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Chapter 49

Author: Raven Sanz
last update publish date: 2026-06-21 00:15:01

JAXON

The investigator's preliminary findings on Vivienne arrive on Hayes's desk on Friday, and I am there when he opens the file because I have stopped being able to sit in my own office waiting for information that affects my son.

"The gate mechanism was tampered with," Hayes confirms, reading from the security firm's report. "Manually disabled, then reset to look like a malfunction. Whoever did it knew the system." He looks up. "It wasn't Vivienne directly. There's a payment trail to a maint
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  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 52

    JAXONThe coffee is still there at eleven.I have walked past her workstation three times this morning. The cup from the place two blocks away — her order, oat milk one sugar, left on her desk before she arrived the way I have done every morning for six weeks — is sitting exactly where I put it at seven forty-five and she has not touched it.In six weeks she has never left it untouched.I go to Hayes."She saw something last night," he says, before I finish closing his office door. "Tribeca. You and Vivienne outside her building.""How do you know?""Jim Carrington called me this morning." He holds up a hand. "Not making a move. He's worried about her and thought you should know."I process this. Jim Carrington called my best friend on my behalf. The man who wants her, who has every reason to say nothing and let this collapse, called Hayes."What did she see?" I ask."Vivienne's hand on your face. You holding it there.""I was removing it," I say. "She reached for me. I took her wrist

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 51

    JENNAI am not supposed to be in Tribeca.The client meeting runs long, I detour for dumplings because Zion lobbied for them through Eleanor, and I am three blocks from the restaurant when I see them.Jaxon. Vivienne. Outside a building I don't recognize.She has her hand on his jaw. His hand closes over hers.I turn around and walk the other way.* * *Faith calls at nine. "How was the client meeting?" she says."Fine.""What happened?""I saw Jaxon," I say. "With Vivienne. Outside some building in Tribeca.""Jenna—""Don't," I say. "I know what you're going to say.""You don't know what you saw.""I know what I saw, Faith. That's the problem.""You saw two seconds of something with no context.""I saw enough." I sit down on the edge of the bed. "Five years ago, I talked myself out of trusting what I saw. I told myself I was overreacting. And I wasn't.""That was a different situation.""Was it?""Yes," she says, firmly. "Jenna. He went to confront her about Zion. He told you what h

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 50

    JAXONI go to her apartment instead of summoning her to mine, because I want to see how she lives now. I want to understand the shape of the life she has built since I ended things, because people reveal themselves in the spaces they choose, and I have learned more about Jenna from a chalkboard breakfast menu than from anything she has ever told me directly.Vivienne's apartment is exactly what I expected and somehow still surprising. Tribeca, high floor, a view of the Hudson positioned to catch the morning light. Everything curated. Everything correct. The kind of space designed to be photographed rather than lived in, and standing in the doorway I find myself wondering if she has ever simply existed in this apartment without composing herself for it first."Jaxon." She opens the door herself — no assistant, no staff, which tells me she was either expecting me or hoping for me, and given the careful state of her hair and the dress that is too elegant for a Tuesday afternoon alone, I

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 49

    JAXONThe investigator's preliminary findings on Vivienne arrive on Hayes's desk on Friday, and I am there when he opens the file because I have stopped being able to sit in my own office waiting for information that affects my son."The gate mechanism was tampered with," Hayes confirms, reading from the security firm's report. "Manually disabled, then reset to look like a malfunction. Whoever did it knew the system." He looks up. "It wasn't Vivienne directly. There's a payment trail to a maintenance contractor — small amount, cash, untraceable on the surface. But the timing lines up exactly with her visit to the museum two days before the incident.""She was there," I say. Not a question."Logged in the visitor system under a different name," Hayes says. "Donor relations meeting that doesn't exist on the museum's calendar." He sets the report down. "It's circumstantial. Good circumstantial, but circumstantial. We'd need more to take it anywhere formal.""I don't need formal yet," I s

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 48

    JAXONI rehearse what I'm going to say four separate times on the drive over and abandon every version before I reach the hotel.There is no version of this conversation that I can practice my way into. I have negotiated billion-dollar acquisitions. I have sat across from boards that wanted my company in pieces and talked them out of it. None of that prepares a man for walking into a hotel suite to be introduced to his five-year-old son as his father for the first time.Jenna told him yesterday. She called me last night to say it went — her word — "well," delivered in a tone that suggested well was doing a great deal of work. I did not press for details. I trust her to have handled it the way she handles everything, which is carefully and completely and with more grace than the situation strictly requires.I knock at exactly four in the afternoon, the time she suggested, because she said Zion does better with new information when he has had a nap and a snack and is not tired or hungry

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 47

    JENNAEleanor takes Zion without asking questions.This is one of the things I love most about her. She reads the situation — one look at my face when I come through the hotel door, Zion asleep on my shoulder, Jaxon's name hovering unspoken in the air between us — and she simply opens her arms for him and says, "Come. I'll read to him." No interrogation. No raised eyebrow. Just the quiet competence of a woman who has navigated complicated things for eighty years and knows when to step forward and when to step back.I settle Zion into her bed. He doesn't wake. The scrape on his knee has been cleaned and bandaged and he has eaten half a bowl of soup and declared himself fully recovered, which is the kind of resilience that belongs exclusively to five-year-olds and which I have spent the last three hours being quietly, fiercely grateful for.I close Eleanor's door.I stand in the hotel suite living room and I look at the clock. Seven fifty-eight.I am as ready as I am going to get, which

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 43

    LILAThe envelope arrives on a Thursday morning by private courier.No name on the outside. No return address. Just a small red mark in the bottom left corner that tells me who sent it, because the man I hired does not put his name on anything and I would not want him to. I sign for it myself — I d

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 17

    JAXONI woke up before sunrise, not because I wanted to, but because sleep had become a stranger lately. My body was running on caffeine and habit, nothing more. I showered, dressed, and headed to the office, already irritated at the day ahead.When I stepped out of the elevator, my new secretary,

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 16

    JENNAI follow her down the hallway, still half‑asleep, still adjusting to the rhythm of this house—its elegance, its silence, its expectations.Eleanor is already seated when I enter, a cup of tea steaming beside her, the sunlight catching the silver in her hair. She looks composed, regal, and—som

  • Rejected by the Billionaire, Returned With His Child   Chapter 5

    JENNAJaxon’s mother looks nothing like him.She’s colder.Sharper.Her eyes sliced through me the moment I opened the door to his penthouse, expecting Jaxon… and finding her instead.“Ms. Hart,” she says, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. “We need to talk.”My stomach drops. “Jaxo

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