All Chapters of My Billionaire's Ex Husband's Secret Heir: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

77 Chapters

the view was lovely, the conversation less so

Rafael continued the conversation about vendor exposure, legacy systems, and how some private estates now needed security integration that didn’t make the residents feel like they were living inside a data center. Rowan answered with the same calm, occasionally mentioning technical limitations, occasionally pushing back on assumptions that were too simple.I listened to some of it.The rest of my attention was occupied by the fact that Rafael now knew Max’s name.Max.Not your son.Not the boy.Not the number four he’d repeated in the conference room while looking at dates.A name.One small thing I’d managed to keep on the other side of my life, and now it was sitting at this table with champagne, silverware, and two men discussing cyber resilience.I turned my glass slightly against the napkin.Don’t.I stopped my hand.Across the table, Noelle was explaining to one of the trustees that her mother wanted the foundation to create a mentorship program for young designers, but accordin

what we carry home

Rafael looked at me, and for a moment, I saw something shift in a face far too practiced at giving nothing away.“Sasha.”I set my glass on the railing, then picked up the clutch I’d left beside it. Applause drifted out from the ballroom for someone who had probably just received an award for responsible concrete use. I hoped they were happy. At least one person in this building should be.“I just want to ask you something.”“And I’ve answered enough of your questions this week.”“Not this one.”I turned to him. “Rafael, you can’t keep showing up at my place, bringing documents, asking questions about my son, and then expect me to stand here until you’re satisfied.”His jaw shifted slightly. “I’m not asking you to stand here.”“Good. We agree.”I walked past him before he could find another way to make this conversation sound like something that could be resolved with an agenda and two signatures. Rafael didn’t touch me or try to block my way, but I could feel his gaze until the glass

a brief window of peace

By the time Max finally fell asleep, I was still lying beside him with one arm trapped under his little head and an expensive dress that probably now required dry cleaning and a personal apology to its designer.I could’ve gotten up.I didn’t.On the nightstand, my phone lit up briefly with a notification from Nina. There was a follow-up email from Daniel about the Napa property, complete with a request for a preliminary call next week. I read it, then forwarded it to Athena to schedule.Good. At least tonight had produced something besides leaked information.I opened my chat with Noelle. Her last message was still about dinner and prospective clients, along with a photo of the centerpiece she’d sent asking if I could make something like it for her house.I hadn’t answered.Outside the window, the lights of Belladonna glowed down the slope, much softer now that Rowan had fixed the privacy lighting. From Max’s room, the mansion was only a few patches of light between the trees and the

the things we do not move for

Panel W-17 was still sitting in the rack, the protective film not fully peeled back. The small crack along the lower edge might have looked insignificant to someone who didn’t know what they were looking at, but tempered laminated glass had no concept of slightly damaged. W-18 was worse. The fracture climbed from the lower corner like a thin pencil line someone had drawn out of spite.I crouched down. “Who unloaded it?”The glazing subcontractor, a guy named Derek, raised a hand. “Our crew, but the crate came in with a visible shift.”“Visible shift when?”“After the straps came off.”I looked at him. “Shipping photos?”Athena already had her tablet open. She stood beside me and pulled up photos from the distribution yard. The crate was still upright. The strapping looked correct. The shock indicator on the side of the packaging wasn’t visible from the angle of the photo.“Manifest?” I asked.Derek handed me several pages.I read through the serial numbers, loading order, crate orient

an unnecessary amount of forearm

By ten forty-seven, the two cracked panels had become the simplest part of our problem.Panel W-21 wasn’t cracked, but the edge seal on one side showed a compression mark that hadn’t been there in the factory photo. W-22 had slight spacer displacement at the lower corner. Not enough to reject it outright, but enough for me to refuse to install it on the façade of a nine-figure house and then hope the California sun didn’t turn a minor issue into internal condensation six months from now.I stood under the temporary canopy with Rafael, Athena, Derek, the superintendent, and the façade engineer, who had now joined us by video call.“If the rack experienced torsion during transfer,” the engineer said through Athena’s speaker, “I can’t clear the remaining units based on site photos alone.”“How many panels need to go back?” Rafael asked.“Potentially the entire crate.”Derek swore under his breath.I looked at Athena’s schedule. “If we send everything back to the fabricator, we lose the i

nothing happened, several times

The pilot waited until I had my headset on before giving a brief set of instructions, most of which disappeared beneath the sound of the rotors. I nodded like I was actually following the conversation and not trying to calculate whether sitting as far away from my ex-husband as possible would make this trip any easier when the aircraft wasn’t even big enough to create the illusion of distance.At best, I could take the seat across from him and pretend the extra three feet constituted an international border. Apparently not.The project director from Jamesson had already taken the front seat beside the pilot, leaving the two seats in the back for Rafael and me. There was a little space between us, enough for the glazing folder and my dignity, which unfortunately required considerably more room.I took the window seat.Rafael climbed in after me, pulled the door shut, then put on his headset with one hand. His white shirtsleeves were still rolled to his elbows, and after a morning spent

whatever that means

The fabrication facility in Santa Barbara sat inside an industrial complex near the highway, all concrete, steel cladding, and oversized loading doors that made it immediately clear this was the kind of place where glass worth tens of thousands of dollars was treated like it had more rights than most people.The production manager was already waiting with the sales director, the QA lead, and someone from legal who was introduced far too quickly for a man who had clearly shown up because the company had started smelling a potential invoice.Excellent.They took us to a conference room first.Production logs, coating records, photographs, and a carafe of coffee that looked like it had been made that morning and left there to study suffering were already spread across the table.I didn’t touch it.Neither did Rafael.“First, we want to emphasize that the units left our facility in compliant condition.” The sales director, a man named Martin, opened with a sentence that made me dislike hi

morning, employees

Two days after Santa Barbara, Max’s preschool had a plumbing problem that, according to the school email, was a minor infrastructure issue and, according to Gabriella after talking to one of the moms in the parking lot, meant the second-floor toilets had collectively decided to wage war on the education system.School was closed for the day.Gabriella had an appointment she couldn’t move until noon, so at eight forty, I walked into Aster House with my laptop in one hand, coffee in the other, and a four-year-old trailing behind me in a dinosaur backpack and red sunglasses no one remembered buying him.“Mami works until lunch,” I said when the elevator doors opened. “Then we go home.”Max walked out first. “I work too.”“You don’t have a job.”“I’m a research.”I looked at the back of his head. His black bangs were almost covering his eyes again because the haircut I’d scheduled twice had somehow turned into diplomatic negotiations both times. Today he was wearing tiny khaki cargo pants

the thin wall between then and now

The entire office suite suddenly felt too bright.“What?” I tried to sound normal even as my heart started hitting a little harder inside my chest.“Rafael Moretti,” she said more quietly, like the name itself might have hearing. “With the portfolio director from Moretti Holdings.”I looked at the glass office door.A frosted strip ran across the middle, enough for partial visual privacy but not sound. “He’s here now?”“Literally standing six feet from my desk.”“Why?”“Says it’s about the revised glazing schedule. They just came from a meeting nearby and want to review it before capital release.”Because apparently calendar invites were now a bourgeois concept that didn’t apply to billionaires.I turned off the intercom.Max looked up. “Mami?”It took about half a second for my brain to put everything together, and once it did, I wished it hadn’t bothered.Max is in my office. Rafael had just arrived at reception. The only things separating them were one corridor, the material librar

the same shade of blue

The glass door slid open before I could get there, and Max stepped out from behind the frosted strip looking completely unbothered, because of course he had no idea his mother was two seconds away from dying on the spot.Shit.Too late.His hair was already a mess again even though I’d combed it that morning. His long bangs fell almost over his eyebrows, his cheeks were still round and slightly flushed from running, and one of his white sneaker laces had come undone and was dragging lightly across the floor.His little backpack hung crooked from one shoulder, the T-shirt under his cardigan had come untucked, and his expression was completely serious because apparently the biggest tragedy in the world right now was not that his biological father was standing six feet away from us.Kevin was missing.“Mami, I had Kevin and then Auntie said elevator, and then I saw he wasn’t there and I said wait, but she said “we had to go downstairs,” but Kevin can’t get left behind because he doesn’t

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