ago.


    Now Caroline dragged me through its ss doors like she owned the building, which, knowing her family’s connections, she probably did.


    “You need new clothes,” she announced, pulling me toward a rack of designer dresses.


    “Something that screams ‘future Mrs. Reid‘ instead of ‘borrowed from Caroline’s closet.“”


    I touched the price tag on a simple ck dress and nearly fainted. “Caroline, I have had enough, thanks to Hunter and I cannot afford…”


    “My treat. Consider it an investment in your future happiness.” She held up a sapphire blue dress against my frame. “Besides, after what Hunter did to Aunt Eleanor yesterday, you need armor for whateveres next.”


    My stomach twisted at the mention of Hunter’s Mother. “Tell me again what exactly happened in that conference room.”


    Caroline’s eyes lit up with wicked joy. “Oh, it was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Vincent said Hunter was like apletely different person….cold, calcted, ruthless. The way he should have been from the beginning.”


    She pulled me toward the fitting rooms, arms full of clothes I would never be able to afford on my own.


    “Aunt Eleanor walked in like she owned the ce, and Hunter just… destroyed her. In front of everyone. Board members, investors, people with cameras.” Caroline’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.


    “He told her she never truly owned anything, that she just takes what doesn’t belong to her.”


    I sank onto the velvet bench in the fitting room. “This is all my fault. I caused this rift between them.”


    “Stop.” Caroline’s voice was sharp. “You didn’t cause anything. Aunt Eleanor overstepped, and Hunter finally grew a backbone. It was long overdue.”


    She handed me the blue dress. “Try this on. And while you do, let me paint you a picture of what’sing next.” <fnb855> ???s ??????? ?s ?????? ?? FιndNovel</fnb855>


    I pulled the dress over my head, marveling at how the silk felt against my skin. In the mirror, I looked like someone else entirely. Someone who belonged in Hunter’s world.


    “What do you mean, what’sing next?”


    Caroline’s smile was pure mischief. “A proposal, obviously. All Hunter needs to do now is put a ring on that finger and make you his forever.”


    My heart stopped. “Caroline…”


    “I’ve always dreamed we’d get married on the same day,” she continued, her eyes sparkling with possibilities.


    “Double wedding at the estate. You in/ivory, me in champagne, Our children growing up as cousins…”


    Her voice trailed off into happy nning, but I couldn’t focus on her words. A proposal. Marriage. Forever.


    V.2V


    The concepts felt too big, too impossible, like trying to hold the ocean in my cupped hands.


    “You’re spiraling,” Caroline observed, studying my reflection. “I can practically see the panic attack forming.”


    “I just… what if Eleanor retaliates? What if she finds a way to…”


    Caroline’s phone buzzed, interrupting my fears. Her face changed as she read whatever message hade through. –


    “Celine.” Her voice was tight. “We need to get home. Now.”


    The drive back to Caroline’s apartment was tense and silent. She kept ncing at her phone, her jaw clenched with barely contained fury.


    “What’s wrong?” I asked for the third time.


    “Just… let’s get inside first.”


    But I could see the answer in her white knuckles as she gripped the steering wheel. Whatever had happened, it was bad.


    Caroline’s living room felt like a war room when we arrived. Frederick was there, hisptop open, his face grim. ncey sat across from him, scrolling through his phone with the kind of focus that meant damage control.


    “How bad?” Caroline asked immediately.


    ncey looked up at me, his expression apologetic. “Bad.”


    He turned hisptop screen toward us. The headline made my blood run cold:


    “BILLIONAIRE HUNTER REID TIED DOWN BY WOMAN CLAIMING HIS CHILD”


    Below it was a photo of me leaving the Metropolitan Club yesterday, looking exactly like what the headline suggested–desperate, disheveled, defeated.


    “There’s more,” ncey said quietly.


    The next article featured an interview with someone I wish the media had avoided. My sister Jesse, sitting in what looked like a television studio, her face carefully made up for the cameras.


    “Celine was always bragging about how she’dnded this hotshot,” Jesse was saying, her voice dripping with false concern.


    “She used to talk about moving in with him, how she was going to live this morous life. I just hope she’s being honest about the baby, you know? Our family has a history of…plications.”


    I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. “She’s lying.”


    Caroline’s face was murderous. “I would like to go over to Jesse’s ce and p some sense into her. What kind of sister does this?”


    “Don’t bother with them,” I said, my voice hollow. “It’s obvious someone is paying her to say these things.” I stared at my <b>sister’s </b>face on the screen, remembering the girl who made my life helt.


    “I always knew Jesse was shallow, but I didn’t <b>know </b>she was this shallow.”


    10:21 Fri<b>, </b><b>22 </b>Aug 0


    ncey cleared his throat. “There’s more.”


    The next video made my knees buckle. My mother, sitting in her shabby living room, was speaking to what looked like a local news


    crew.


    “Celine isn’t even my biological daughter,” she was saying, her voice t and emotionless. “She’s the product of an affair. I tried <i>to </i>raise her right, but some people are just born with bad blood.”


    The room spun around me. Caroline caught my arm as I swayed, guiding me to the couch.


    “She disowned me,” I whispered. “She actually disowned me on television.”


    Frederick closed theptop. “The inte is going insane. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok–it’s everywhere. Thements are…”


    “Don’t,” Caroline said sharply. “She doesn’t need to see those.”


    But I could imagine them. All the cruel things people would say about me, about my pregnancy, about Caesar.


    The assumptions, the judgments, theplete character assassination of a woman they had never met.


    “They’re dragging Caesar into this, aren’t they?” I asked.


    The silence that followed was answer enough.


    I stood up abruptly, pacing to the window. Outside, New York kept moving at its fast pace, unaware that my whole lifes being examined for entertainment.


    “This is Eleanor’s work,” I said quietly.


    “We don’t know that for sure,” ncey replied, but his tone suggested otherwise.


    Iughed, but there was noedy in it.


    “My sister, who hasn’t spoken to me in two months, suddenly gets a television interview the day after Hunter cuts Eleanor off? My mother, who’s never watched the news in her life, happens to give a statement to reporters? This is nned.”


    Caroline joined me at the window. “What do you want to do?”


    “I want to disappear,” I said honestly. “I want to take Caesar and run somewhere Eleanor Reid and her money and her influence will never find us.”


    “But?”


    “But that would prove them right. That I’m exactly what they say I am–a gold digger who got in over her head.”


    My phone rang. Hunter’s name shed on the screen, and for a moment I considered not answering.


    What would I say to him? How could I exin that my own family had sold me out for whatever his mother was paying them?


    But then I remembered his words fromst night. You’re my world. My life. My future wife.


    I answered the phone.


    <i>“</i>Are you okay?” His voice was tight with barely controlled rage.


    10:21 Fri, 22 Aug


    “I’m fine,” I lied.


    “You’re not fine. I’ve seen the interviews. I’ming to get you.”


    “Hunter, wait…”


    “No. This ends now. I’m done ying defense.” His voice was cold, calcting. “It’s time to go on the attack.”


    “What does that mean?”


    “It means my mother has no idea who she’s fighting. And neither do your charming family members.”


    The call ended, and I stared at my phone, feeling both scared and excited.


    “He’sing,” I told Caroline.


    “Good,” she said fiercely. “It’s about time my cousin remembered that the Reid family doesn’t just have money…we have power. And it’s time to use it.”


    I looked at my reflection in the window, still wearing that expensive blue dress that made me look like someone else. Someone worthy of Hunter Reid’s protection and love.


    Eleanor wanted a war? Fine.


    But she had made one crucial mistake.


    She had underestimated exactly how far Hunter would go


    And now she was about <i>to </i>find out.


    to protect the woman carrying his child.