My Boss's Hidden Heir (Elara and Marcus) novel Chapter 210

PPOM

Chapter 210+

Chapter 210

Plara’s POV

The plan had taken a couple of days to pull off without her m/her suspecting anything,

Three weeks of casual phone calls where Elara had to physically stop herself from saying something. Three weeks of Mana texting her daily countdowns that got increasingly unhinged as the date approached. Three weeks of Marcus watching her contain her excitement with the quiet amusement of someone who found her completely transparent

“You’re terrible at secrets,” he told her on the Thursday before.

“I’m excellent at secrets”

“You’ve mentioned the plan accidentally four times this week”

“I mentioned it twice and both times 1 recovered smoothly.”

“You told your mother you were excited about Friday and then spent ten minutes explaining why Friday was exciting o way that had nothing to do with what’s actually happening, Friday”

Elara opened her mouth and closed it again. “She didn’t notice.”

“She absolutely noticed. She called me yesterday to ask what you were hiding”

“What did you tell her?”

“That you’d been working too hard and were probably just excited about a new collection.” Marcus smiled. “She didn’t believe me either.”

The dinner was Elara’s idea, framed as a celebration of the Vogue cover and the Met Gala momentum. Everyone came. Mimi and Dante arrived first, Mimi vibrating with contained energy that she was disguising badly as normal human behavior, Richard came with a bottle of wine he’d been saving for a significant occasion. Emeka showed up last with enough food to feed the entire building because that was simply how Emeka expressed love.

The penthouse filled with noise and warmth the way it did when everyone gathered, voices layering over each other, the twins passing between arms like the most beloved parcels in existence. Alexander was in a sociable mood, performing for anyone who’d watch. Catherine allowed herself to be held by Richard with the particular tolerance she reserved for people

eded were worthy,

rrived at seven looking beautiful in a deep purple dress she’d bought herself after the Vogue cover came out.

look the part,” she’d explained when Elara complimented it. “My daughter is in Vogue. I can’t be wearing

d and full and exactly what Elara had wanted. Stories competed with each other across the table, everyone ody listening properly, laughter filling the spaces in between. Marcus sat at one end looking at Elara with an expression that was becoming her favorite thing in the world.

r dessert, while everyone was still at the table with their wine and the comfortable heaviness of a good meal, Elara stood

Before everyone gets too comfortable,” she said. “I need to do something.

Her mother looked up “What are you doing?”

5:10 pm P PON

Charter 220-

remember about four years ago, you came to visit me in that tiny flat in Queens? The one with the broken

“The one where I had to wear ro coats to sleep? How could I forget?”

“You took three buses to get there because you didn’t want me to spend money on your Uber. You brought me food for the whole week in two bags you carried yourself” Elara felt her throat tighten but pushed through it. “And I watched you walk to the bus stop afterward and I thought, one day. One day I’m going to make sure she never has to do that again.”

The table had gone quiet.

Her mother’s expression was shifting, the careful neutral face she wore when she was trying not to react to something.

“Elara-

“You worked double shifts for three years so I could finish school. You ate less so I could eat more and you never once told me that’s what you were doing, I just figured it out later.” Elara reached into her pocket and put the key on the table in front of her mother. A simple key on a plain ring. “I bought you a car, Mum. Nothing crazy, nothing over the top. A Lexus ES. the one you pointed at in traffic two years ago and said looked like a proper car. It’s parked downstairs. It’s yours.”

Her mother looked at the key on the table.

She didn’t move for a long moment, just looked at it the way you look at something you’re making sure is real before you to yourself believe in it.

“A Lexus,” her mother said finally, very quietly.

“Fully paid. Insured for the year. Registered in your name.”

“With my own money,” Elara said before Marcus could say anything. “I needed you to know that. This is from me.”

Something shifted in her mother’s face at that. The careful composure she’d been holding cracked completely and her eyes filled with tears that spilled over before she could stop them/

“Come here,” her mother said, her voice breaking on the words.

Elara went around the table and her mother stood and held her the way she had when Elara was small and the world was o large and frightening to face alone. Tight and certain and completely safe.

“I’m so proud of you,” her mother whispered. “You have no idea. Every single day I am so proud of you.”

“I know Mum.” Elara’s voice was somewhere underwater. “I know.”

T

Mimi was crying. She wasn’t even attempting to hide it, sitting at the table with tears streaming freely while Dante handed her a napkin with the resigned expression of a man who’d come prepared.

Emeka cleared his throat aggressively and looked at the ceiling.

Kichard was very still, his wine glass in his hand, watching the scene with an expression that suggested he was thinking about his own mother and his own debts that could never be fully repaid.

Marcus just watched Elara with that face.

They went downstairs together, all of them crowding into the elevator and spilling out into the garage where the champagne silver Lexus sat exactly where the dealership had delivered it that morning.

Her mother walked toward it slowly. Put her hand on the hood

2/4

5:10 pm P P M

Chapter 210

Walked around it once, touching the door handle, looking at her own reflection in the window.

Then she got in the driver’s seat and sat there with her hands on the wheel not going anywhere, just sitting in her car in the underground garage of her daughter’s building.

Elara stood outside the window watching her mother’s face and felt something settle in her chest that had been unsettled for years. Some old weight she’d been carrying without knowing it, the guilt of having more while her mother still had less

They went back upstairs and finished the evening the way good evenings should finish. Slowly, reluctantly, nobody wanting to be the first to leave. The twins fell asleep across various laps. Wine ran out and nobody went to get more because moving felt wrong.

Elara’s mother stayed the latest, helping clear up in the kitchen the way she always did regardless of whose home she was in

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