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

Sophia's POVEthan answered on the second ring."This isn't a good time," he said, voice clipped, already half turned away from me toward the window.I couldn't hear the other end of the call, only the low murmur of a voice I didn't recognize, urgent enough that Ethan's shoulders stiffened further with every passing second."How bad?" he asked.A pause."Send me the numbers tonight. I'll look at it first thing."He hung up without a goodbye, dragging a hand down his face, and for a moment he looked less like the man who'd knelt in front of a hundred people an hour ago and more like someone carrying the weight of several conversations he hadn't had yet."Ethan.""It's the foundation," he said, before I could ask. "Not us. Not the contract. Just business.""You looked like it was more than business.""It's always more than business with my family attached to it." He exhaled, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders as he turned back to me, softer now. "I'll deal with it tomorrow.

Sophia's POVThe plane lifted off smoother than I expected, the city tilting away beneath the window in a slow, glittering sprawl before the clouds swallowed it whole.I sank back into the cream leather seat and let myself feel, for just a moment, the sheer absurdity of it.Two flights.In one day.In my entire life before today, I had been on a plane exactly twice — once as a child, crammed into an economy seat between my mother and a stranger's elbow, flying to visit an aunt I barely remembered; once for a work trip so long ago I'd nearly forgotten the airline. That was it. That was the sum total of my life in the sky before Ethan Blackwell decided a private jet was an acceptable answer to let's talk somewhere quiet.Now here I was again, hours after the last flight had landed, buckled into the same cream leather, the same low hum of engines settling into my bones, the same man across from me with his jaw set and his hands too still in his lap."You're quiet," Ethan said."I'm doing

Ethan's POVI heard the noise from the hallway — water running, a soft clatter of something against tile — and went up without thinking twice about it. There were things about tomorrow she still needed to hear before the night got any later, and I'd never been a man who let a closed door stop him from finishing a conversation.I knocked once. Said her name.No answer.I opened the door anyway."Sophia, I need to tell you the plan for tomorrow—"The towel slipped.I saw it happen before I could stop myself from seeing it — the fabric loosening, sliding, gone in an instant — and for one long, disorienting second, I forgot every reason I'd walked up those stairs in the first place.She was beautiful. That wasn't news to me. I'd known it since the gala, since the terrace, since the moment she'd walked out of that stylist's studio looking like something out of a life I hadn't let myself imagine having. But there was a difference between admiring a woman across a room and standing frozen in

Sophia's POVThe house felt different when we stepped back through the front doors. Quieter. Warmer. As if the walls themselves had absorbed the fact that something irreversible had happened that morning. Staff moved with soft efficiency around us, offering quiet congratulations that I answered with small smiles while Ethan’s hand stayed at the small of my back.The moment we were alone in the upstairs hallway, I pulled my phone out again. Mini’s messages were still stacking up in all caps. I opened the camera roll, selected three photos the hired photographers had already texted over—one of us on the church steps with the ocean behind us, one of our joined hands with the rings catching the light, and one close-up of the ivory silk and the simple gold band now permanently on my finger. I sent them with a single line:It’s official. Call you later. Love you.Then, after a longer pause, I opened Emeka’s message again. The two words still sat there like a stone in my throat. I typed noth

Sophia's POVEthan waited until the house had gone quiet — Della retired for the night, the staff finished with their rounds — before he took my hand and led me down the narrow wooden steps cut into the hillside, toward the stretch of dark sand below."You said tonight," I reminded him, my bare feet sinking into cool sand as we reached the bottom."I know."We sat close together near the waterline, the tide rolling in slow and steady a few feet away, the moon laying a pale strip of light across the water. He didn't start right away. He picked up a handful of sand and let it sift slowly through his fingers instead, like he was gathering the words from somewhere he didn't visit often."My mother left three properties in trust when she died," he said finally, no preamble. "Coastal land. Undeveloped, but worth a fortune now, more every year. The trust named me as sole beneficiary once I turned thirty. No conditions attached. No one else had a claim to it.""Okay.""Penelope's spent the la