All Chapters of MY SECRET ALPHA HEIR : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

"The motion was filed anonymously," my assistant said, handing me the paperwork with visible reluctance. "Through a proxy attorney. But someone on the board leaked enough details that the story's already circulating."I scanned the document fast, my jaw tightening with every line. Allegations of mismanagement. Questions about my judgment following my father's death. A suggestion that grief and personal distractions had compromised my ability to lead the company responsibly."This is timed perfectly with the Meridian crisis," I said, mostly to myself."Sir?""Nothing. Get legal on the phone. I want to know exactly who has standing to file something like this."I found Madison in the sitting room an hour later, a glass of wine in hand, an expression of careful sympathy already arranged on her face like she'd been rehearsing it. "I heard about the board motion," she said. "I'm so sorry, Ethan. This must be terrible timing, on top of everything else.""You seem remarkably informed for som

I knelt in front of Noah on the hallway floor, my heart breaking at the fear written so plainly across his small face, and reached for his hands before I answered him."Yes, baby," I said gently. "Ethan is your daddy. That's true."Noah's lower lip trembled, a fresh wave of tears spilling over before he could stop them. "Then why do bad people want to hurt me because of that?""They don't want to hurt you because you're his son," I said carefully, choosing every word the way I'd learned to choose words for him since he was old enough to ask hard questions. "There are some grown-ups who are upset about money, about things that belong to our family. It has nothing to do with you being loved. It has nothing to do with anything you did.""But I heard you say I'm not safe."Ethan knelt down beside us then, his large frame folding carefully onto the floor at Noah's level, his grey eyes, the same eyes Noah had inherited, steady despite everything churning underneath them. "You are safe," he

"I don't know," Madison whispered. "And that frightens me more than anything you could possibly accuse me of right now."I studied her a long moment, weighing whether her fear was genuine or simply another well-rehearsed performance, before deciding it didn't matter which. Either way, I needed answers, not her emotional state. "You said you knew longer than you initially told me. How much longer, exactly?""A little over a year," Madison admitted, sinking back onto the settee like her legs could no longer hold her upright. "I found out through a contact I paid to keep tabs on anyone connected to this family. I never expected it to lead anywhere. It was routine, the kind of information gathering I've done for years to protect my own position.""Protect your position from what?""From exactly this," she said, gesturing vaguely, helplessly, at the room around us, at everything that had unraveled since Olivia's return. "From Olivia coming back into your life. I knew if she ever had proof

"Lock every door on this floor," Ethan said, already moving through the hallway checking each one himself, testing handles, verifying locks I hadn't even known existed on some of the older doors in this wing of the mansion. "I want security posted outside Noah's room around the clock, starting tonight.""That's excessive," I said, following behind him, though even as I said it I wasn't entirely certain I believed my own objection."After what your mother just told us? It's not excessive. It's the bare minimum." Ethan pulled out his phone, already dialing his security chief for the third time that evening. "I want cameras on every entrance to this wing by morning. I want background checks run again on every staff member who has access to this floor, even the ones we've already cleared.""Ethan." I caught his arm, forcing him to stop moving long enough to actually look at me. "I understand you're scared. I am too. But you can't turn this house into a fortress and expect Noah not to noti

I stared down at the photograph on the table, my hands still trembling despite every effort to steady them, and felt the past rushing back toward me faster than I could brace against it."Tell us what you know," Olivia said, her voice gentler than I probably deserved after everything I'd already failed to tell her. "All of it, Mother. Please.""His name is Desmond Cole," I said finally, the name feeling strange and dangerous in my mouth after so many years of never speaking it aloud. "He was William's business partner, briefly, in the earliest years of Hayes Corporation, before William bought him out entirely and the company became solely his.""When was this?" Ethan asked."Over twenty years ago. Before either of you were old enough to remember any of it." I closed my eyes briefly, memories I had buried deliberately rising unwelcome to the surface. "Desmond wanted to expand the company faster than William was comfortable with, take on riskier investments, cut corners William refused