The Billionaire's Secret Daughter

NAOMI​I walk down the hallway of Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and the air smells like disinfectant mixed with faint coffee.Nurses move quickly, their Crocs gliding against the polished floor. The Los Angeles rain has soaked me, leaving my sleeves and hair damp.I hold Sophie’s tiny hand tightly in mine, her warmth pressed against my palm. My six-year-old daughter blinks rapidly at everything: the bright signs, the glass doors, the polished nameplates on every office door.I have practiced this moment in my head for days, what to say, how to smile, how to keep my voice steady. But as I sit at the reception area of the consulting room, staring at the name on the door, I keep twisting my wristwatch, and waves of emotion rush through me.​Attending Physician: Dr. Peter Hayes.​The name feels strange on paper, yet my body remembers it instantly. My breath grows shallow, a small pain blooming beneath my ribs.Seven years. It’s been seven long years since I last saw him, since I stormed out

​NaomiMorning Sunlight fades slowly through the blinds, pale gold filtering across the wooden floor. Los Angeles feels calmer after the rain. Sophie’s giggles drift from the kitchen, mingling with the sound of a cartoon playing loudly on the TV.​I sit on my bed, still in my silk pyjamas, staring at the picture in my hand. The edges had faded with time, the ink receding faintly.​It’s a picture of Peter and me from years ago, at UCLA. His arms wrapped around my shoulders, both of us smiling at something out of frame. I look chubbier, my cheeks reddened, Joy untamed. I trace the outline of his jaw with my finger, my heart fluttering like the way it always does when I let myself look.​I keep telling myself I will trash it out, every time, but I can't.​Sophie’s little feet tapping down the hallway, and she shows up in the doorway, hair still a mess from sleep, with French toast in one hand.​“Mom?” Why have you been staring at that picture? She asks between bites, tilting her hea

​NaomiAfter putting Sophie to bed, I stand by the window, staring at the city lights flickering in the distance. My reflection stares back, thin, composed, unrecognizable from the girl I used to be.But inside?Inside, I’m still the same girl.Still fragile.Still full of wounds no one sees.I press my forehead to the glass. The cold shocks my skin but grounds me.Tomorrow, they’ll hold that reunion.Tomorrow, people will continue saying I died.Tomorrow, Peter might hear lies about me. I can't stop.And I’m powerless to change any of it.​After Sophie falls asleep, I linger in the hallway longer than necessary, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest. Her small hands are curled under her chin, her hair tangled from the wind. A part of me wants to curl beside her and let exhaustion swallow me whole. But I know if I close my eyes, the memories will come back again, relentlessly.So instead, I walk quietly to the living room, the lights dimmed low, the city outside humming like a

NaomiSophie falls asleep early tonight. She curls sideways under her blanket, one arm wrapped around her little dog like it’s a living plush toy. The quiet settles slowly over the apartment, the distant rush of evening cars moving down Fairtax, the muted glow of streetlights filtering through the half-closed blinds.​I sit at the dining table with my sketch book open beside me, but the new design draft might as well be written in a foreign language. My eyes trace the same line without committing a single stroke.I try to focus. I tell myself I am. I promised myself that if I ever saw him again, I would be someone new, someone who didn’t tremble when he spoke, someone who had already closed that door.But I didn’t expect to see him in a pediatric exam room on a rainy afternoon. I didn’t expect his eyes to be exactly the same. I didn’t expect my heart to behave like an old wound waking up.I open the drawer and take out the small metal box I still shouldn’t own. It’s dented at the corn

PeterSomething isn’t adding up.I stand by the corner in the exam room while the nurse checks Sophie’s vitals, and every second, my eyes drift back to Naomi. She’s holding herself together well enough, but something in her expression keeps tightening and loosening, like she is constantly trying not to give herself away.And Sophie…Sophie keeps looking at me with a kind of quiet curiosity.She has a tiny bandage on her palm.I shouldn’t be staring.I know that.But the nurse’s comment sits stubbornly in my mind.“Same eyes”I look at Sophie again, this time more slowly. It’s not a dramatic resemblance. Just something faint, the shape of her eyes, the way she observes the world with a kind of cautious stillness.It’s probably nothing.Coincidence.Children share a resemblance to a hundred strangers.But the moment the thought occurs, it doesn’t leave.I look at Naomi.She stands completely still, like she is counting her every breath.I take a step closer.“Naomi, have we met before?