Chapter Two

Julian's Pov

"Your grandmother left everything to a child that doesn't exist."

I stared at Mitchell, my head lawyer, across the mahogany desk in my office. Outside, Manhattan glittered forty stories below, but I couldn't focus on anything except the words that had just come out of his mouth.

"Explain," I said.

Mitchell shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. In fifteen years of working together, I'd never seen him nervous. "The will specifies that controlling shares of Ashford Industries fifty-one percent go to your firstborn child upon your grandmother's death. Not to you. To your heir."

"That's insane." I stood, pacing to the window. "I'm her only grandson. The company should come to me."

"She was very specific, Julian. The shares are held in trust until your child turns eighteen. Until then, the child's mother has voting rights." He paused. "Your grandmother wanted to ensure the Ashford line continued. She believed you'd never prioritize family unless forced to."

I laughed bitterly. My grandmother had always been manipulative, but this was something else entirely. "I don't have a child."

"I know." Mitchell pulled out another document. "Which is why the shares default to your cousin Marcus if you remain childless within the year following her death. He's already positioning himself with the board."

Marcus. My cousin had been waiting for years to take what was mine, circling like a vulture. The company my grandfather built, that my father expanded, that I'd grown into a tech empire, gone because my grandmother decided to play God from beyond the grave.

"There has to be a way to contest this."

"We've examined every angle. The will is airtight." Mitchell's expression was grim. "Unless you produce an heir in the next four months, Marcus becomes majority shareholder. You'll lose control of everything."

I gripped the edge of my desk, my mind racing through options. Marriage? It would take time I didn't have. A child took nine months, and I had four. Unless

"What about adoption?" I asked.

"Doesn't qualify. The will specifies biological offspring. Your grandmother was very thorough."

Of course she was. Eleanor Ashford had built half this empire herself. She didn't make mistakes.

"Then I'm done." The words tasted like ash. Everything I'd worked for, gone. Every eighteen-hour day, every cancelled vacation, every sacrifice meaningless.

"Actually," Mitchell said slowly, "there might be one possibility. But you're not going to like it."

"Tell me."

"We need to verify the timeline of your divorce. Specifically, when it was filed versus when it's finalized." He pulled up something on his tablet. "The papers were filed three months ago. The dissolution isn't final for another month."

"So?"

"So legally, you're still married. Which means if your wife were pregnant"

"She's not." I cut him off. "We haven't... it's been years since we..." I couldn't finish that sentence. Too humiliating.

"When did you last see her?"

I thought back. "Eight months ago. The day I signed the papers."

Mitchell's fingers flew across his tablet. "I'm going to run a comprehensive check. Bank records, medical records, anything public. If there's even a chance"

"There's no chance," I said. But something nagged at me. The day I'd brought the papers, Nadia had looked different. Tired. Pale. She'd been wearing a sweater even though it was summer, one of those oversized things that swallowed her whole.

"I'll call you in an hour," Mitchell said, already heading for the door.

He called back in thirty minutes.

"She's seven months pregnant," he said without preamble. "Due in eight weeks. Prenatal appointments at Brooklyn Methodist under her maiden name."

The room tilted. "What?"

"Your wife is pregnant, Julian. With your child, presumably, given the timeline. The baby was conceived before the separation."

My child. I had a child coming in eight weeks, and Nadia hadn't said a word.

"Why wouldn't she tell me?" I asked, but I already knew the answer. Because I'd signed divorce papers during a conference call. Because I'd treated our marriage like a business obligation I couldn't wait to dissolve. Because in six years, I'd never given her a reason to think I'd care.

"That doesn't matter right now," Mitchell said. "What matters is that the baby is your heir. Which means we need custody established immediately. Paternity test, custody agreement, everything legal before the divorce is final."

"Custody?" I repeated.

"You need that child, Julian. Not just for the company, but for control. If Nadia has primary custody and voting rights until the child is eighteen, she controls Ashford Industries for the next two decades. Do you really want your ex-wife making decisions about your empire?"

No. God, no. Nadia knew nothing about the company, about the tech sector, about any of it. She'd tried to understand in the first year, asking questions about my work, but I'd shut her down. Told her it was too complicated, too boring, too much for someone without a business background.

"What do I do?"

"You go to Brooklyn," Mitchell said. "And you convince her that shared custody is in everyone's best interest. Better yet, convince her to reconcile. If you're married when the baby is born, the inheritance is clean. No legal complications."

Reconcile. With the woman I'd barely spoken to in years. The woman whose loneliness I'd ignored, whose attempts at connection I'd rebuffed, whose presence I'd treated like an inconvenience.

"She won't agree," I said.

"Then make her." Mitchell's voice went hard. "Because if you don't, you lose everything. The company, the patents, everything your family built. Is your pride worth that?"

I ended the call and sat in silence for a long moment. Then I called my assistant.

"Clear my schedule for the rest of the week," I said. "And get me Nadia's address in Brooklyn."

Two hours later, I was standing outside a walk-up apartment in Park Slope, staring at a building that probably cost less than my monthly parking space. The door buzzed open—broken security, apparently—and I climbed three flights of stairs that smelled like cooking oil and old carpet.

Apartment 3B. I knocked.

Footsteps. The door opened a crack, security chain still attached.

Nadia stared at me through the gap, and I saw what Mitchell's report couldn't convey. She was visibly pregnant, her belly round under a loose dress, her face fuller than I remembered. Still beautiful, though. I'd forgotten that. How beautiful she was.

"Julian?" Her voice was shocked. "What are you doing here?"

I looked at her stomach, then back at her face. "When were you planning to tell me about my child?”