The morning sun hit the glass walls of the penthouse with a brutal, unforgiving clarity. I woke up with the weight of James's arm draped over my waist, his steady breathing the only sound in the room. For a few seconds, I allowed myself to believe that the world had stopped that there were no contracts, no "stepfather" titles, and no prying eyes.
But then I saw it.
James's phone sat on the nightstand, vibrating silently with an incoming call. The name on the screen made the blood in my veins turn to ice.
ELARA REYNOLDS.
My mother.
The woman who had abandoned us twelve years ago. The woman James told me was gone for good.
I sat up, the silk sheets slipping down my chest, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm. James stirred, his dark eyes fluttering open. The moment he saw the phone, his expression shifted from the soft, post-coital warmth of a lover to the cold, calculating mask of a billionaire.
"Don't touch that," he rasped, reaching over me to silence the call.
"She's alive?" My voice was a ghost of a sound. "You told me she signed away her rights. You told me she didn't want anything to do with me."
James stood up, completely unbothered by his nakedness, and walked toward the window. He looked out over the city he now owned, his back a wall of scarred muscle and secrets. "She didn't. Until I became a billionaire, Anna. Money has a way of resurrecting the dead."
"How long has she been calling you?" I demanded, my hands shaking as I wrapped a robe around myself. "James, look at me! How long have you been talking to my mother behind my back?"
He turned, his gaze heavy and unreadable. "Since the day the merger went through. She didn't want a daughter, Anna. She wanted a payday. I've been paying her to stay away from you. To keep the memory of the mother you loved intact."
But then it hit me like a physical blow. The man I had just given myself to, the man I thought was my only truth, had been built on a foundation of expensive lies.
"You bought her silence?" I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. "Or did you buy me? Is that what this is, James? Am I just another asset you've paid to keep in your house?"
"I did it to protect you!" he roared, stepping toward me, his presence suddenly suffocating. "She would have destroyed you. She would have told you things that would have broken your heart."
"Like what?" I challenged, stepping back. "What could be worse than finding out the man who raised me is paying my mother to stay lost?"
James grabbed my shoulders, his grip firm—almost desperate. "Like the fact that the divorce was never finalized, Anna. Which means technically, she still has a claim to half of everything I own. Including the right to take you away from this house if she proves I'm an 'unfit' guardian."
******
A cold realization washed over me. The "exciting plot twist" wasn't just about my mother; it was about our night together. If Elara found out about what happened in this suite, she wouldn't just take his money. She would destroy him.
"She knows," I breathed, seeing the flicker of fear in his eyes for the first time. "Doesn't she?"
"She has photos, Anna," James admitted, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper. "Photos of us in the car last night. She's not just looking for a payday anymore. She's looking for blood.
It was no longer just about our forbidden love. It was a war. I looked at the man I loved and saw a stranger a man who had protected me by weaving a web of lies that was now closing in on both of us.
"What do we do?" I asked.
James looked at the phone as it began to vibrate again. This time, a text message flashed on the screen: 'I want ten million by noon, or the press gets the car photos. Tell my daughter I said hi.'
James looked at me, his jaw set in a lethal line. "We don't pay. We fight. But to do that, Anna, you have to trust me more than you ever have. Even if it means doing things that make last night look like child's play."