From His Fake Wife to Billionaire Heiress (Riley and Lucas) novel Chapter 431

Chapter 431 A Full Background on Melissa

Chapter 431 A Full Background on Melissa

Go over there?

And watch Colin with some other girl?

Stand there like a piece of furniture nobody notices?

No. I can’t.

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Audrey waved her hands frantically. “No, I can’t–I already made plans to go shopping with a friend. I’m running late. I gotta go. You guys have fun!”

The words tumbled out in a jumbled mess. She didn’t dare look at anyone at the jaar. She spun around and bolted for the front door.

Riley stepped out of the private room a moment later. She spotted the group by the bar right away, along with the unfamiliar girl standing next to Colin.

One look at that scene, paired with the image of Audrey fleeing like her sou! had just left her body, told her everything she needed to know.

Sebastian caught her eye. No words were needed.

He gave Justin and Colin a brief nod and pushed off from the bar. He walked over to Riley and slid his arm around her waist without a second thought.

He said, “Let’s go.”

Riley nodded. “Yeah.”

They left the restaurant.

On the drive back, Riley couldn’t stop seeing Audrey’s pale face in her mind.

She stayed quiet for a while before finally asking Sebastian, “Does Colin actually like that girl? Why would he bring someone he just met yesterday to meet you guys?”

Sebastian kept his eyes on the road and thought for a moment before answering.

“Hard to say. I didn’t get much of a vibe from him. He introduced her pretty casually. Just said she was in his program a year behind him. Ran into her today and they started talking.”

“A junior from his program?” Riley’s eyelid twitched.

This sounds way too familia. Feels like someone’s playing the decoy game.

Question is, is Colin using her to shake off the girl herself? Or is he poking at something else to see what bites?

She couldn’t help worrying about Audrey. That girl was so far behind on her own feelings.

They got home. The lights were on, but the house was too quiet.

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Chapter 431 A Full Background on Melissa

Sebastian putted off his tie and said, “I’m gonna shower first,”

“Okay.”

The water came on behind the bathroom door, and the sound only made the living room feet bigger and emptier.

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Riley sat alone on the couch. The day’s tension and the night’s noise had faded. When silence closed in, everything she’d pushed down came flooding back.

She couldn’t just sit around and wait anymore.

She pulled her phone out of her bag and walked out onto the empty balcony. She dialed a number she fradn’t touched in a long time.

The call connected quickly. A sharp, efficient male voice answered, “Ms. Harper.“)

“It’s me.” Her voice cut cold through the night air. “I need you to look into something.”

“Go ahead.”

“I need a full background on Melissa Harper. The current wife of the Harper Group chairman. I want everything. As detailed as you can get it. Especially twenty years ago.”

The man on the other end went quiet for a beat, processing “Understood. Give me three days.”

“Alright.”

weight of the request. Then his voice came back steady.

Riley hung up and stood on the balcony, letting the gold.

e night wind whip through her hair. The city lights below blurred into a sea of

If the truth is what that diary hinted at, if I didn’t just wander off and end up at that orphanage by accident, if Melissa drugged me and drove me there herself and left me on purpose…

Then this mother–daughter thing she’s been

forcing on me for twenty years is done.

She didn’t go straight back to

master bedroom after the call.

She sat on the balcony in the wicker chair for a while longer, until the cold had seeped through her fingers and into her bones. Then she got up and went inside.

She passed the master bedroom and used the shower in one of the guest bathrooms instead.

The hot water poured over her skin, but it couldn’t touch the chill lodged somewhere deeper. The words from the diary and Melissa’s face kept flashing through her head, one after the other.

If all of it is true, then my whole life has been one giant, carefully built lie.

But whatever the truth was, she had to find it herself.

She pushed open the bedroom door. Sebastian was propped against the headboard in his sleepwear, the neckline falling open just enough. He looked up when he heard her.

“Coming to bed?”

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Chapter 431 A Full Background on Melissa

Yeah Riley walked around to her side.

She pulled back the covers, climbed in, and turned off the last lamp.

Darkness swallowed the room whole. The blackout curtains blocked out every sliver of moonlight.

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Utter darkness and silence amplified every emotion to the extreme. That familiar hollow emptiness crept in unbidden, leaving her adrift in an endless void with nothing to hold onto.

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