The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 183

Chapter 183 Too Late

Finished

When they got home, Drakonius was in the library, working. He looked up as she came in. “How did it go?” She pulled the USB drive from her pocket and set it on his desk. “He gave us everything. All his files he has

on Kieran.”

Drakonius picked it up, examining it. “That’s a significant risk for him. Kieran won’t take betrayal lightly.”

“I know.” She sank into the chair opposite him. “He also he apologized. Profusely. Said he was wrong about everything.”

Drakonius’s sharp eyes studied her face. “And?”

She sighed. “And he said he loves me. The real me. And that he hopes I can give someone a second chance someday, but not him, because he knows he burned that bridge.”

Drakonius was silent for a beat. Then, to her surprise, a faint, wry smile touched his lips. “Well. That’s… detailed.”

“Detailed?”

“Full–spectrum redemption. Hand over the weapons, confess your sins, declare your unrequited love, and exit stage left. It’s almost Shakespearean. If Shakespeare wrote about billionaires with poor emotional regulation.”

Elera couldn’t help it. She let out a short laugh. “You’re not… upset?”

“Should I be?” He put the drive down. “He’s in love with my wife. My wife is brilliant and beautiful. It’s statistically inevitable that other men would notice. The important part is that you’re here. With me. And he gave you a USB drive, not a ring.” He leaned back. “Besides, I almost feel sorry for the man. To realize you’ve been the fool in your own story… that’s a bitter pill. He’s swallowing the whole bottle.”

His calm, analytical take was like a balm. It stripped the weird, emotional tension out of the situation and turned it into just another piece of data. Xan’s feelings were his problem. The data on the drive was theirs.

“Frost thinks it could be a trap,” she said.

“Then we’ll be careful.We’ll have Simon look at it in the isolated system. He enjoys that kind of puzzle.” Drakonius stood up. “In the meantime, we have other things to focus on. The board is thrilled with the capital infusion. The stock has stabilized. The press is calling you ‘the patron saint of overachievers. We’re winning, Elera. This,” he nodded to the drive, “is just more ammunition.”

He was right. She couldn’t get tangled up in Xan’s emotional drama. She had a company to run, a cure to perfect, a father to destroy.

But later that night, after Drakonius had gone to sleep, she found herself in the sunroom. The giant moon- shaped topiary from her Celestine team loomed in the corner, a silly, sweet reminder of her other life. She thought about Xan, alone in his sterile penthouse, finally seeing the truth. She thought about Sarah, in a quiet room somewhere, trying to rebuild a self on a foundation of lies.

So much damage. All radiating out from one man’s gree.

She didn’t love Xan. She never really had. She’d loved the escape he represented, the chance to be someone other than Kieran Nethys’s daughter. But she could, in this quiet moment, forgive him but not forget, just forgive him. He’d been a weapon in her father’s hand, just like she had been. Now he’d put himself down.

Chapter 183 Too Late

That counted for something.

She heard a soft step behind her. Drakonius, in his pajamas and a robe, his hair ruffled from sleep.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

“Thinking.”

“About Valdris?”

“About…consequences. And forgiveness.”

He came to stand beside her, looking at the topiary. “It’s hideous plant,” he remarked.

“It’s sentiment.It grows ugly.”

He smiled. Forgiveness is like that, too. It doesn’t always look pretty. Sometimes it just looks like not punching someone in the face when you really, really want to.”

Finished

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