Conflict of Interest
I’m Maya Klein, and five years ago, Kaelnino Nathaniel de Cruz made one thing painfully clear.
I was good enough to sleep with.
Just not good enough to stand beside him.
According to Kael, women like me didn’t simply step into families like his. I didn’t have the money, the name, or the pedigree to become his girlfriend, much less anything more.
I could stay his secret.
His mistress.
Just never his choice.
Romantic, right?
A few weeks after he humiliated me, I found out I was pregnant with his child.
So I left.
Kael never found out.
And I intended to keep it that way.
Five years later, I’m a divorce attorney in Manhattan, which feels appropriately poetic considering my history with terrible men and mistakes.
Then one afternoon, a woman walks into my office asking me to end her marriage.
Beautiful. Polished. Miserable.
And well very familiar.
Mrs. Kaelnino Nathaniel de Cruz.
Yes.
His wife.
Somewhere, the universe is laughing its ass off.
Now I’m supposed to sit across conference tables from the man who once treated me like a dirty little secret and professionally dismantle his marriage without letting him dismantle me first.
That would already be complicated enough.
Except Kael still doesn’t know my real life includes a four-year-old boy named Rafael Klein.
A boy with his eyes, his frown, and far too much de Cruz stubbornness.
I’ve kept Rafael hidden for five years.
All I have to do is survive one divorce without Kael looking too closely at my life.
Keeping my ex at a professional distance should be easy.
Keeping him from discovering he has a four-year-old son? Not so much.
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Chapter: a fresh start, my assMonday morning, Rafael Alejandro Klein decided his new school needed him more than I did. We’d barely gotten out of the car before he pulled his hand out of mine and started studying the redbrick preschool building on the Upper East Side with great interest.“Okay,” he said. “I’m going in.”“Wonderful. But listen to Mami first.” I bent down to straighten the collar of his white polo beneath his navy sweater. His little belly stuck out, and the black bangs I’d carefully combed this morning were already falling over his forehead again. “If you need to use the bathroom, tell Miss Olivia. If someone takes your toy, don’t immediately resort to violence. And please don’t tell your friends you got shot.”“I’m not violent, Mami.”“You hit a cardboard box with a golf club yesterday.”“That was a bad guy.”“And you fell off the couch. You did not get shot.”“Superman got shot.”“Superman also listens to his mother.”Rafael sighed, then turned to Tara, who was standing beside me holding his back
Last Updated: 2026-09-17
Chapter: same eyes, better personalityFive years later.“I swear, if that couch scratches the floor, I’m putting all of you in a class-action lawsuit.”Both movers stopped at the same time.One of them was still holding the end of a cream-colored sofa that had cost an offensive amount of money, while the other looked at me like he was trying to decide whether I was joking. I didn’t help by smiling.“Ma’am, we’re being careful.”“Good. I’m also very reasonable before property damage happens.”From the foyer, Tara let out a small laugh.Our new house still looked like a furniture catalog had suffered a minor explosion. Boxes filled half the living room, several paintings were leaning against the walls because I hadn’t decided whether I wanted to hang them or sell them to fund therapy after this move, and the dining table had arrived without two of its chairs because apparently New York also struggled with the concept of a complete set.I stood in the middle of all of it wearing black leggings, a white T-shirt I’d half-tucke
Last Updated: 2026-09-17
Chapter: secretary, mistress, mother. excellent career progression.I stayed where I am as applause broke across the ballroom like something had just been thrown straight at my face.People started moving toward the stage. Some were already holding up their phones, and a few women near me were whispering about how perfect Samantha Whitmore was for the de Cruz family. Somehow, my body still remembered how to stand straight, still knew champagne glasses were supposed to be held by the stem, still understood that crying in the middle of a ballroom full of people who lived for gossip was the fastest way to become Manhattan’s breakfast conversation tomorrow morning.Kael was still onstage and Samantha was still beside him.And I couldn’t look at their hands anymore.“I have to go,” I said.Theo turned quickly. “Maya.”“I’m fine.”It came out too fast, which was obviously the most elegant possible way to tell someone I was absolutely not fine.Julian didn’t try to smile this time. “Want me to take you home?”“I have legs.”“Maya.”“I’m even wearing heels.”
Last Updated: 2026-09-11
Chapter: champagne tastes worse when you’re stupidIf Kaelnino Nathaniel de Cruz doesn’t show up in the next two minutes, I’m selling his family’s oil company on Craigslist.I haven’t decided on the price yet. Maybe two hundred dollars and a pack of Marlboros, just to make it insulting.“Maya.”I looked up from my tablet and found Mr. Harrison, the nearly sixty-year-old CFO who had been working for the de Cruz family since before I was legally old enough to drink, staring at me from across a conference table roughly the length of a rich man’s list of sins.“What?”“Don’t sell the company.”“I haven’t hit post yet.”“Good.”“Because I’m still choosing the pics.”Two people beside him fought back smiles. Mr. Harrison rubbed his temple.The conference room on the forty-seventh floor of Cruz Petroleum was already packed with eleven people whose schedules were probably worth more than my apartment, three screens displaying the quarterly presentation, coffee that had started going cold, and one empty chair at the head of the table because t
Last Updated: 2026-09-11
The Wrong Brother, The Right Mistake
Five years ago, I ran away from my wedding in Lake Como after discovering that Lorenzo Bandini, the man I trusted with my life, had betrayed me.
Before sunrise, I made one reckless choice with his older brother.
Zachary Bandini is arrogant, dangerous, and far too observant. I left his room the next morning and disappeared before either Bandini brother could ruin what remained of me.
I never told Zach that our single night together followed me home.
Now I own one of Manhattan’s most exclusive wedding-planning companies, and my four-year-old daughter, Abigail, is the only part of my life I refuse to risk. She has my attitude, my talent for creating chaos, and Zach’s face.
Keeping her hidden has worked for five years.
Then I accept the biggest wedding contract of my career and walk into the first meeting to find Zach beside the bride.
Her fiancé.
Zach thinks I vanished because I regretted him.
He has no idea I left carrying the one thing that could connect us forever.
I can survive his attention. I can ignore the way he still makes anger feel dangerously close to desire. I can plan his wedding, smile at his fiancée, and keep every secret exactly where it belongs.
But Abigail is curious, fearless, and impossible to control.
And Zach has never been a man who stops looking once he knows something is being hidden from him.
So what happens when the man I have spent five years avoiding finally looks into my daughter’s eyes and sees himself?
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Chapter: a little philanthropy, a lot of denialFifteen minutes later, we moved on to the second installation.Zach didn’t follow. I knew because I wasn’t looking. I definitely did not check the reflection in the large framed glass to my left to make sure he was still talking to two investors near the donor table. Didn’t do that.I was appreciating the art.A huge white canvas with three black lines that, according to the catalog, represented “institutional loneliness.” It cost a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. I felt lonely just reading that.“Papa wants this one?” Adam asked.“He is not paying a hundred and eighty thousand dollars for three lines.”“He once bought a dining table from Italy because Mama said the old one made roast chicken look sad.”“That’s different.”“How?”“That’s marriage.”Adam nodded. “Right. The most expensive institution.”Laughter sounded behind us.I didn’t turn around.“Aubrey.”I turned and found Elaine Harper, the foundation chair, approaching with open arms. We kissed cheeks, talked about Papa,
Last Updated: 2026-09-17
Chapter: black tie, bad timingAfter kissing someone else’s fiancé in the hallway of a private club, I made a very healthy decision.Zachary Bandini was never allowed to be alone with me again.Not at the townhouse.Not in a car.Not in a hallway.Not in any room with a door, walls, dim lighting, or enough oxygen for the man to breathe.If we had a meeting, Aurora would be there. If Aurora was late, Danielle would be there. If Danielle suddenly died, we would reschedule.Perfectly reasonable.Friday night, Papa asked me to represent the Moguel family at the Maravilla Foundation’s annual charity art auction because he had to fly to Miami for hotel business, and Mama went with him because, according to her, letting Papa choose his own tie for an investor dinner qualified as domestic neglect.So I went as the good eldest daughter and as a member of one of the sponsoring families.As a woman who was absolutely not thinking about how, two nights earlier, her hands had been gripping Zach’s shirt in a hallway while his mo
Last Updated: 2026-09-16
Chapter: the man i should have forgottenI kept walking. “Don’t.”“I haven’t done anything.”“That’s what people usually say right before they do something.”I tried to walk past him.Zach shifted slightly away from the wall.“What do you want?” I hissed, annoyed, and kept moving.“That guy was too young.”I stopped again and turned to look at him. “What?”“The one on the dance floor.”Now I really stared at him.From this close, the details were worse. His black hair was slightly messy in front. There was a faint shadow along his jaw because the night had gone on long enough. His dark shirt was open one button at the neck, and his face had the infuriating calm of a man who had just criticized another potential guy without possessing a single ounce of authority to do it.I let out a small laugh because the alternative was committing a felony. “He’s twenty-nine.”“Too young.”“You’re thirty.”“Exactly.”“Bandini math is apparently very creative.”Zach didn’t smile.I crossed my arms. “At least he’s single.”That hit something
Last Updated: 2026-09-12
Chapter: the view from a very bad decisionI froze.For one second, my body stopped performing several basic functions when my eyes met Zach’s from across the room.There was plenty of distance between us. A bar, two groups of people, one velvet sofa, several bodies moving to the music, and enough overpriced alcohol to fund a school. Still, he found me as if the room were empty.Zach stood at the edge of the private lounge in an unbuttoned black suit, a black shirt underneath, and a short glass of something amber in one hand.The low lighting cut across half his face, sharpening his jaw, his nose, and the mouth I knew far too well for something that was supposed to have been one bad decision five years ago.He was even more unreasonable in person.Too tall. Too calm. Too handsome in a way that didn’t ask for attention and got it anyway. Two women near the bar had already looked at him more than once, and Zach seemed about as interested in that as he was in the room temperature.Then the corner of his mouth lifted, and he rais
Last Updated: 2026-09-12
Chapter: not my groom, not my problem“Language,” I hissed.“I’m talking to a woman whose daughter said shit after hearing a plumber drop a wrench,” Dianna shot back.“That happened once.”“She used it correctly in context.”“Which made it worse.”“Zachary Bandini is the groom?” Ivy was already looking at me with the expression she usually wore when someone’s MRI came back much worse than expected.I nodded.“For Aurora Vale.”“Yes.”Dianna covered her mouth with one hand and then, of course, started laughing.I stared at her.“Sorry,” she said quickly, though she was very clearly not sorry. “I know this isn’t funny. But the universe really does hate you creatively.”“Thank you.”Ivy still wasn’t laughing. “Has he seen Abby?”“Not yet.”“Does he know?”“No.”“Suspect anything?”I grabbed the champagne bottle and poured myself another glass. “Not as far as I know.”Dianna stopped laughing. Apparently, that was the sentence that finally killed the mood. She looked at me more seriously. “Aubrey.”“I know.”“Abby has his face
Last Updated: 2026-09-12
Chapter: girls’ nightThe next few days passed in a blur of calendar invites, venue packets, fitting updates, security revisions, two conference calls that should have been emails, and Zachary Bandini showing up in my life with increasing frequency like a subscription charge I didn’t remember agreeing to.Sometimes his name appeared on my schedule.Sometimes his actual body appeared with it.Both were equally terrifying.So when Abigail did something Friday night that almost never happened without medical intervention, which was fall asleep before eight-thirty, I should have taken the opportunity to have a long shower, open my laptop, and enjoy forty uninterrupted minutes of life without a small child yelling that her blanket “didn’t have good energy.”Instead, a little after nine, I was standing in front of my bedroom mirror wearing a black mini dress that hadn’t left my closet in months while Dianna sat at the edge of my bed criticizing my earrings. “The long ones.”“I don’t want the long ones.” I huffe
Last Updated: 2026-09-12
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