All Chapters of The Billionaire's Ultimatum: Chapter 141 - Chapter 149

XAVIER The board meeting was on Monday at nine. I walked in wearing the charcoal Tom Ford, the one I’d always thought of as armor, and sat at the head of the table before anyone else had settled into their seats. It was a deliberate choice—position mattered, timing mattered, and I’d learned a long time ago that the person who arrived last was the person the room had already decided something about. Mentally picking them apart and they somehow felt it. Donnelly was already there, of course. He was always already there. He gave me a look across the table that was doing several things at once, none of them friendly. I looked back at him pleasantly and waited for the room to fill. “Before we get into the agenda,” Donnelly said, before Elena had even finished distributing the meeting materials, “I think we need to address the last week.” “Agreed,” I said. “Let’s address it immediately.” He blinked. He’d expected pushback on the framing and I didn’t give him the satisfaction. “You

LAURA I didn’t pull my hand away. That was the thing I kept coming back to, in the hours after Xavier had gone back to his hotel and the house had settled into its nighttime quiet. I sat in bed with the lamp on and the sound of the sea coming through the window I’d left cracked open, and I thought about the simple fact of my hand in his and how I hadn’t pulled it away. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. Not after a minute. Not after five. We’d sat like that until the wine was finished and the chill of the water had made us move inside, and even then the ending of it had been gradual—not a withdrawal but just the natural conclusion of needing two hands to carry our glasses. I hadn’t pulled away. That was new. That was the difference between now and all the times before, when every softening had been immediately followed by my own self-protective retreat. When I’d let myself feel something and then spent the next forty-eight hours talking myself back from the ledge of it. I

LAURA A whole two months had passed, and I couldn’t pretend they hadn’t been the best two months of my entire life. Between the heartfelt confessions of love, heated make-outs, countless moments of laughter, and the beautiful memories we’d created together that had slowly covered up all the hurt and pain, Xavier simply couldn’t help it anymore. He’d decided to oversee the company from here, and Donelly was surprisingly on board with it too. As he put it, he was a family man, and besides, all of his most trusted people were closely overseeing the company in his stead. Elena, Marcus, and Lucas had stepped in, with Lucas acting as CEO. So far, he was doing pretty well. Xavier was still showing him the ropes, but for now he remained very much involved—even if that meant a billion phone calls and FaceTimes every single day. We’d even talked about moving back to Los Angeles, but I’d suggested waiting until Alec was a little older so he could adjust to the culture shock more easily. B

XAVIER Six months later. The apartment—our apartment now, the one Laura and I had found together on the eastern side of the island, bigger than her old house, close enough to Alec’s school that he could theoretically walk there when he was older—smelled like coffee and whatever Laura had been baking since six in the morning. I came downstairs to find the kitchen occupied. Alec was on the counter in his pajamas, which was technically not allowed and which both of us enforced inconsistently. He was helping Laura measure something and providing a running critical commentary on her technique. Gerald was positioned on the windowsill overseeing operations and once out for my own year Pierre the elephant was somewhere nearby. Laura had flour on her cheek and she hadn’t noticed. How that made her incredibly cuter than she already was was a mystery to me. I leaned in the doorway and watched them for a moment before either of them saw me—this specific, unrepeatable image of a Saturday mo