Chapter 568

Chapter 568:

I let them talk. I had no intention of stopping them. Lea’s name surfaced more than once. They circled it like vultures, speculating on whether she had already made her move, wondering aloud how much their shares might fetch if the rumors proved true.

I had deliberately let the whispers spread. Rumor was a useful weapon. It revealed loyalties faster than any audit. Half the men around this table owed their positions not to competence but to bloodlines, favors, or sheer inertia. They had been gifted titles by Edouard Laurent, or by Reginald, who had treated the company like a private estate to be carved up amongst friends.

They were the weak links I intended to expose.

“If Titanova is truly interested,” someone ventured, “perhaps it would be prudent to at least hear them out. A merger, a partnership p>

“Titanova does not dictate terms to LGH,” I said. The words dropped into the silence like stones. For a moment, no one dared to speak.

“Still,” a cousin pressed, “Lea Lopez is a formidable businesswoman. And you were partners once, were you not? The market knows this. Investors see sense in such an alignment p>

I thought of Lea—of the confrontation on the cruise ship. I had believed that would be the last time I saw her. I was wrong, in more ways than one.

In a way, we were the same. When we wanted something, we would stop at nothing to get it. Maybe we had been partners once, but now she was intent on recasting us as predator and prey.

She had already leveraged Titanova’s connections to disrupt my supply chains, to lure away potential clients. Those were irritations, nothing more—the sorts of problems that came with running a corporation as vast as LGH. Now she had gone for the jugular.

“If we don’t sell, what if she makes good on her threat?” someone asked at last, voicing what they were all thinking.

The rumor had already spread—a sudden ordinance from City Hall, an emergency moratorium on all new land development and construction permits. If passed, LGH would be the prime target.

Your imagination begins with gαℓησν𝒆𝓁s﹒ç𝗈𝗺

“Our projects would freeze overnight,” another said anxiously.

“Future plans locked down. No chance to prepare, no way to challenge it before it passed,” someone else added.

And they were right. Unless Lea intervened.

It was no secret she had influence over the Deputy Commissioner of Urban Development, the only man with the power to push such an ordinance through. What leverage she held over him—money, blackmail, something darker—was still unclear. My people were working on it.

If the moratorium went through, it would be almost impossible to strike down in court. LGH would bleed millions lobbying against the law, all while operations ground to a halt.

Unless I gave Lea what she wanted.

I leaned back in my chair, betraying nothing. The ache in my right hand pulsed steadily, but I welcomed it. The pain reminded me of the island, of Mira’s face lit by firelight, of the way she had trusted me with her life. But she had not trusted me with her love. Not yet.

That was my mistake. I had pressed too hard, too fast. I had been the one to suggest the contract marriage, the one to buy her building, the one to manipulate her into living in my house. Always the strategist, always the one in control.

But people, unlike companies, did not bend to pressure. She had felt cornered, and when the real wedding loomed, she fled.