Chapter Nineteen: The Crown Inside Her Bones

Ivy

There are moments when the world stops spinning.

Not in a metaphorical, dreamy sort of way—but violently, with the screech of rusted gears and the shudder of truth crashing into your ribs. That’s what it felt like as I stared down at the photo in my hand—my mother’s soft smile, frozen forever in the arms of the last man I should’ve feared.

Victor Blackwood. Lucien’s father.

I didn’t breathe. I don’t think I could.

The fire hissed quietly in the hearth behind me, casting golden flickers across the edges of the picture, but the rest of the room—the air, the silence, the towering shelves of forgotten books—hung still, like a cathedral awaiting judgment.

“Where did you find that?” Lucien’s voice cracked the silence like a blade.

I didn’t turn. My voice came out brittle. “Why is my mother in your father’s arms?”

He stepped closer. I heard it in the soft press of his shoes against the antique rug, like a predator inching toward its prey. “It’s not what you think.”

I turned then, the photograph trembling between my fingers. “No? It’s not my mother wrapped around your father like they were in love?”

Lucien didn’t answer. Not right away.

And in that silence, I felt something collapse inside me.

“You knew,” I whispered.

“I suspected.”

“For how long?” My voice rose, raw with betrayal. “How long have you known she wasn’t just some fading shadow in the Sinclair family history?”

His eyes dropped. “Since the day I saw you walk into that boardroom.”

The wind left my lungs in a hollow breath. “What?”

“Ivy…” He moved toward me again, slower this time, more cautious. “I didn’t know the whole story. I only had whispers, an old photo from a locked drawer in my father’s estate, and a name—Margot Sinclair. The resemblance struck me immediately.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because by then, you were already under my skin.” His gaze burned. “And I didn’t know how deep the wound went.”

I stepped back like he’d slapped me. “So you married me anyway. Not just to save my father’s company. Not just for the patents. You did it because of her.”

“No. I did it because of you.” He paused. “And maybe because I was trying to rewrite what happened between them.”

I laughed—sharp, cold, bitter. “Rewrite it? You think dragging me into this house of ghosts would cleanse your bloodline?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I thought maybe it would redeem mine.”

That stopped me cold.

His voice had never broken before. Not like this. Not even when I told him I hated him. Not when he told me to lock my bedroom door at night. But this? There was something fractured beneath those perfect cheekbones. Something human. Something ruined.

“Tell me everything,” I said, grounding myself with each word. “Tell me about her.”

Lucien walked to the fireplace and stared into the flames like they held the answers I demanded.

“She was twenty-five when she met my father. A tech prodigy. Fierce. Brilliant. The kind of woman who could level a room without speaking. Your father adored her, but she was drawn to power. To danger.”

“Victor.”

He nodded. “They had an affair. Not many people knew—just enough for whispers. She disappeared a year later. The official story said she eloped with someone abroad.”

“And the unofficial?”

“She was pregnant.”

My breath caught.

Lucien’s voice turned to steel. “When my father found out, he cut ties. Completely. Crown Holdings erased every trace of her. Your father covered it up to protect the family name.”

“And the baby?”

“Died. Or so the story goes.” He turned to me. “But I never believed it.”

My legs buckled. I gripped the desk to stay upright.

Lucien crossed the room, closing the distance with agonizing slowness. “That’s why I needed you close. Not just to save your company or mine. I needed to know the truth.”

“And if you found out I was her daughter?” I whispered.

“I still would’ve chosen you,” he said. “Every damn time.”

The photo slipped from my hand and drifted into the fire.

I watched it curl, blacken, vanish.

“She’s gone,” I murmured. “And yet… her shadow is stitched into everything.”

Lucien reached for me, but I stepped out of his grasp.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t touch me. Not until I figure out who I am—without your lies. Without your father’s ghost.”

The weight of it all settled in my bones like ash.

My mother had lived in this storm before me. Loved inside it. Burned inside it. And now I walked the same path with the son of the man who’d destroyed her.

Was this fate? Or the final punishment of a name I never chose?

“I need air,” I choked.

“Ivy—”

“Don’t follow me.”

I fled.

I didn’t know where I was going. The mansion stretched on in endless corridors and vaulted ceilings, but I moved like a woman chasing something only she could feel. My robe fluttered behind me like a ghost.

I stopped outside a locked door.

The east wing.

Lucien had told me never to go there.

So I opened it.

The hallway beyond was darker than the rest. Dust floated thick in the air, and the portraits lining the walls were covered in white sheets like corpses laid to rest.

At the end of the corridor stood a single door.

It wasn’t locked.

Inside was a study. Older. Untouched. A time capsule of mahogany and velvet and old leather. A lingering scent of cologne haunted the air.

Victor’s office.

On the desk sat a single file.

Labeled: Margot Sinclair – Property of Crown Holdings

I stepped forward, fingers trembling as I opened it.

Medical records. Bank transfers. Surveillance photos. A pregnancy confirmation. Notes in Victor’s handwriting.

One page caught my breath—an application for genetic testing. With a red stamp across the top: MATCH PENDING.

And there, at the bottom, a name.

IVY SINCLAIR – 99.6% probability

My knees gave out.

I slid to the floor, the file clutched to my chest, and screamed into the silence.

Later, I sat on the floor, back against the cold wall, legs curled under me, the fire in my heart long since reduced to embers. The file lay beside me like a coffin.

Lucien stood in the doorway.

He said nothing. Just watched me. Quiet. Tormented.

“I’m her daughter,” I whispered.

He nodded.

“And you knew.”

“I hoped,” he said. “But I didn’t want it to be true. Not like this.”

I laughed bitterly. “Why? Because then I’d matter too much?”

“No,” he said. “Because then I’d never be able to let you go.”

My heart twisted.

“Ivy, I don’t care what blood we share. I care that you see me—not the name. Not the legacy. Me.”

“And what if I can’t separate the two?”

“Then I’ll wait until you can.”

The room spun. The secrets, the grief, the love I hadn’t wanted to admit—it all crashed into me at once.

“You don’t get to choose when I forgive you,” I said.

“I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m asking for a chance.”

“To do what?”

“To love you.”

The words hung between us like a match above gasoline.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I said.

Lucien walked over, knelt in front of me, and gently touched my hand.

“Then let’s find out together.”

But as we sat there, something shifted in the air. A vibration. A hum from the desk.

Lucien rose, opened the hidden drawer, and pulled out a phone.

It buzzed with a message.

UNKNOWN: You went too far, Lucien. Blood doesn’t lie. Neither do I.

Lucien’s face turned to stone.

“What is it?” I asked.

He stared at the message, then at me.

And whispered, “We’re not alone in this anymore.”