All Chapters of The Billionaire's Ultimatum: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

XAVIER The flight landed in Santorini at eleven in the morning, local time. I’d slept for maybe two hours on the plane—broken, restless sleep that kept dropping me back into the same image on repeat: Laura’s voice reading Juliette’s message out loud, the slight waver in it that she’d been trying to iron out. “Yet he chooses you over me.” I turned that phrase over in my mind for most of the flight and landed no closer to understanding how Juliette had gotten Laura’s number than when I’d started. Marcus had sent through everything he’d compiled overnight, and none of it pointed to an obvious answer. Juliette’s network was wide but not wide enough to explain it. Someone had helped her. That was the part that sat uneasily in my stomach, the implication that this wasn’t just a scorned woman acting on her own but something with a thread worth pulling. Plus, I wasn’t necessarily choosing Laura over anything. I just wanted Juliette to get the message but ended up putting her and my s

XAVIER I thought about how to say it. Not the way I’d have said it three years ago—quickly, defensively, in the language of a man who’d never learned to sit inside vulnerability long enough to let it be true. I thought about all the things that had happened throughout the years between then and now. The breakdowns, the fighting with the reoccurring memories, the unimaginable pain. Having to go to the hospital and therapy just to remain sane. I thought I’d lost Laura forever and there was no world that existed where we were together. And maybe, Just maybe…I was wrong. “I spent a long time thinking that keeping things separate was the same as keeping things controlled,” I said. “My father taught me that and I believed him because I was seventeen and he was the only blueprint I had. Keep things in boxes. Business here, family there, feelings somewhere you don’t look.” I knew I had mentioned this to her before and promised to work on it and it seemed that I had but in reality,

XAVIER “Xavier…” she breathed, looking back up at me. “This is way too much.” “It's the least I can do.” She shook her head in disbelief. “No, it isn't.” “It is.” My voice softened. “I've been absent for far too long. You carried everything on your own. You took care of our son. You raised him without me.” I held her gaze. “So let me take care of you now.” Laura didn't say a word. She simply stood there, staring at me as though she didn't know what to do with everything I'd just said. I watched the struggle move across her face—the part of her that wanted to deflect, to redirect, to keep things manageable and small. I recognized it. She'd always done that. Even before. She could receive affection with the same wary precision she might use to defuse something she wasn't sure was safe. I waited. I'd learned, in these last few days, that Laura didn't need to be filled. She needed to be given space. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then, right on cue, the bell inside th

LAURA The seven days passed in a way I hadn’t expected. Not dramatically. Not with grand gestures except the two hundred new items we’d received and the never ending flowers and apology chocolates. Just—quietly. Steadily. In the way that the most important things tend to happen, which is gradually and then all at once. Xavier showed up every morning. Not at the crack of dawn, not in a way that felt like pressure—but by eight-thirty, there would be a knock at the door and Alec would already be thundering down the stairs before I’d reached the handle. The two of them had developed a morning ritual within forty-eight hours that I’d had nothing to do with and hadn’t been consulted on, which involved Xavier sitting at the kitchen table while Alec ate breakfast and conducted what could only be described as a daily briefing. His and Gerald’s activities from the previous night. What had happened in his extremely vivid dreams. His current thoughts on the ongoing epidemic over the bloc

LAURA I bit my lips, hoping Xavier didn’t notice the slight tremor. I was so caught up in having him here and enjoying every single second of it that I almost forgot it was temporary. He’d eventually have to go back to Los Angeles and I’d be left all alone. Again. I guess I couldn’t hide my emotions because Xavier looked at me with worry smeared all over his face, his brows arching. “I’ll come back the following weekend. If that’s—if that works.” I looked at the path ahead of us, trying my best to fight the tears that were threatening to fall from the corner of my eyes. “Every weekend is a lot, don’t you think?” I asked, my voice choked. “I’ve done more unreasonable things for less important reasons.” I didn’t answer that immediately. We walked past a row of whitewashed walls trailing bougainvillea, the sea visible between buildings in bright, beautiful fragments. Was he really planning to swoop in and out every chance he got? Somewhere that was long hours away from his ho