All Chapters of My One-Night Stand Turned Out to Be My Stepbrother : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Kingston POVThe door code chimed at ten past seven on Sunday morning.I didn’t even turn around from the kitchen island. I knew Cole’s rhythm on the keypad, the heavy scuff of his sneakers across the hardwood. He never knocked when things were bad. He was my friend so of course, we never chatted last night and I gave him access to my apartmentHe dropped two brown paper bags on the quartz counter. The smell of fried chicken and hot sauce filled the cold loft.“Eat,” Cole said, setting a two-liter soda down with a thud. “You look like you haven’t slept or swallowed anything since Thursday.”“I’m good.”“You’re not.” He pulled out a barstool and sat. “You look like hell, Kingston.”I stared at the unopened box. The food smelled good. My stomach didn’t care. “I have a board meeting with Dad on Monday. I don’t need a babysitter.”“Good thing I’m not one.” Cole opened a box and pulled out a piece of chicken. “I’m here be

Kingston POVThe glass doors of Floor 40 opened at 7:22 a.m.Carter Global was already in motion. Sharp morning light cut through the high windows and laid hard rectangles across the polished marble. The air carried the usual mix of coffee, paper, and expensive cologne. Executives moved between glass offices in tailored suits, voices kept low.I felt the shift the second I stepped out of the elevator.Conversations stuttered. A pair of analysts near the reception desk went quiet mid-sentence, eyes dropping too fast to their screens. Someone at a side workstation looked up, then away. They weren’t staring openly — they knew better — but the awareness followed me like heat on the back of my neck. The scandal had reached the building. The video. The rumors. The fact that the heir and the new stepdaughter were the ones at the center of it.I kept my posture straight, adjusted the cuffs of my suit, and walked the length of the floor without sl

KINGSTON POVTwo solid, agonizing weeks had dragged by since the night my father stood in the center of the penthouse living room and watched my life split straight down the middle.Two weeks of silence from Nia.The Vanguard acquisition was supposed to be straightforward.Six commercial properties along the riverfront. Forty million dollars. A group of investors looking for a clean transaction and a reliable executive to oversee the closing.Normally, I’d have handled something like this without breaking a sweat.Instead, I spent the first twenty minutes of Monday morning staring at the exact same paragraph in the preliminary agreement.I read it three times.Still couldn’t tell you what it said.I shut the heavy leather file and leaned back in my chair, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office on the thirty-fourth floor.This was ridiculous.I had a job to do. A company to help run. A father who had made it abundantly c

KINGSTON POVBy Thursday afternoon, I was beginning to understand why my father had assigned me the Vanguard acquisition in the first place.It wasn’t simply about the money.It was about pressure.Forty million dollars was a significant investment for Carter Global, but the bigger issue was the reputation attached to it. If the acquisition went smoothly, the firm would strengthen its position along the riverfront and secure a dominant foothold in a developing commercial district.If it failed, we’d have board members asking uncomfortable questions, investors demanding answers, and competitors looking for any opening to expose our weaknesses.And right now, after fourteen days of public damage control and relentless rumors, the last thing I needed was another reason for people to doubt my judgment.I spent the morning locked in the executive boardroom reviewing the revised projections with our finance team. By noon, we’d identified another discrepanc

KINGSTON POVBy Saturday evening, I’d officially learned that being busy and being okay were two entirely different things.I’d spent the entire past days buried in the Vanguard acquisition—attending back-to-back meetings, reviewing environmental projections, negotiating revised liability terms, and trying to prove to my father that I could still be trusted with the legacy he’d spent decades building.Professionally, things were finally moving in the right direction. The liability terms were locked, and Vanguard had accepted our counter-offer.Personally, I was a complete disaster.My loft was spotless because I had nothing else to do with my hands at three in the morning. My refrigerator was fully stocked because Cole had decided I needed constant adult supervision. My phone remained dead silent because the one person I desperately wanted to hear from wasn’t speaking to me.And I was beginning to absolutely hate weekends.At least during the week, t