CONTRACT ENGAGEMENT: Unexpected Heir

Maya

He looked up before I did.

I felt it first, a pull at the side of my face. Then I looked. Liam Cross was watching me across the seminar table. Not staring. Just watching, steady, like he already knew something I didn't.

Four seconds. I counted them without meaning to. Then Professor Alden called the room to order and the moment broke.

I opened my notebook. My hand wasn't quite steady. I told myself it was the espresso.

The seminar was Ethics in Corporate Governance, capped at fourteen students, the kind of class my father called necessary theater. I hadn't expected Liam Cross in it. I hadn't expected to notice him the way I did.

Everyone on campus knew the Cross name. Cross Holdings owned half the skyline in three cities. My father's firm, Vance Capital, competed with them for the other half. We'd been raised on opposite sides of the same rivalry. Close enough to recognize each other. Far enough to never speak.

Until today, apparently.

Alden started in on fiduciary duty. I took notes I wouldn't remember writing. Every few minutes I felt that same pull, faint, like a hand hovering near my shoulder without touching it. I didn't look up again. I didn't trust myself to.

When class ended I packed slowly, letting the room empty around me. Liam didn't leave. He came around the table instead, unhurried, and set something on top of my closed notebook.

A single sheet of paper, folded once. A printed news alert, the kind you'd pull off a financial wire service. I caught the headline before he straightened.

SEC Opens Preliminary Inquiry Into Vance Capital.

I looked up at him. He didn't explain. He didn't offer anything more than the paper. His look wasn't unkind. It was final, like he'd finished what he came to do.

"You'll want to read that before you check your phone."

He walked out before I could answer.

I sat there for a second too long. The paper felt heavier than it should have. My name was three lines down, my father's name twice above it. I read it once, then again, and the second time didn't make it feel any more real.

My phone was still in my bag. I hadn't touched it since before class, on purpose, the way I always did during Alden's sessions. I dug it out now with hands that had gone strange and distant, not quite mine.

Five missed calls. All from my father.

No voicemail. My father never left voicemails. If it mattered, you answered in person. That was his rule. One of a hundred I'd absorbed before I noticed.

I stood in the emptying seminar room. Paper in one hand. Phone buzzing in the other. For a moment I didn't do anything at all.

Outside, the courtyard was full of people who had no idea what the words on that page meant. Someone laughed near the fountain. A bike bell rang twice. I walked through all of it like I was underwater, sound arriving late and soft-edged.

I called my father back once I reached the quad. He answered on the first ring, which told me everything before he said a word.

"Where are you." Not a question. A demand shaped like one.

"Just out of class." I kept my voice even. I'd had a lot of practice keeping my voice even. "I saw the alert."

A pause on his end, brief and sharp. "Who showed you."

I looked down at the paper still folded in my hand. Liam's fingerprints were on it now, along with mine.

"Doesn't matter. I know. Tell me what's happening."

He didn't, not over the phone. He told me to come to the house that evening. Denise would clear his calendar. Don't talk to anyone before then. Not press. Not friends. Not Cross Holdings people, like he already suspected where I'd been that afternoon.

I didn't tell him I had.

After we hung up I stood in the quad a while longer. Phone warm in my palm. Paper still folded the way Liam left it. I thought about the four seconds before class. I thought about how he'd known before I did. How he'd chosen to tell me himself. Instead of letting me find the headline alone.

I didn't know yet what any of that meant. I only knew it meant something.

The walk back to my dorm felt longer than usual. I passed the library, the fountain, a group of freshmen arguing about a problem set. Ordinary noise, ordinary Tuesday, none of it touching the thing sitting cold in my chest.

I thought about calling Priya. I thought about how I'd explain it without explaining it. The edited version was already building itself in my head.

Some habits didn't need practice. They were just there, waiting, the moment you needed them.

I let myself into my room and sat on the edge of my bed with the paper still in my hand. I read the headline one more time. Then I unfolded it fully. Four words in pen sat in the corner. I hadn't noticed them before.

We should probably talk.

I stared at his handwriting for a long moment. It wasn't careless. It looked deliberate, like he'd thought about each letter.

Then I picked up my phone and started typing a message to a number I didn't have yet. I didn't know if he'd answer. I typed it anyway.