His Hidden Heir

“Baby, shoes. Now. We’re going to be late.” Audrey Mitchell’s voice already had that thin, panicked edge of a woman bargaining with both time and a preschooler.

“I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna go to school today!” Little Bean twisted in her arms like a slick little eel, her soft voice full of righteous protest.

“Oh, sweetheart, come on. Mommy will buy you strawberry cake this afternoon, okay? Strawberry.” Audrey poured every ounce of bribery she owned into her voice until it went several degrees sweeter.

Under the glorious power of corruption, Little Bean finally stuck out one reluctant foot.

Audrey moved fast. One shoe, then the other, a sweep of practiced hands, and the child was scooped up before she could stage a second rebellion.

As Audrey hurried downstairs, she dug out her phone and called Camila Moore with the same desperation people usually reserved for emergency services.

“Camila, save my life. I might be late. Cover for me for a minute. I’m almost there, I swear.”

“Got it.”

By the time Audrey finally reached the preschool gate, she was already half-dead from the morning circus. She lifted Little Bean out of the car and caught sight of the zipper on her little backpack hanging open.

Audrey reached over to pull it shut, then froze.

A stiff corner of a photograph peeked out from inside.

She slipped it free.

Phoenix Castillo’s face stared back at her.

Audrey’s hand stopped in midair. For one brutal second, even her breathing forgot its job.

How was this here?

“Baby, where did you find this?” Her voice trembled before she could stop it.

Little Bean looked up and pointed at the man in the photo with perfect, wide-eyed innocence. “This uncle is super handsome. Everyone in my class has a daddy. I want him to be my daddy.”

Audrey’s chest clenched hard.

Four years since the divorce. For all she knew, he had already become someone else’s father. Someone else’s husband. Someone else’s happy ending.

She shoved the photo back into the backpack, pressed down the dull ache in her chest, and walked Little Bean into preschool.

The moment she got back into the car, her phone rang.

As soon as the call connected, Camila’s voice blasted through the speaker. “Audrey, where are you? Don’t be late. Something huge happened today.”

“What happened?”

“The company got acquired. Mr. Warren cashed out and ran off to enjoy the world. The new boss is coming any minute.”

Audrey went silent for three seconds.

“I’m on my way.”

At exactly nine o’clock, the front entrance of Zenith Group had already turned into a corporate execution ground.

The executive assistants from the CEO’s office and the heads of every department stood in neat rows, waiting.

The atmosphere was quiet enough to bruise.

A black Rolls-Royce Phantom glided to the front of the building and stopped without a sound.

For one suspended second, everyone’s heartbeat seemed to pause with it.

An assistant jogged forward and respectfully opened the rear door.

A long leg stepped out first, wrapped in top-tier tailored trousers, the crease clean enough to look sharpened.

Then a tall figure bent and emerged.

The man wore a perfectly cut black custom suit.

A drenched shirt, unfair shoulders, a lean waist. A body proportioned with such unfair precision he looked less born than rendered by someone with a grudge against ordinary men.

He simply stood there.

He said nothing.

Yet that innate, aristocratic pressure had already rolled over the entrance like weather, heavy enough to make people consider kneeling just to be safe.

When he strode into the lobby, the bright lights caught his face.

The air around him seemed to stop moving.

The new CEO was so good-looking people’s chests tightened, but no one quite dared to stare directly at him.

The group vice president, Felix Ward, was the first to hurry forward, smiling so hard he nearly folded himself in half.

“Mr. Castillo, welcome.”

Phoenix Castillo did not answer.

His sharp gaze swept lightly over both lines of employees.

Cold. Distant.

One was missing.

His brows drew together.

“Meeting in ten minutes. Directors and above. Attendance mandatory.”

He left the words behind and walked toward the private elevator.

The department heads scattered instantly, each one racing upstairs like their lives had been purchased in installments.

Just as the elevator doors were about to close, a woman’s anxious voice rang out.

“Hold it!”

Audrey Mitchell shot into the elevator like a gust of wind. If she had gained two more pounds, the doors would have taken her out.

“Ah!”

She couldn’t stop in time and slammed straight into Phoenix Castillo.

Beneath the fabric of his suit, his chest was firm. Hot.

Phoenix reached out on instinct and caught her firmly by the waist.

A cold voice sounded above her head.

“After all this time, you learned to throw yourself at men?”

That voice...

Audrey looked up and crashed into a pair of eyes so deep they seemed bottomless.

That cold, familiar face. Those clean-cut lines. That high bridge of a nose.

A face carved into her bones.

Her eyes trembled.

What the hell?

Phoenix Castillo.

Her ex-husband.

What was he doing here?

“How long are you planning to hold on?”

His impatient voice came again, threaded with mockery.

Audrey snapped back to herself and let go as if she had touched a live wire.

She straightened in a rush, awkwardly smoothing her hair and tugging her work suit back into place.

Inside the elevator, the air went solid.

Last night, she had dreamed of Phoenix again.

Under the ginkgo tree. A soft mat. A sky full of stars.

He had been over her, and it had been the day of their divorce, their last blistering farewell.

“Phoenix Castillo, are you done yet?” Audrey had shouted. She had been so tired her whole body felt broken apart.

He bent down, hot breath brushing her ear.

“If you can still yell that loud, you’re not that tired.”

His tone had been flat, merciless.

Even divorce had to be a competition.

She had asked for the divorce.

That final benefit after the divorce had been the one thing he fought for.

A fair trade.

So neither of them owed the other anything.

After who knew how long, Audrey felt something was wrong. Her mind cleared in an instant, and she slapped at his hard shoulder with all the strength she had left.

“It broke. Get up.”

Phoenix stopped moving. His dark eyes stared at her through the night, cold and unreadable.

“I decide when this ends.”

Audrey shook with fury. “What if I get pregnant?”

“I’ll add a hundred dollars to the divorce assets. Buy the morning-after pill.”

Her eyes burned red. She used the last of her strength to curse him.

“You bastard!”

Phoenix lowered himself until the tip of his nose almost touched hers.

“Then you’re the bastard’s woman.”

Even then, the sentence had sounded wrong in her head.

...

He tormented her for a full day and night before he left. Then he disappeared from her world.

The ginkgo tree where they had fallen in love in college became the place where they ended.

Audrey had lain beneath a gray-white sky, unmoving, sobbing until she had no sound left.

Ding.

The elevator reached the top floor.

Camila Moore and Aria Jackson were already waiting at the elevator doors.

“Good morning, Mr. Castillo.”

The two of them straightened with crisp, synchronized professionalism.

Audrey’s heart slammed once.

The new boss was Phoenix Castillo?

The man who had walked out of their divorce with nothing and left her every cent he had?