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Home / Romance / Married To My Gay Bestfriend / Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

All Chapters of Married To My Gay Bestfriend : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

82 Chapters

Chapter 71

Eve’s POV "Who placed her there?" Devin asked, though I think we both already knew the answer. "Martin Lovelace. I have spent the past twenty-four hours reviewing every document and record I could find related to Lydia's background and employment history. The professor who gave her a primary reference, a man named Harold Becker, is not merely a former teacher who thought highly of her academic work. He is Martin's cousin. They grew up together in the same town, attended the same schools, and have maintained a close relationship their entire lives. Harold Becker was the one who personally recommended Lydia for the position in my office, vouching for her character and her qualifications and her trustworthiness. Martin has been planning this infiltration for years, Mrs. Cresswell. He placed a mole inside my office specifically to monitor the will and report back to him on every development." The room fell into a profound silence. I could hear the soft hum of the air conditioning sy

Chapter 72

Eve’s POVThe shattering of glass against the kitchen floor sent me bolt upright on the couch, my heart slamming against my ribs before my eyes were fully open. For one terrible moment I was back in the parking garage with a chemical-soaked cloth pressing over my mouth and the sound of my keys clattering on concrete. Then I heard Devin's voice, calm and apologetic, drifting through the apartment."It was just a bowl. I dropped a bowl. Everything is fine."I pressed my hand to my chest and waited for my heartbeat to slow down. It took longer than it should have. The pregnancy had made everything feel closer to the surface, every startle response sharper, every moment of peace more fragile. A bowl breaking in the kitchen should not have sent me into a spiral of panic, but these were not normal times and I had not had a normal night's sleep in over a week.Devin appeared in the doorway with a dish towel in his hands and a rueful expression on his face. He was wearing jeans and a faded sw

Chapter 73

Eve’s POV Under normal circumstances, I would have handled him with a firm but diplomatic phone call. But under current circumstances, I was less inclined to be diplomatic."Put him through to my line. I will deal with him directly.""Are you sure? I can try to stall him again.""No. He needs to hear from me that the contract terms are not negotiable. If he wants to take his business elsewhere, he is free to do so, but I am not going to let him hold the company hostage because he thinks I am distracted by personal matters."Priya nodded and transferred the call. A moment later, Walter Simmons's voice boomed through my laptop speakers."Mrs. Cresswell. Finally. I have been trying to reach you for three days.""I am aware, Mr. Simmons. I understand you have concerns about the contract.""Concerns is putting it mildly. We have been loyal clients of Lovelace Industries for over twenty years. Your mother understood the value of that relationship. She would never have treated us this way."

Chapter 74

Eve’s POVThe kiss started soft, the way it always did between us now, a gentle press of lips that carried the weight of everything we had survived together. But gentleness had never been our only language, and as his hand came up to cup my jaw, I felt the kiss deepen by imperceptible degrees. His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone while his mouth moved against mine with a slow and deliberate intensity that made my breath catch in my throat."We should be careful," I murmured against his lips, though my hands were already sliding up his chest and my body was already leaning into his warmth."We are always careful." His voice was low and rough, the voice he used in the darkness of our bedroom when the rest of the world fell away. "I just want to make you feel good. I want to make you forget everything else for a little while.""You are very ambitious.""Hmmmmm."He kissed me again before I could respond, and this time there was nothing gentle about it. His mouth was hot and demandin

Chapter 75

Eve's POVThe call from Priya came through at half past nine in the evening, just as I was settling into the couch with a cup of decaffeinated tea and a book I had been trying to read for the past three weeks. Devin was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner, the soft clink of dishes against the sink a familiar and comforting backdrop to the quiet of the apartment. The security team had changed shifts an hour earlier, the evening crew replacing the day crew with the silent efficiency that had become routine.My phone buzzed against the coffee table, and Priya's name flashed on the screen. She never called this late unless something was wrong. I snatched it up before the second ring."What happened?""Mrs. Cresswell." Her voice was steady but there was a tremor beneath it, a thread of fear that she was trying very hard to control. "Someone was in my apartment. When I got home tonight, the door was unlocked and the lights were on. Nothing was taken, or at least nothing obvious. But the

Chapter 76

Eve’s POV "There will not be a next time," Devin said. His voice was hard and certain. "You will stay here until this is over. The security team will escort you to and from work. You will not go anywhere alone. And we will find Gregory Hale before he has a chance to make good on his threats." I sat down beside Priya and took her hand. Her fingers were cold. "I am so sorry this happened to you. You did not sign up for death threats when you took this job. If you want to leave, if you want to take a leave of absence until this is over, I will completely understand." She shook her head, and some of the steel returned to her expression. "I am not leaving. I have worked for you for three years, Mrs. Cresswell. I have watched you stand up to Martin and the board and everyone else who tried to tear you down. I am not going to let some hired thug with a marker scare me away from a job I love and a boss I respect." "Priya."

Chapter 77

Eve's POVI woke up feeling off on a Thursday morning, four days after the break-in at Priya's apartment. The cramping started as a dull ache low in my abdomen that I tried to The cramping started to dismiss as normal pregnancy discomfort. The books had warned me about round ligament pain and bloating and a hundred other minor symptoms that came with growing a human inside your body. I told myself it was nothing, that I was overreacting, that the stress of the past few weeks was making me imagine problems that did not exist.Until I went to the bathroom and saw the blood.It was not a lot. Just a few spots of bright red on the toilet paper, small and innocuous and utterly terrifying. I stared at them for a long moment, my mind refusing to process what my eyes were seeing. Then I called for Devin, and my voice came out high and thin and nothing like my own.He was in the bathroom in seconds, his face pale when he saw the blood on the tissue I was h

Chapter 78

Devin's POVSolomon found Lydia Vance on a Tuesday morning, ten days after the hospital scare.She was hiding in a small town in Vermont, working as a waitress in a diner off the interstate under a name that was not her own. She had dyed her hair a mousy brown and stopped wearing makeup and developed the hunched, evasive posture of a woman who was afraid of her own shadow. When Solomon's people approached her at the end of her shift, she tried to run. They caught her gently, spoke to her calmly, and convinced her that they were not working for Martin Lovelace.The safe house where they brought her was a cabin in the Green Mountains, surrounded by forest and accessible only by a single dirt road. Eve and I drove up the next day with the security team following at a discreet distance. The autumn leaves were past their peak now, the mountainsides fading from brilliant gold to muted brown, but the air was crisp and clean and smelled of pine.Lydia was waiting for us in the cabin's main ro

Chapter 79

Eve's POVVictoria Ashford resurfaced on a rainy Thursday afternoon, three days after we returned from Vermont.She called Devin directly, which was unusual because Victoria and I had developed a strange, adversarial respect for each other over the months of our conflict. She did not bother with pleasantries when he answered the phone. She simply said she had information about the silent partner and she was willing to share it in exchange for a private meeting.Devin relayed the message to me with an expression of deep skepticism. "She says she wants to meet at the Ashford family home in Greenwich. Neutral ground, she called it. I do not trust her.""Neither do I. But if she has information about the partner, we need to hear it. Victoria may be manipulative and self-serving, but she is not a killer. She would not threaten our baby.""I am not so sure about that.""Then come with me. We will meet her together, and if she tries anything, the security team will be right outside."The Ash

Chapter 80

Devin's POVThe information Victoria gave us was a key, but a key is useless until you find the lock it fits. For three days after that meeting in Greenwich, we searched for any thread connecting Alistair Pembrooke to Martin Lovelace, and for three days we came up empty. Mark pulled every financial record he could access without a warrant, which meant nothing offshore, nothing hidden behind shell companies, nothing that required a court order. Pembrooke's shipping business was legitimate on its surface, a modest operation compared to the Ashford empire, specializing in freight routes between the East Coast and the Caribbean. His tax filings were clean. His corporate structure was unremarkable. On paper he was just another wealthy businessman who had inherited a company from his father and run it competently for thirty years."He is hiding something," Mark said during our fourth briefing call. "No one with this much money operates this cleanly. There are always irregularities. Always.

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