A Poor Woman Was Forced to Marry a Sleeping Billionaire — Then the Man Everyone Thought Was Unconscious Revealed He Had Heard Every Word.

PART 1

The room answered with the soft mechanical rhythm of the ventilator.

The door opened behind her.

A broad-shouldered man in a tuxedo leaned against the frame. He was handsome in the polished, expensive way of a watch displayed behind glass, but his smile made Wren want to lock the door.

“The replacement bride,” he said. “You’re prettier than Nadia.”

“Who are you?”

“Marcus Delacroix. Weston’s cousin.” His gaze moved from her face to the bed. “And, until Sleeping Beauty decides to return, acting president of Kade Meridian.”

He came too close. Wren stepped between him and Weston without thinking.

Marcus noticed. His smile thinned. “You believe you can protect him?”

“I believe this is his room, and you weren’t invited.”

“Be careful, Mrs. Kade. People who enter this family without understanding it tend to suffer accidents.”

“Then it is fortunate she is not alone.”

The woman in the doorway was in her early sixties, silver-haired and straight-backed, with grief carved so deeply into her dignity that it had become part of her beauty. Genevieve Kade, Weston’s mother, did not raise her voice. She did not need to.

“Leave, Marcus.”

“Aunt Genevieve, I was welcoming our guest.”

“You were frightening my daughter-in-law beside my son’s bed. If you enter this suite again without permission, security will escort you off the property.”

Marcus’s expression hardened. For an instant, Wren saw something uglier than arrogance. Then he laughed and walked away.

Genevieve closed the door. “Did he touch you?”

“No.”

“Has anyone else hurt you?”

Wren instinctively covered the bruises Odalys’s fingers had left.

Genevieve saw the movement. Her face changed.

“I told myself this arrangement might give my son a reason to return,” she said quietly. “I told myself the Ashcombe family was honored by it. I did not ask enough questions, because I wanted to believe what suited me.”

Wren waited for an excuse. None came.

“That was selfish,” Genevieve continued. “I am sorry. If you want to leave tonight, my attorneys will help you. Whatever your family was promised will still be paid.”

Hope rose so fast it hurt. “My mother. I need to find her.”

“Then we will find her.”

Down the hall, something struck the floor. Both women turned, but there was only silence.

Neither of them saw Weston’s right index finger move beneath the blanket.