Loving The Billionaire’s Cold Heart

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nora's POV

Helena called on Sunday.

I let it ring the first time. The second time I answered because avoiding it wouldn't change what I knew and I needed to hear her voice while I knew what I knew and see what she gave away without realising it.

"Nora darling," she said. "I've been thinking about you."

"Have you."

"How are things in the Blackwood house? Are they treating you well?"

The warmth in her voice was so practiced I almost admired it. This was a woman who had handed me over to a contract built on manufactured debt and called to ask if I was comfortable.

"Things are fine," I said.

"Good. Good." A pause. "I had lunch with an associate last week. Someone connected to the Voss family. He mentioned there were some rumblings about the business proposal. I hope that hasn't caused any tension for you."

There it was. She was checking whether the Voss situation had reached me. Whether I was still in the dark.

"No tension," I said. "Ethan handled it."

"Of course. He's very capable." Another pause, slightly longer. "You haven't been asking questions about the original contract, have you? Sometimes people in new situations overthink the paperwork and it creates unnecessary —"

"Helena." I kept my voice even. "I appreciate you calling."

Silence.

"Of course," she said carefully. "I just want you to be comfortable."

"I know you do."

I ended the call, sat with the phone in my hand, and felt the last remaining warmth I had carried for her finish cooling completely. It had been cooling since I found the sub-clause. Now it was just done.

I called Marcus.

"She's nervous," I said when he answered.

"Helena called?"

"She was fishing. She wanted to know if I'd found anything and she wasn't subtle enough about hiding that she was fishing."

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing yet. The legal review is still running. I want the full picture before I move." I paused. "She mentioned the Voss family. She has a contact there. Which means she's still in communication with Richard Voss's circle."

"Nora." Marcus's voice dropped. "That means she may have been the one who told Camille whatever Camille claimed to know about you at the start."

I had already thought that. I had thought about it at three in the morning two nights ago and then again in the kitchen with Ethan and I had put it away because I needed to think about one thing at a time.

"I know," I said.

"Are you going to tell Ethan?"

"Yes." I didn't hesitate. "Tonight."

*******************

He came home at seven. I was in the living room and I had made dinner, which surprised him — I could see it in the brief pause at the door, the way he took in the table set for two with the particular expression of someone recalibrating an expectation.

"You didn't have to do this," he said.

"I know. Sit down."

He sat. We ate and I waited until the first edge of the meal was done before I told him about Helena's call. I laid it out cleanly — what she asked, what she was checking, the Voss connection, the implication about Camille.

Ethan listened without interrupting. That was something I had come to rely on — the way he gave full attention when something mattered. No performance of listening. Just actual stillness.

When I finished he said, "She knows we found the clause."

"She suspects. She doesn't know how much."

"How did she sound?"

"Controlled. But the questions were too specific for a casual call." I looked at him. "She's been talking to someone in the Voss circle. Which means Richard Voss knew about the sub-clause. Which means Camille's information about me almost certainly came from Helena."

Ethan set his fork down. "They built this from both sides."

"Yes."

He was quiet for a moment. Then — "Helena gave Camille something to use against you. To destabilise the marriage before it settled. Because if the marriage collapsed in the first year —"

"She gets the asset transfer," I finished. "Yes."

The table was quiet. Outside the city did its indifferent thing.

"She used you as a financial instrument," he said. His voice was flat in the way it got when something had moved him past the point of expression.

"She's been doing that my whole life," I said. "I just didn't have the documentation before."

"Nora."

"I'm not falling apart," I said. "I've had days to sit with this. I just needed you to have the full picture."

He looked at me across the table with something in his face that I felt in my sternum. No pity. Something more difficult than pity. Something that looked like anger on my behalf — quiet and contained and entirely genuine.

"What do you need?" he asked.

The question caught me. Not what are you going to do or what does this mean for the legal case. What do you need? I looked at him and felt that warmth I was supposed to be managing to move through me regardless.

"I need to know that when this unravels — and it will unravel — my mother is protected," I said. "The medical arrangement. Whatever happens with the contract."

"Done." No hesitation.

"Ethan —"

"I mean it. That's not contingent on anything. I'll have Daniel draw up a separate guarantee tomorrow."

I looked at him for a long moment. "Why?"

He held my gaze. "Because she's your mother. And because you've handled every hard thing in this situation with more integrity than anyone in my family has ever shown me." He paused. "And because I want to."

Something cracked open very quietly in my chest.

I looked down at my plate and breathed through it and when I looked up he was still watching me with that steady, focused attention that made me feel like the most seen person in any room.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't thank me." His voice was low. "Just eat."

I almost laughed. The almost-laugh became a real one and it surprised us both and his expression did that thing — that shift toward warmth he never fully allowed — and for a moment the whole weight of the situation lifted just slightly.

Just enough to breathe.