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Chapter 16: The Truth He Owes Her
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-07-20 02:36:42
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Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 20: The Long Game
Isabella's POVPeople kept asking me why I did it. Why I demanded the shares, the merger, his obedience under my name instead of just walking away with the money and never looking at him again. My lawyer asked. My father asked, gently, over dinner one night. Even Claire asked, though she already suspected the real answer before I said it out loud.I always gave the same reply. "Because he owes it to the company." Because Hartford Enterprises deserved fair compensation for six years of being treated like an afterthought. Because it was good business.None of that was a lie, exactly. But it wasn't the whole truth either.I sat in my office late one evening, long after everyone else had gone home, staring at the quarterly reports without really reading them. The truth, the part I hadn't said out loud to anyone, not even Claire, was simpler and harder to admit.I didn't do this for revenge. I did it because for six years, I had no control over anything. Not over Julien's attention. Not ov
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 19: Mrs. Hartford
Julien's POVThe board meeting ran long, longer than anyone expected, and by the time it ended, most of the room had already filed out, leaving papers scattered and coffee cups half full. I stayed behind, gathering the files I'd been asked to prepare, when I saw her still standing near the head of the table, reviewing notes on her tablet.I don't know why I said her name the way I did. Maybe six years of habit. Maybe just wanting, for one second, to talk to her the way I used to, before all the titles and papers and careful distance between us."Isabella," I said. "Do you have a minute?"She looked up, and something in her face closed immediately, like a door shutting quietly but firmly."It's Mrs. Hartford," she said. "To you."The words landed harder than I expected. Not because they were cruel — she didn't say them with any real anger — but because of how easily they came out. Like she'd rehearsed the correction long before I ever gave her a reason to use it."Of course," I said. "
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 18: Margaret's Gambit
Julien's POVI found out from my own lawyer, of all people. He called me at nine at night, his voice careful in a way that told me the news wasn't good."Three Hartford board members," he said. "Your mother met with them tonight. Offer two of them positions on a new subsidiary board if they vote to challenge Isabella's leadership. The third one turned her down and told Adrian Hartford everything."I sat there for a moment, phone pressed to my ear, feeling something cold settle in my chest. "She's trying to unravel the merger from inside Hartford's own board.""That's what it looks like."I thanked him, hung up, and drove straight to the Hamilton estate without stopping to think it through. Some part of me knew I should have called Isabella first, warned her before confronting my mother. But the anger moving through me needed somewhere to go immediately, and I wasn't in the mood to wait.My mother was in the study again, the same room, the same fireplace, like she never left it."You w
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 17: Walls and Doubts
Isabella's POVI didn't go home after the rooftop. I couldn't sit in that quiet apartment with his words still ringing in my ears, so I drove instead, no destination in mind, just the city blurring past the windows until I found myself parked outside my sister's building without remembering the decision to come here.Claire opened the door before I even knocked, like she'd felt me coming."You look terrible," she said, stepping aside to let me in."Thank you.""I mean it in the nicest way possible." She closed the door behind me and headed for the kitchen. "Wine or tea?""Wine. A lot of it."She poured two glasses and set them on the counter, then leaned against it, watching me with the same patient look she'd worn since we were kids, the one that always meant *I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's wrong.*"Julien," I said finally."Of course it's Julien." She took a sip of her wine. "What did he do this time?""He told me the truth about the dinner. The one that started eve
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 16: The Truth He Owes Her
Julien's POVI found her on the rooftop terrace outside the executive floor, the place she used to go when she needed air the family never gave her room to breathe. I hadn't been up there in years. I didn't expect her to still remember it existed.She stood near the railing, arms crossed against the wind, staring out at the city like it might give her an answer I hadn't finished handing her."The board voted to review the merger," she said, without turning around. "Ninety days. Margaret bought herself ninety days to try and unravel everything.""I heard," I said. "I'm sorry.""Are you?" She finally turned to face me. Her eyes were sharp, guarded, the same way they'd looked the morning I found her leaving with a suitcase in her hand. "Or are you sorry because it complicates things for you?""Both, maybe," I said. "But mostly the first one."She studied me for a long moment, then looked back out at the skyline. "Finish what you started to say. In my office. Before Naomi interrupted."I
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 15: Whispers in the Boardroom
Isabella's POVI heard them before I saw them.Two junior analysts, standing by the coffee machine, thought the break room was empty. I stopped in the hallway, just out of sight, my folder pressed against my chest."You believe it?" one of them whispered. "Julien Hamilton. Reporting to logistics. Third floor.""I heard she gave him a desk with no window," the other said, laughing quietly."She broke him. You know that, right? The Ice Queen finally got her revenge."I stepped around the corner then, and both of them went white. They mumbled something about a meeting and hurried off, leaving their coffee cups behind.I stood there a moment longer than I needed to, staring at the empty hallway. *Broke him.* Like I was the villain in a story I never chose to be part of. Like six years of silence and humiliation didn't happen. Like I owed the world an apology for finally winning.I pushed the thought away and walked into the boardroom, ten minutes early, the way I always was.By the time t
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 10: The Reckoning
Isabella's POV The Rolls hadn’t even come to a full stop before Genny was out of the car, heels clicking like gunfire on the gravel. I followed, legs numb, heart hammering so hard I could taste it. She didn’t head for the drawing room. She marched straight to the library, flung the double door
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 9: The Day Out
Isabella's POV Aunt Genevieve arrived like a hurricane in haute couture. The dove-gray Rolls purred up the drive at exactly ten. She stepped out in sunglasses big enough to have their own postcode, a cream silk jumpsuit, and heels that could double as weapons. One look at my borrowed hoodie and
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 7: Home at Last
Isabella's POV The car turned off the main road and the gates appeared, tall, black iron, the Hartford crest still gleaming in the dusk. I forgot how to breathe. Jayden slowed the Bentley, rolled the window down, and the scent hit me first: lilacs. Hundreds of them, thousands, spilling over the
Rejected, Now He Craves For Me Chapter 6: A trip down Memory lane
For some moments the room felt still. Isabella’s words hung in the air, trembling between disbelief and revelation. “I—I remember.” Jayden didn’t speak right away. He just watched her, watched the way her shoulders shook, the way her fingers pressed into the couch as though she needed something s
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