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Chapter 15
Last Updated:
2024-09-22 04:20:12
Lotus SeraphimPhillip and Sebastian are in the same place at the same time, again. What could possibly go wrong???
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Like a rabbit that hears the snap of the trap before it feels the jaws, Celine tensed to flee, but Phillip had seen her, and she was too proud to let him see that she feared him. What did he want, hadn’t she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him?Pushing away from the wall, Celine walked toward Phillip as if she had a purpose. Technically, it wouldn’t be a lie she was leading the opening ceremony. She decided to take the initiative and get whatever this was over with.“Phillip.”, she said, greeting the beautiful man who, until a year and a half ago, had been her husband. “Thank you for coming and participating in Mom’s memorial.”, Celine said. She was just about to make her excuses and leave when Phillip pushed her into the wall and stepped into her personal space.He didn’t hurt her, but he did shock her. Phillip wasn’t the kind of man who physically manhandled people. He preferred them to do his bidding willingly. Celine gasped, “Phillip, what the hell.”, she said. Whe
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Her father was right. They should have waited another year to host their first tournament. Celine had been too greedy and impatient. Her mom wouldn’t have cared if it took one year or ten years, but Celine just had to push and push. Now everything was ruined, all because of her.Celine was a private person who believed, “A clean hand wants no washing.” But she was beginning to wonder if she was being naïve. Her beliefs had landed her on the wrong end of the rumor mill. She could take it if it only affected her, but Chanel’s defamatory rumors had soured an event that meant the world to her little family.She was starting to get angry.Celine took several deep breaths and imagined herself on a beach then stepped out in front of the audience with a smile plastered on her face. It was time to announce the winners of the tournament. She walked out to the center of the arena, where Sebastian and two other women waited to hear the results.“I want to thank all the participants and their supp
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Celine kept herself busy with training horses and joining the stable hands in the back-breaking work of maintaining the ranch. Every day, she woke before dawn and at night she crashed into her bed too exhausted to dream. Did it stop her from thinking about Sebastian, Phillip, and Chanel? No, but it did stop her from dwelling on it.Today Sebastian was due to show up and she wanted to make sure she was ready. So, she came to the office to look at the staffing schedule when she heard Rachel on the phone. “I’m sorry I can’t reach him. Let me try his daughter. Okay. Okay. Hold on, let me write that down. Okay. We’ll be in touch.”It was early so Celine went to the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee, then her phone rang. It was Rachel. She didn’t know she was there. Celine laughed and walked into the reception area with the coffee expecting to surprise Rachel and make her giggle. But Rachel was not smiling. Something was wrong.“Rachel, are you okay? What happened.”, Celine asked and han
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Collette went back to school and wouldn’t be back until Christmas break which left Celine alone with Dad, who was avoiding her. How the man could do that given they lived and worked together, was truly an accomplishment, and it was starting to make her mad. All she wanted was for him to show her how the finances for the business worked. He was hiding something, and Celine was determined to find out what it was.She started with the bank. When Mom died, they put Celine on all the business accounts which meant she had access to everything. So, she called the bank and with one easy conversation, had access to all the accounts. But what she saw did not make a whole lot of sense. There were a lot of cash deposits and withdrawals and there was no way to know what her dad was using the money for.Another mystery was the monthly withdrawals of large amounts of money from places she did not recognize. When she called the bank, they told her they were for loans that her dad had taken out using t
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The sexual tension left the tack room like oxygen being air vac’d on a breached spaceship and Sebastian’s face changed so abruptly that Celine went from embarrassed surprise to guilty concern for the tragedy she saw on the handsome man’s face.“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know…I don’t know why I said that.”, Celine said lamely. Upon seeing his pain, she forgot her resentments or their gap in status and stroked away the frown and the pinched eyebrows, cooing consoling nonsense. She would do anything to take back what she had said. Even though she was more curious than ever to know what happened.Sebastian took her hands in his and created a little distance between them. “The answer to that question is for another time.”, he said and sighed.Then his face underwent another transition, and his eyes squinted, and his lips smirked. Now what, Celine wondered and felt like she was on an emotional rollercoaster ride with all his mood changes. Sebastian still had her hands, and he
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For weeks, Celine had been aware of her dad’s schedule and could have ambushed him anytime she wanted, but she kept hoping he would do the right thing and come to her by himself. But the business was in such a state that Celine could not indulge him anymore. So, she set her alarm for four in the morning and waited in the kitchen with a cup of coffee to keep her company. She heard him before she saw him and had a horrible thought. What if she startled him so much that he had a heart attack? He was in his fifties after all. So, she called out to him. “Dad?”, Celine said.The funny thing about sitting quietly with nothing to do was, your hearing improved so she heard him when he sighed and knew how long it took him to start walking again. It hurt her feelings that he wanted to avoid her this much, but she knew it was not her he was avoiding, but the problem.“Yes, kitten.”, Dad said. “Why are you sitting in here so early in the morning?”, he asked then hummed when he saw the fresh pot of
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Celine was surprised to see that Sebastian lived in one of the suites at his New York City flagship hotel and not some fancy penthouse in Midtown Manhattan on Billionaire Row. She was even more astonished to see the décor was warm and colorful and that his home was a modest fifteen hundred square feet with two bedrooms and an office. The only perk she saw befitting his wealth was the view. All the outward-facing walls were floor-to-ceiling windows and had a spectacular view of Central Park which was particularly colorful this time of year.Soon after arriving, and settling Celine into the guest bedroom, Sebastian excused himself to work in his office. She had never seen this side of Sebastian and hearing his commanding voice from behind the door of his office was a big turn-on. She liked hearing his voice in the background as she went about her day, a lot.Nervous about moving around Sebastian’s home, Celine mainly stuck to the room she had been given and was in constant communication
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“Do you remember the day I left to go back to New York? I left the day before school started because I wanted to stay with you until the last minute. Do you remember?”, Sebastian asked. She could see slivers of grey as he peeked between his lashes at her.“I remember.”, Celine said. “You were going to call me after you got settled in. I chased your fancy car to the highway.” She looked down at his fingers picking apart the individual threads in the carpet between their feet.Sebastian smiled. “I remember that too.”, he said taking her hand and playing with her fingers. His fingers were icy.“That day I was distracted. I remember thinking that the driver wasn’t my normal driver, but I had been gone all summer, and staff changes were a normal part of my life. So, I didn’t think anything of it.”, Sebastian said, and Celine’s stomach sank, and her throat started to ache.Sebastian kept his eyes focused on their fingers and continued. “It was a three-hour drive from your house to mine and
Last Updated : 2024-10-05
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As soon as Celine saw the two gorgeous men stepping out of the elevator, she realized what Kim was up to and had to fight the urge to turn and run. She wanted no part of Kim’s revenge hookup because that was what this was. Kim was implementing the classic strategy of what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.However, Celine would be lying if she said she wasn’t tempted to see Sebastian and Matteo’s faces when they saw the two drop-dead hotties that had just walked into Sebastian’s penthouse. Maybe there was some merit to Kim’s plan…No, nope, just no. A nice bath and a text message update on the paternity test were what she needed, not a demonstration of large predator mating competitions.Unfortunately, it was too late to run because they were here, and Kim was exchanging cheek kisses. “Hello. Coucou, comment tu vas ?” One of Kim’s hidden talents was that she spoke fluent French, and always had her pick of French hotties. Kim was going nuclear, poor Matteo.One of the men had
The Billionaires Club Chapter 71
They say, “Money can’t buy you love.” but it does buy same-day results of a paternity test, especially if you have a phlebotomist waiting in the hall outside the courtroom to draw blood and a medical courier at the ready to transport your samples directly to a reputable private lab. A lab that was being paid to expedite the paternity test as soon as the biological samples were received.And that was precisely what happened minutes after Grace said, “I’ll take the deal.”Sophia yelled, “What deal.” The Judge beamed at Grace. The bailiff gallantly helped Grace down from the stand, and Jameson looked like a genie had just told him, ‘Of course, you can wish four more wishes.’It was complete chaos as they followed Grace and Sebastian out of the courtroom, and Celine couldn’t believe their plan had worked. But she saw it with her own eyes, and there was no doubt about it. Grace was submitting to a blood draw right there in the hall, behind a portable privacy screen.The next thing Celine kn
The Billionaires Club Chapter 70
After Sebastian’s lawyers finished, Celine thought all there was left to do was watch the death throes of Grace’s case. They had a recording of Grace threatening blackmail, for god’s sake. They should be watching the closing credits on this fiasco of fake paternity, but that was not how the law worked. There were always special circumstances or loopholes to get around or to delay a decision, and all Grace needed was a delay.When Grace’s attorneys began their case to quash the court order for the paternity test, they didn’t even bother to rebut the horrible things she said on the recording. Instead, they argued that Grace had a religious or moral objection to the paternity test.Grace’s attorney painted a picture of her as a devout Orthodox Christian from a family with a long, illustrious history with the Greek Orthodox Church on her mother’s side. In Orthodox culture, there is a lot of emphasis on family reputation and privacy, especially for families with ties to the church and thei
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It is not often that family court law protects the rights of a father, or in Sebastian’s case, the alleged father, except when it comes to paternity. No mother has the right to obstruct a paternity test. It becomes fuzzy if the paternity test is requested during pregnancy. Then the mother can say no—her body, her choice. At least, that was what Grace and Sophia believed. It turned out that Sebastian could request a court order to compel Grace to have a Non-Invasive Paternity Test if he was disputing paternity and Grace was publicly claiming he was the father, thus ruining Sebastian’s reputation and pressuring him into fatherhood.Apparently, Grace and Sophia’s ploy was so unoriginal that laws were already in place to prevent them.After Grace dropped her fake pregnancy bomb at the ice skating rink, Sebastian’s lawyers went to Family Court the next day and got a court date to ask a judge for a court order to force Grace to take a paternity test. Grace was notified of the court date i
The Billionaires Club Chapter 68
It took Celine a great deal of self-control not to pace the length of the hotel lobby. Of all days to be late, she thought as she squirmed in an uncomfortable but aesthetically appealing, overpriced, modern accent chair and reread the same page in her digital book.Today, Sebastian was taking Grace to an OB-GYN of his choosing to get some answers. The first thing he wanted to know was if she was pregnant. If yes, he would ask Grace for the second time to take a Non-Invasive Prenatal Paternity test to prove he wasn’t the father. So far, when he asked her to provide a blood sample for the test, Grace had refused, stating Sebastian’s accusations were baseless and she would not be humiliated.They fully expected Grace to refuse a second time, and if she did, they were prepared.Celine’s phone vibrated.SebastianHereCeline hurried outside, and Sebastian’s driver, Greg, waited to open the car door for her. “Good morning, Greg.” Celine said, trying to smile through her nerves. How is the n
The Billionaires Club Chapter 67
“Excuse me, what?”, Celine asked. Her heart was hammering, actually hammering so hard that she felt a twinge in her calf and then a burst of warmth. Did she tear a stitch? But she couldn’t be bothered to look because she needed to make sure she had heard correctly because surely, she had not.Looking at Sebastian did nothing to help her stay calm. He looked so woeful. She had seen that look before. When she was in the hospital after the fire, he had come to visit her. That was the day she realized that no matter what she said or how she was willing to fight, he was going to marry Grace anyway. The day she asked if he had slept with Grace. He never did answer her, but she guessed from his dark face and how he wouldn’t look at her that he probably had. She didn’t want to relive that horrible day.“She said she was pregnant.”, Sebastian breathed out.The room went still, and she heard a ringing in her ears. The warm spot on her calf grew. She absent-mindedly touched her calf to see if it
The Billionaires Club Chapter 66
With a chair, rolled-up towels, and choreography worthy of a Cirque De Sole act, Celine lowered herself into the bubble bath while keeping one leg dry. The doctor had been adamant that she could not get her stitches wet and had prescribed sponge baths. To hell with that. Nothing was going to stop her from getting a bath. So, what if having one leg out of the tub was awkward and uncomfortable, and she had no idea how she was getting out?She groaned in pleasure. She needed this. She could feel her aches and pains melting away, and the cold that had settled in her bones was gone. All that remained was a luxurious cocoon of heat and well-being.Except there was this niggly wiggly annoying memory of how she had acted like a whiny little jealous bitch, got stabbed in the calf by someone’s ice skate, stormed off bleeding everywhere, and then having to depend on Jameson, of all people, to help her.Shit, Celine, get it together. Where was the phoenix that rose from the ashes? Where was the w
The Billionaires Club Chapter 65
She only fell twice when she skated the rink's perimeter to the secluded spot where Sebastian sat with Grace. By the time she got there, she was so exhausted that she could hardly summon a spark, much less the fire of indignation and anger that had fueled her impulse to give Sebastian a piece of her mind. If she hadn’t needed to skate back the way she had just come, she would have given up right then and there and gone home to have a nice bubble bath.She was here now. What was she going to do? She couldn’t cling to this wall forever. Why hadn’t she just sent him a text like a normal person? She looked over to where Sebastian and Grace were sitting. Sebastian’s back was to her, but she could see Grace, and her eyes were red and swollen. It looked like she had been crying.Sebastian was a sucker for tears. He had probably held her hand or hugged her. He never could stand to see a woman cry. She wanted to punch him in his stupid nose.Suddenly, she realized she could hear them talking.
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It was official. She was an idiot. How many times was she going to fall for his fake sentiment? He really had her believing that he loved her the night he saved her from being abducted. What had he said? “We’re calling this off. It’s not worth it. We’ll run away. I’ll leave it all.” Hadn’t he begged her to believe him when he said that he would never let anyone hurt her again?But what did he do? The first time he had to choose between her or Grace, he chose Grace and left her alone to face the woman who had literally burned her life to the ground.The girl spoke, “Are you okay?” Snapping out of her reverie, Celine noticed the girl had taken her to a quiet window seat. She smiled, grateful to her unexpected savior, who flopped into one of the chairs and sighed noisily.“I’m okay.”, Celine said. She sat in the chair next to her and watched the pretty girl stare at the ice skaters with a mix of malice and envy as if they had stolen her lollipop and then kicked her puppy.Sparing Celine
