CHAPTER ELEVEN: "Front Page"

POV: Seraphina"Pick up your phone, Seraphina. It has not stopped ringing since five this morning."Remi's voice was the first thing I heard before my eyes were even fully open, and when I sat up, he was already in my bedroom doorway with a stack of newspapers under one arm and his own phone pressed to his ear with the other hand, moving like the morning had been going for hours without me."What time is it?" I said."Six forty-three," he said, "and you are on the front page of everything."He dropped the newspapers on the bed in front of me, and I looked down.My own face looked back at me from seven different front pages. The photo from last night, burgundy dress, chin level, the moment just after the host said my name and the room broke into applause. I looked like a woman who had always known this moment was coming...Because I had."Business Daily." Remi said, sitting at the edge of the bed and pointing at each one."Financial Mirror, City Post. The Industry, three digital publica

CHAPTER TWELVE: "She Is Still My Wife"

CHAPTER TWELVE: "He Went Home To The Wrong Woman"POV: Damian"We saw the news," my mother said the moment I walked through the door.She was sitting at the dining table with her hands folded in front of her, her face tight, her eyes watching me the way she watched me whenever she was preparing to manage a situation before it managed itself.Jade was in the kitchen doorway.I stood at the entrance of my own home looking at these two women in my space, and I felt something rise in my chest that I had been holding down since the moment the host said Seraphina's name at that gala."Damian, sit down." My mother said. " We need to talk about this calmly.""Calmly," I said."Yes, calmly. What's done is done, what we need to focus on now is how to move forward.""She was the one holding this family up," I said.Then the room went quiet. My mother opened her mouth."Three years," I said, and I was not shouting. I was something worse than shouting; I was completely still. "Three years she sat

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: "The Terms"

POV: SeraphinaNina, my personal assistant, was already in the boardroom when I walked in, folders stacked in a neat line, laptop open, her wedding ring catching the light as she typed."He's downstairs," she said, not looking up."Let him wait," I said."Four minutes?""You know me too well."She smiled without lifting her eyes from the screen. Then I sat down at the head of the table and let the silence settle around me the way I used to let silence settle in that apartment, except this time the silence belonged to me.Nina had known me since we were nine years old, since before the Vaughn name meant anything to her beyond the family her friend happened to be born into, and when I came home three weeks ago she was the first person outside my family I called, because Nina did not ask questions I wasn't ready to answer, she just showed up with a laptop and a calendar and started rebuilding my life around me."Ready?" she asked."Bring him in," I said.Damian walked in wearing the navy

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: "The Warning

POV: DamianThe email came three days after I signed the contract, short and formal, requesting my physical presence at Vaughn Group for a supplementary signature on the audit terms.I told myself it was routine. I told myself a lot of things that week that turned out to be wrong.I walked into the lobby wearing the same navy suit, because some part of me still believed clothes could fix something, and the receptionist waved me through without even calling up first, which should have told me something before I reached the elevator.The doors opened on the top floor, and I expected "Seraphina P.A with her folders and her calm voice.Instead, two men were standing by the window with their backs to me, and my chest tightened before they even turned around, because I knew exactly who they were the moment I saw their shoulders.Cyrus and Remi Vaughn.I had seen their faces on television for years, the kind of men reporters chased for a comment they never gave, and I had stood close enough

All Chapters of THE HEIRESS HE NEVER KNEW : Chapter 11 - Chapter 14

CHAPTER ELEVEN: "Front Page"

CHAPTER TWELVE: "She Is Still My Wife"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: "The Terms"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: "The Warning