Chapter 12
The call lasted for twenty minutes. Lily stayed in the doorway, a silent observer of a world she knew nothing about. She watched Alexander pace the length of the living room, his voice a low, furious murmur. He wasn't just talking to someone; he was fighting. She caught fragments of his conversation—"breach of contract," "collusion," and the name "Sterling."
When he finally hung up, he stood by the window, his gaze fixed on the city lights, his shoulders hunched with a weight she'd never seen on him before.
"Sterling," she said quietly, stepping into the room. "Is that a rival?"
He didn't turn around. "It's nothing you need to worry about. Go to school."
"He was the one your father...?" The question hung in the air, unfinished but understood.
He finally faced her, his eyes cold and distant. "You have a history exam today. Focus on that. This is not your concern."
But it was. The tension in the room was palpable. She had seen the crack in his armor, and now she was seeing what lay beyond it: a man under siege.
Lily, however, was not so easily dismissed. "I can't just ignore it. You look like you're about to go to war. Is it that bad?"
He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "Worse. I'm not just fighting to protect my company. I'm fighting to protect my family's legacy. This man, Sterling, he's making a move on one of my key properties. He's using my father's old business partner to do it, a man my father trusted."
The story clicked into place. The betrayal. The promise. The ghost. It was all a circle. Alexander wasn't just paying a debt to her grandfather; he was still fighting the ghosts of his father's past, and now they were returning with a vengeance.
"So you're not just an obligation," she said, her voice soft. "I'm a symbol. I'm the one good promise your father made, the one that wasn't broken. That's why you're keeping it."
The words hung in the air, and for a moment, he didn't respond. He just looked at her, his expression a complicated mix of surprise and grudging respect. "Something like that," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "Now go. I have a day of fighting ahead of me."
Lily didn't move. "No," she said. "I won't go. Not yet. The deal is, I'm a part of this now. So tell me. How can I help?"
The question was audacious. She was an eighteen-year-old student offering to help a billionaire CEO fight a corporate battle. The look on his face was one of pure shock, followed by a flicker of something she couldn't quite identify. It wasn't dismissal, but something closer to… a reluctant acceptance.