All Chapters of I'm The Thorn Stuck In The Billionaire Celebrity's Foot: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The name arrived two days later, delivered by Reagan with the particular grim precision of someone who'd spent forty-eight hours confirming something she badly wanted to be wrong about."Weston Holt," Reagan said, sliding a printout across her desk. "CEO of Holt Industrial. He's spent the last decade quietly acquiring struggling companies across half a dozen industries, always through intermediaries, always using someone else's public face to execute the actual takeover. Trent's done this dance with him before, twice, both times on companies that ended up fully absorbed into Holt's portfolio within a year of the takeover completing."Sterling stared at the photo attached to the printout, a silver-haired man in his fifties with the particular bland, forgettable face of someone who'd spent a career staying deliberately out of headlines."He wants Vane Corp specifically.""He wants Vane Corp's shipping and logistics infrastructure specifically, which happens to be worth considerably more

The manhunt started within the hour, quiet at first, careful, the kind of search reserved for men with enough money and enough lawyers that a public announcement risked tipping them off before anyone could actually find them.Ivy and her father were moved to a property Reagan controlled personally, one not even the security detail had access to until they arrived, and Sterling stayed close enough that Ivy could feel the tension radiating off him even asleep, three hours of restless dozing on a couch too small for him, one hand still curled loosely around hers."He'll surface," Reagan said quietly, the next morning, spreading printouts across a kitchen table none of them had eaten at properly in two days. "Men like Julian don't disappear well. They're used to being seen. He'll want an audience for whatever he does next.""That's what worries me," Sterling said, exhaustion carved deep into his face. "He's not hiding to survive. He's hiding to plan something with an audience attached."T

The apartment was smaller than Ivy expected, sparse, temporary, the kind of place a man rented when he needed somewhere to disappear rather than somewhere to actually live, and in the center of the otherwise empty living room sat a single sealed envelope propped against a folding chair, Sterling's name written across the front in handwriting Ivy recognized instantly from the notebook that had started all of this.Sterling stared at it for a long moment before he picked it up, hands steady despite everything Ivy knew was churning underneath the surface.Inside was a single page, and a small, worn photograph that fluttered loose when he unfolded the letter, landing face up on the bare floor. Ivy bent to retrieve it before Sterling could, and felt her breath catch at what she found.Sterling, maybe seven years old, sitting on a much younger Julian's shoulders, both of them laughing at something outside the frame, a version of Julian Vane Ivy had never once glimpsed in every terrible inte

The morning of the shareholder meeting arrived gray and overcast, the kind of light that made everything feel slightly unreal, and Ivy stood in front of the mirror in the apartment, hands steady despite the churning in her stomach, watching Sterling adjust his tie in the reflection behind her. "You don't have to do this," he said, for what felt like the hundredth time in four days, though his voice had lost the desperate edge from earlier in the week, replaced now by something closer to resigned partnership. "I know." Ivy turned to face him, smoothing the lapel of his jacket, a small, grounding gesture that had become theirs over the past weeks. "I'm doing it anyway. Together, remember." "Together." He kissed her forehead, lingering there a moment longer than strictly necessary. "Whatever he's planned, whatever he says up there, I need you to know none of it changes what's true. You're not what he's trying to make you look like." "I know that too." Ivy held his gaze, steady. "I've spe

Ivy read the message three times before it fully landed, something warm and disbelieving spreading through her chest despite the heaviness of the hospital room around her."What is it," Sterling asked, noticing the shift in her expression."A job interview. A real one." Ivy held the phone out, still slightly stunned. "The firm my instructor mentioned. They saw the presentation deck somehow, the one from the shareholder meeting, and they want to talk to me about a junior design position."Something genuine and proud broke through the exhaustion on Sterling's face, the first real lightness Ivy had seen from him since the meeting that morning. "That deck saved my company today, and now it's about to get you a real job. I don't think I've ever been more proud of anything in my life.""It's just an interview.""It's the beginning of something you built entirely yourself, with no help from my money or my name, in the middle of the worst week either of us has had." Sterling squeezed her hand