Betrayed By The Billionaire

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The collective gaze of the room shifted instantly toward the doorway, and Chloe’s voice died in her throat. The moment she saw Xavier’s tall, imposing figure, her body went rigid, and she stood up as if propelled by a spring.

Beside her, Liam Martin watched her reaction, a flash of agonizing pain crossing his features. Is she truly this desperate to stay away from me now? Even through her expertly applied makeup, Chloe’s face turned a deathly shade of ashen white. Liam traced the path of her trembling gaze and found himself staring at Xavier Grayson. The man entered the room like a sovereign returning to his court—noble, cold, and radiating the effortless, lazy authority of a true power player.

Xavier? Why is he here?

Liam’s expression shifted from warmth to a razor-sharp frost. His scholarly aura vanished, replaced by a defensive edge as his eyes snapped back to Chloe’s face. The realization hit him like a physical blow: she hadn't agreed to this dinner for old times' sake or for the Hans. She had agreed because of Xavier. She was terrified of this man misunderstanding her presence near her ex-fiancé.

Recognizing this truth felt like a massive stone crushing Liam’s chest, leaving him breathless and suffocating.

Xavier’s eyes locked onto Chloe the second he crossed the threshold. His stare remained fixed on her, growing colder and more piercing with every step he took toward the table. Chloe’s mind went completely blank. Panic, raw and unmanaged, flooded her system.

What do I do? What do I do?

The question looped in her brain like a broken record, but she found no answers. Her thoughts were a tangled mess of fear and desperation.

Walking in alongside Xavier was Dr. Aris. As the two men approached, every person at the table rose in unison out of instinctive respect. Mr. Han stepped forward, extending a hand toward Xavier with a welcoming smile. "President Grayson, we’ve finally been expecting you."

Xavier reached out and gave Mr. Han’s hand a brief, perfunctory shake. He didn't utter a single word of small talk, moving instead toward the head of the table. Mr. Han’s attention then shifted to Aris, his voice tinged with visible excitement. "And this must be the famous Dr. Aris?"

Aris offered a polite nod. "Aris."

"An honor, truly an honor," Mr. Han replied.

In reality, the Hans hadn't come to the city solely for business. Mr. Han’s father had contracted a mysterious ailment that doctors in South Korea were powerless to treat. Having heard that a similar case in this city had been successfully cured, the couple had made this journey specifically to seek out the specialist responsible.

The other men at the table were actually top-tier authorities in the local medical field, invited personally by Liam Martin to consult on the case. Liam had reached out to Aris multiple times, but the doctor had declined every invitation. Desperate, the Hans had used their international network to bypass Liam and contact Xavier Grayson directly.

Consequently, Liam had no idea that Xavier and Aris would be attending tonight.

As Xavier and Aris took their seats, the rest of the guests followed suit. Chloe, paralyzed by her panic, was half a beat slow. By the time she moved to sit, only one chair remained vacant—the one positioned directly between Xavier Grayson and Liam Martin.

With no other choice, she left the seat next to Mrs. Han and sat down with a heavy heart in the middle of the two most powerful men in her life. The Hans watched her movements with confusion, unable to decode the strange tension radiating from the "First Socialite."

Xavier gave Chloe one sideways, glacial glance before turning his head away, acting as if he didn't even recognize her. The coldness coming off him made Chloe shiver uncontrollably.

After a long, suffocating silence, she reached out under the table and discreetly tugged at the hem of his suit jacket. "Mrs. Han... she just wanted to chat for a moment," she whispered, her voice barely a breath. She was desperate to let him know she hadn't chosen that seat—or that proximity to Liam—on her own.