The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 147

Chapter 147 Telling Sarah

“The stroller is a nice touch,” Clara whispered. “Very good method.”

“I think there’s an actual baby in it,” Elera whispered back.

“Ah, that’s even better, she is commitment to the role.”

They took a large corner booth. Frost positioned himself at a small table nearby with a clear line of sight to the door, the bathrooms, and the fire exit. He was reading a newspaper, which in the year of our lord felt like such an obvious spy prop that Elera wanted to tell him to at least use a tablet.

Drakonius sat next to her in the booth, his knee pressing against hers. It was a steady point of contact. He was pretending to look at his phone, but she could feel the tension in him. His free hand rested on the table, and the slight tremor that had been almost gone was back. Stress. She hated that she was the cause of it.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said softly.

“I know,” he said, not looking up. “I just don’t like having you in the line of fire.”

“I’m in a booth. The most dangerous thing here is probably the sodium content in the pastries.”

He finally looked at her, his gray eyes serious. “You know what I mean.”

She did. She squeezed his hand under the table. “I’ll be careful.”

Clara, sitting across from them, was studying the menu with intense focus. “They have a drink called ‘Brave. It’s a chamomile tea with a shot of espresso. That’s the most emotionally conflicted beverage I’ve ever seen. I’m getting it, for research purposes.”

The door then chimed.

Xan walked in first.

He looked… terrible. That was Elera’s first thought. Not that bad though, just exhausted. His usually perfect hair was a bit messy, like he’d been running his hands through it. He had shadows under his eyes that no amount of money or expensive skincare could hide. He was wearing a dark coat over a simple shirt and jeans, trying to be casual and landing somewhere in the vicinity of a “man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.”

His eyes scanned the room, taking in Frost, the mom with the stroller, the college student. A flicker of something like annoyance crossed his face. Then his gaze landed on Elera, and everything else in his expression just… shut down. It went blank and careful.

Sarah was behind him.

She looked even worse. Paler than usual, if that was possible. She was wearing all black, an oversized sweater that swallowed her frame, and she kept her arms wrapped around herself like she was holding her own pieces together. Her dark hair was down, hanging like a curtain on either side of her face. Her eyes were huge, darting, taking in everything and seeing threats everywhere.

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Chapter 147 Telling Sarah

+5 Pearls

Xan guided her to the booth with a hand on her back, a gesture that was both protective and, Elera thought, slightly controlling. Like he was steering a ship in rough waters.

They slid into the booth across from Elera and Drakonius. Clara, wisely, had shifted to sit next to Drakonius, leaving the space opposite for them. No one spoke for a long moment. The noise of the coffee shop filled the silence–the grind of beans, the hiss of steam, the low murmur of other people’s normal

conversations.

A very young, very nervous looking barista approached. “Hi, welcome to Safe Harbor! Can I, um, get you started with some drinks?” She looked like she wanted to be anywhere else, probably because Frost was glaring at her again.

“Water,” Sarah said, her voice thin and reedy.

“Coffee. Make it black,” Xan said without looking at the girl.

“We’re fine,” Drakonius said, his voice cool.

“I’ll have the Brave!” Clara said, a little too brightly. “For, uh, thematic consistency.”

The barista fled.

More silence.

Sarah was staring at Elera with an intensity that felt like any physical weight. Her fingers, pale and long, tapped a rapid, silent rhythm on the table.

“You look well,” Xan said finally, his voice flat. His eyes were on Elera, ignoring Drakonius completely. “Married life agrees with you.”

“Let’s not do the small talk, Xan,” Elera said. “We’re not here for that.”

“Why are we here?” Sarah’s voice cut in, sharp as a broken glass. “You said you had information. That you could prove things. So prove them before I remember that I hate you and this feels like a trap.”

Elera took a slow breath. This was it. She pulled a tablet from her bag, it was the one with the encrypted files Frost had prepared. She set it on the table between them but didn’t turn it on yet.

“Five years ago,” she began, “at the Lakeside Drive party. You were there, Sarah. You were sober. You’d had two beers. Your friend Jennifer Martinez was your appoint driver.”

Sarah went very still. “Jen,” she whispered. “She disappeared after… after.”

“She disappeared because she was paid to disappear,” Elera said gently. “Because she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”

“What did she see?” Xan asked, his eyes locked on the tablet.

Elera turned it on. The first file was a scanned photo of a younger Jennifer, smiling with her arm around a younger Sarah. Both of them looked happy, normal and untouched by the horror that was coming towards tjem. Sarah made a small, choked sound.

“Jennifer saw my father, Kieran Nethys, at the party,” Elera continued. “He was in a back room, arguing

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Chapter 147 Telling Sarah

+5 Pearls

with your father, Sarah. And it was about a business deal that was falling apart. Your father stormed out. He was angry. My father just… smiled.”

She pulled up the next file. It was a screenshot from the traffic camera footage. Grainy, black and white, timestamped 11:42 PM. It showed the intersection of Lakeside and Pine. A car was visible, crashed against a tree. The image was paused.

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The Heiress He Underestimated