From His Fake Wife to Billionaire Heiress Chapter 206: A Late Night Call

After dinner, Sebastian drove home—but not all the way up the mountain. Instead, he pulled into the driveway of the villa next to Riley's.

He didn't get out right away. Sitting behind the wheel, he stared through the windshield at the dark windows of Riley's house for a long time.

He knew she wasn't there. She was still out at that messy Cedar Creek construction site, probably stuck in some cheap temporary housing, nursing her injured ankle.

Finally, he stepped out of the car and made his way around to the shared backyard between the two properties, then walked straight up to his own balcony.

The motion-sensor light flickered on softly, casting his expression in shifting shadows.

He kept thinking about what the family had said about Riley over dinner.

They didn't know the Riley he knew—tough, sharp, and levelheaded.

She was never someone who needed anyone's pity.

The thought crossed his mind just as he pulled out his phone.

A thousand things he might've said narrowed down to three simple words.

"You still up?"

Meanwhile, a hundred miles away in Cedar Creek, Riley was indeed staying in temporary onsite housing.

It wasn't much, but it was clean.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she was ready to call it a night after a chaotic day.

The glow of her phone screen looked out of place in the dim room, lit only by a small bedside lamp.

When Sebastian's name appeared, her tired face softened without her even realizing it.

"Just about," she typed back.

It was true—she was barely keeping her eyes open. Every muscle in her body ached with exhaustion, and all she wanted was to lie down and sleep.

She set the phone beside her pillow and was about to turn off the lamp when the screen lit up again.

"What's your relationship with Elsie?"

Elsie?

Riley paused.

Why would Sebastian bring her up out of nowhere?

The name felt both familiar and distant.

Ever since the Harpers found her, Elsie had been a recurring presence in stories and comments—but Riley had never actually met her.

In the Harper family's telling, Elsie was like a saint.

She was the girl they'd adopted after Riley went missing.

The way they told it, Riley's mother, Melissa Harper, had been so broken by her daughter's disappearance that she'd had a mental collapse and even tried to take her own life.

Then little Elsie came along like a ray of light, pulling the family out of their darkness and giving Melissa a reason to live again.

Over the years, Melissa had poured all the guilt and longing she felt for her lost daughter into Elsie—giving her twice the attention she showed even her own son, Raymond.

And Elsie, by all accounts, was sweet and thoughtful. She and Melissa were extremely close, rarely ever apart.

It made for a touching story.

But to Riley, the real daughter, the other side of that story felt like a quiet insult.

Even after the Harpers located Riley, the mother who supposedly missed her so much hadn't come to see her once.

The excuse was that Melissa was too overwhelmed with guilt—she didn't know how to face the daughter she'd just gotten back. Her health was fragile, they said, and she couldn't handle big emotions. So Elsie was staying with her at one of the family's properties outside the city, helping her rest and recover.

Riley didn't have strong feelings about any of it.

But no strong feelings didn't mean no caution.

Especially after seeing what another adopted daughter—Sophia—had been like in the Ashford family.

Sophia's vanity and cruelty, the way she'd slept with her own adoptive brother Lucas and had his child... it had completely shifted Riley's view of adopted daughters in wealthy families.

It was hard not to assume the worst about Elsie.

Could someone who'd so completely charmed the lady of the house, and still kept that mother close and controlled even after the real daughter returned, really be as innocent and kind as everyone said?

Riley doubted it.

But Sebastian didn't bring things up for no reason.

If he was asking, he had a point.

And Riley didn't want to guess through cold text on a screen.

She called him directly.

He picked up after the first ring.

"Hey." His voice came through, low and smooth, carrying that late-night calm that felt both intimate and quiet.

Riley's heart gave a faint, unexpected skip.

She pushed the feeling aside and got straight to it.

"Why do you ask?"

Standing on his balcony, Sebastian felt the evening breeze brush against his tailored shirt.

Her direct question tugged slightly at the corner of his mouth.

"No particular reason. I just heard some interesting comments about you at dinner tonight."

Then he quickly summed up what had been said.

He expected Riley to be annoyed.

But instead, he heard a soft, almost amused sound through the phone.

"You know... they weren't entirely wrong. If you look back far enough, before Havenbrook was developed, it pretty much was just a fishing village."

"Guess I overthought it," Sebastian replied, the tension in his shoulders easing a little.

"But I'm telling you this so you know—your sweet 'sister' might not be as simple as she seems. She hasn't even shown up yet, but her reputation got there before you did. And she built it by stepping on you."