The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 233

Chapter 233 Partners

Finishe

Frost, for his part, looked at the jerky, then at the banner, and the corner of his mouth did that thing that was almost a smile. “The banner is a security hazard,” he stated. “But the jerky is acceptable”

They had a quiet, silly little welcome in the foyer. Drakonius drank tea. Elera had a sip of champagne that fizzed through her, making her feel lightheaded in the best way. Clara talked a mile a minute about all the mundane, wonderful things that had happened while they were in their hospital bubble–a printing error in the new Raven Shadowmere dust jackets that made the heroine look like she had three eyes, a new coffee shop that had opened downtown that gave you a free cookie if you could name all the members of a 90s boy band.

It was normal. Gloriously and boringly normal.

Later, after Clara and Frost had left (Clara to her apartment, Frost to his quarters in the guest house, though the line between those places was becoming amusingly blurry), Elera and Drakonius were alone. The silence was comfortable. He settled onto the large sofa in the living room, a blanket over his legs, and she curled up next to him. They didn’t talk about the cure, or Kieran, or the past. They watched the sun se over the ocean, painting the sky in streaks of orange and purple.

“The view is better from here,” Drakonius said after a long while, his arm around her shoulders.

“Than from the hospital?” she asked, nestling into his side.

“Than from anywhere.”

As the days passed, a new rhythm established itself. It was a rhythm of peace. Drakonius’s strength returned slowly but visibly. He graduated from walking the length of the hallway to walking the cliff path, leaning on Elera at first, then on a cane, then on nothing at all. The color returned to his face, not the fevered flush of illness or the pallor of pain, but a healthy, sun–touched warmth.

One evening, they were in the kitchen. Elera was attempting to make pasta, a process that involved an alarming amount of spilled flour and muttered curses. Drakonius was supposed to be resting at the table, but he was watching her with an amused expression.

“You know,” he said, “you can design a retroviral vector that edits human DNA, but you are intimidated by flour.”

“It’s unpredictable!” she protested, wrestling with a lump of dough. “And the instructions are vague! ‘Knead until elastic. What does that even mean? My elbows are elastic, does that help?”

He laughed, a real, full–bodied sound that was still rare enough to make her heart skip a beat. He got up, slowly, and came to stand behind her. He put his hands over hers on the dough. “Like this,” he said, his voice in her ear. He guided her hands, showing her a firm, rhythmic motion. “You’re not performing surgery. You’re convincing the gluten to relax.”

She leaned back against him, letting him guide her. This was new, too–this easy physicality, this domestic cooperation. It wasn’t about life or death. It was about pasta. It was wonderful.

“What do you want to do?” he asked softly, his chin resting on her head as they kneaded.

“With the pasta? I was hoping to eat it.”

11:33 am PC M

Chapter 233 Partners

Finished

“No.With… everything. Now that the world isn’t ending every other Tuesday.”

She stopped kneading, letting his hands still over hers. She hadn’t let herself think that far ahead. The future had always been a distant country, hidden behind the fog of his illness. Now the fog had lifted, and the landscape was dazzling and vast.

“I want to run Nethys Medical,” she said, the decision solidifying as she spoke the words. “Openly. As myself. Not as a secret CEO, but as Elera Nethys–Vex. I want to take what my father almost destroyed and turn it into what it was meant to be–a company that does good, that pushes real research, not just profitable vanity projects.”

He nodded, his cheek against her hair. “You’ll be brilliant at it. The board will be terrified of you. It will be glorious.”

“And I want to write,” she continued, the dreams tumbling out. “More Raven books. Maybe something new. And… this is silly…”

“Nothing is silly.”

“I was thinking, when I was designing the ‘Midnight Requiem‘ gown… I loved that. The art of it. The statement. Celestine was always my escape, but it could be more. Maybe a small, exclusive line. Not fast fashion. But pieces that tell a story. A collection inspired by… well. By recovery. By strength that isn’t loud, but is deep. By…” She hesitated.

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