Chapter 5

SEVEN YEARS LATER

SEBASTIAN'S POV

Divorcing Vanessa was the smartest thing I had ever done.

My ex-wife had been a mistake from the very beginning, and I had known it three months into the marriage. I spent the next three years trying to convince myself otherwise, but the truth was undeniable. She had just been a waitress with no family, no connections, and no ability to give me children.

I had wasted three years of my life on a woman who brought absolutely nothing to the table.

When I finally signed those divorce papers and handed them to her in that hospital room, it felt like I had put down something heavy I had been carrying for far too long.

She signed them with shaking hands, tears streaming down her face, and I walked out without looking back.

I never thought about her again.

She disappeared after that, which was exactly what I had expected. She had taken the NDA money, understood what it meant, and vanished without a single attempt to resurface. That had been the right decision on her part, because if she had ever come back and tried to make noise about our marriage or about me, I would have buried her so completely she would have wished she had stayed quiet.

She knew that.

That was why I never heard from her again.

Seven years of blessed silence.

Seven years of building my empire without her dragging me down.

Seven years of the life I was supposed to have.

I leaned back in the seat of my Mercedes and watched the city move outside my window. My driver had not said a word since we left the mansion, which was exactly how I liked my mornings.

Lancaster Global Industries came into view ahead of us, and I straightened up. It was a fifteen billion dollar empire that had started as a struggling company my father handed me before he died and was now one of the most powerful corporations in the country.

I had done that.

Alone.

Without Vanessa's dead weight holding me back.

And today I was meeting an anonymous shareholder who had bought thirty percent of my company's shares last week. Whoever this investor was, they were smart enough to stay hidden and rich enough to make the acquisition worth my interest.

Thirty percent.

That was a significant stake. Enough to have real influence on the board. Enough to challenge decisions.

Enough to be a problem if they wanted to be.

But it was also an opportunity. Whoever had that kind of capital was someone I could potentially work with, leverage, or—if necessary—neutralize.

Today I was going to see their face.

The car stopped in front of the building, and I stepped out, straightening my jacket. The morning sun glinted off the glass and steel facade of Lancaster Global Industries—my name, my company, my legacy.

I walked through the front doors, and the lobby transformed.

Everyone who saw me coming immediately shifted into a higher gear of professionalism and fear.

"Mr. Lancaster—"

"Good morning, sir—"

"He's here—"

I barely came to the office anymore. I didn't need to. The company ran smoothly whether I was physically present or not, and I had people who handled the day-to-day operations.

But when I did show up, people remembered exactly who was in charge.

A woman near the reception desk grabbed her coffee and phone so quickly she nearly dropped both. Two men by the elevator saw me coming and immediately found somewhere else to be. The receptionist sat up so fast her chair rolled backward and hit the wall.

I walked through all of it without acknowledging a single person.

My secretary Diane appeared at my side the moment I stepped out of the elevator on the executive floor, tablet in hand, already talking.

"Good morning, Mr. Lancaster. The board is assembled in Conference Room A. Your coffee is on your desk. The anonymous shareholder's representative called thirty minutes ago to confirm they will arrive within the hour." She paused, her expression carefully neutral. "We still do not know who the investor is."

"I know," I replied. "That is the point."

Anonymity like this was strategic. Whoever bought those shares wanted the element of surprise, wanted to walk into that boardroom and see my reaction.

They were going to be disappointed.

I had been in business long enough to know that power came from control, and I controlled this room, this building, and this company. Whoever walked through that door would learn that very quickly.

I went to my office, drank my coffee while reviewing the quarterly projections, signed two contracts that Diane had flagged as urgent, and looked out at my city through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Isabella, my wife, had texted earlier about Maya's school presentation next week. My daughter was six years old and already ran our house with more authority than most CEOs ran their companies. She had my eyes and Isabella's delicate features, and she was the only person on earth I would rearrange my schedule for without being asked twice.

Maya was proof that everything had worked out exactly the way it was supposed to.

Proof that divorcing Vanessa and marrying Isabella had been the right choice.

Proof that I had made the correct decision seven years ago.

My secretary knocked forty-five minutes later.

"Mr. Lancaster." She opened the door carefully. "The anonymous shareholder has arrived."

I set down my pen and stood. "Good. Let's not keep them waiting."

The board members were already seated when I walked into the conference room, and the atmosphere shifted the way it always did when I entered—quieter, tighter, filled with a tension that came from people trying not to say the wrong thing.

I took my seat at the head of the long table and looked at the empty chairs across from me.

Twelve board members. All of them watching me. All of them waiting to see how this would play out.

"Send them in," I said.

Diane nodded and moved to the door.

The room went silent.

I heard footsteps in the hallway beyond—confident, unhurried, the sound of someone who had been waiting for this moment and was not going to rush it now that it had finally arrived.

The door opened.

And everything stopped.

The man who walked through that door made my blood run cold.

Nicholas.

Nicholas Lancaster.

My bastard half-brother was standing in my boardroom wearing a suit that cost as much as mine and an expression that told me everything I needed to know about the last two weeks.

It was him.

The anonymous shareholder had been him the entire time.

And I had signed the paperwork myself.

Around the table, I saw board members exchanging glances. A few looked confused. Most looked uncomfortable. They all knew who Nicholas was—the disowned son, the half-brother who had been cast out of the family and cut off from the Lancaster fortune.

The one my father had erased from existence.

And now he was back, standing in my boardroom, holding thirty percent of my company in his hands.

I opened my mouth to speak, to demand an explanation, to throw him out, but then Nicholas turned slightly and spoke to someone behind him, someone still in the hallway.

"Come in," he said, his voice calm and almost gentle. "They're ready."

My chest tightened.

Nicholas smiled at me then—a slow, knowing smile that made my hands clench into fists under the table.

"Sebastian," he said, his voice carrying across the room. "Allow me to introduce my wife."

Wife.

The word hit me like a physical blow.

Nicholas had a wife?

Since when?

And then she stepped through the doorway.

The woman who walked into my boardroom moved like she owned it. She was wearing a red dress—elegant, expensive, perfectly tailored—and she carried herself with the kind of confidence that made every head in the room turn without permission.

I couldn't see her face yet because she was looking down, smoothing her dress, taking her time, but something about her made my pulse spike.

There was something familiar in the way she moved.

I knew her.

Somehow, I knew her.

And then she raised her eyes.

My heart stopped completely.

Vanessa.

My ex-wife—the woman I had thrown away seven years ago, the woman I had forced to disappear, the woman I had never expected to see again—was standing in my boardroom.

And she was looking at me with an expression I had never seen on her face before.

Vanessa was nothing like the broken, crying woman I had left in that hospital bed. She looked nothing like the scared waitress I had divorced.

This woman looked at me like she had spent seven years preparing for this exact moment.

And now she was ready.

Around the table, the board members sat frozen, their eyes moving between Nicholas, Vanessa, and me. The tension in the room was suffocating.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody even moved.

Vanessa slowly took a step forward, her heels clicking on the polished floor and she stopped beside Nicholas, and he placed his hand on the small of her back—a casual, and possessive gesture that made my jaw clench.

His wife.

Nicholas had married my ex-wife.

My bastard half-brother had married the woman I had thrown away, and now they were both standing in my boardroom, holding thirty percent of my company, and looking at me like they had just won something.

Vanessa's lips curved into a smile—small, cold, and absolutely devastating.

"Hello, Sebastian," she said softly.

Her voice was different.

She sounded like someone who had spent seven years finding her power and confidence.

I sat there at the head of my own boardroom table, surrounded by my own board members, in my own company—

But I could not say a single word.

Because my ex-wife was back for revenge.

And she was not alone.