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Lahat ng Kabanata ng His Heir, Her Secret: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

56 Kabanata

Chapter 1

Isla’s POVThey say ghosts don’t exist, but they’ve never been blindsided by one in a designer suit and Italian leather shoes. I was running late for the Monday morning meeting—half-asleep, clutching my lukewarm coffee, and praying no one noticed the stain on my blouse from Leo’s jelly toast attack. I slid into my chair just as our CEO, Mike, cleared his throat. “We have a new majority shareholder,” he began, eyes darting nervously around the boardroom. “He’ll be overseeing operations personally. Please give a warm welcome to—” The door opened. I looked up. And my heart stopped. He stepped into the room like he owned it—which, technically, he now did. Lucien Wolfe. Only I didn’t know him as that. Not five years ago. Back then, I only knew him as Luke—the man who kissed me under a Tuscan sunset, who made me laugh like I hadn’t in years, who vanished without warning and took my heart with him. The same man who had no idea he left me with something far more permanent than heartbre

Chapter 2

Lucien’s POVShe looked at me like I was a ghost.It wasn’t the usual reaction I got when walking into a room—fear, awe, admiration, maybe a hint of jealousy. No, this was different. Her expression hit me like a cold wave—eyes wide, skin pale, breath caught in her throat.And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.Isla Monroe.The name lingered in my mind long after the meeting ended. I knew I’d seen her before. Not in a vague, have we met at some gala? kind of way. No, this was different. She struck something deep, something old. Like a song you haven’t heard in years that still makes your chest tighten.But I couldn’t place her. That infuriated me.I’d spent years sharpening my instincts, reading people in seconds, uncovering lies with a glance. Yet the moment I looked into her eyes, all of that precision slipped.Familiar. That’s what she was.Too familiar.I stood at the window of my penthouse hours later, the city skyline spread out like a conquest. But I wasn’t thinking

Chapter 3

Isla’s POVThe first sign that something was wrong came when I opened my fridge and found Leo’s juice box missing.Not a big deal on its own—he’s four and fast when he wants to be—but the second sign came a heartbeat later. My phone buzzed on the counter with a calendar notification I didn’t set. A meeting. Noon. Private conference – Lucien Wolfe’s office.I hadn’t agreed to any meeting.I stared at the screen, heart thudding. A chill slid down my spine.This wasn’t a coincidence. Not after yesterday. Not after the look he gave me.He knows something.I tried to shake it off as I dressed for work, but the thought stayed rooted in my skull. I kissed Leo’s forehead before dropping him off at daycare, and the entire time he talked about dinosaurs and cookies, I felt like a bomb was ticking somewhere under my feet.The office felt colder today. Or maybe that was just me.Whispers followed me down the hallway. A few glances. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it felt like everyone knew. Like

Chapter 4

Isla’s POVThe problem with memories is that they don’t fade the way they should.They linger—sharp and bright—no matter how much time or distance you put between yourself and the past.That night after the confrontation in Lucien’s office, I lay awake in bed long after Leo had fallen asleep. I watched his little chest rise and fall, his fingers curled around his stuffed dinosaur like it was a shield. And I let the memory take me.Because I needed to remember why I left.Why I ran.Tuscany, Five Years AgoIt was the kind of summer morning you never forget. Warm, golden light spilled across the vineyard. Bees hummed lazily in the lavender. Lucien—Luke, as I’d known him then—was barefoot in the kitchen, making coffee, shirtless, his hair a wild mess I’d made the night before.I remember watching him and thinking, God, this is dangerous.He looked up and grinned. “You’re staring.”I smiled into my tea. “Can you blame me?”He walked over, leaned down, and kissed the side of my neck like i

Chapter 5

Lucien’s POVThe moment Isla walked out of my office, I saw red.Not rage.Something colder. Sharper. The kind of fury that doesn’t scream or throw fists—but plans.It had taken me years to find her. Years of false leads, encrypted files, and dead ends. She’d been a ghost. No digital footprint, no social media. Like she never existed. I thought maybe I imagined her—that Tuscany, those nights, the way she said my name in the dark—that it was all some dream I chased into madness.Then I saw the photo.It was buried in a client database I was scanning for security breaches. A new hire. Isla Monroe. Paralegal. Lower Manhattan. And beside her?A child.A four-year-old boy with dark curls, sharp cheekbones, and the same storm-grey eyes that stared back at me in the mirror every morning.I didn’t sleep that night. I barely breathed.The next morning, I called my investigator and said four words I never thought I’d say.“Find my son. Now.”And now here I was.Standing on the edge of a decisio

Chapter 6

Isla’s POVThere’s no manual for this.No book, no blog, no podcast on how to tell your child the truth when you’ve spent their entire life protecting them from it.After I left Lucien’s penthouse, I walked for nearly an hour. Past the glittering towers of Midtown, past the tourists and food carts, down into the quieter parts of the city where the noise didn’t drown out my thoughts.Telling Leo would change everything.He was only four—but he was smart. Sharp in a way that unnerved most adults. And sensitive, like me. He noticed things. Absorbed tension. Asked questions when no one else dared.He’d ask why I lied.And I didn’t know how to answer that yet.I picked him up from daycare just before closing. He came sprinting into my arms, dinosaur backpack bouncing on his back, a trail of glitter still stuck in his hair.“Mommy!” he squealed, throwing his arms around my neck.“Hey, baby. Did you have fun today?”“Yeah! We painted dragons and Liam spilled juice on Miss Dana and it looked

Chapter 7

Lucien’s POVI couldn’t breathe as I stood outside the park, hands gripping the steering wheel of my black SUV, my heart pounding in my chest. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to feel like a ticking bomb, like I was about to walk into a firestorm of emotions I wasn’t prepared for.But here I was, the man who built empires and crushed enemies without blinking, standing on the edge of something that terrified me.A son.My son.I checked my watch. Five minutes to go.The park was quiet for the moment—still, save for the soft rustle of trees in the breeze and the occasional laughter from distant children. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole world was holding its breath.I had no plan for this. No rehearsed lines. No script for how to meet my child for the first time after four years of silence. And though I had told myself I would remain calm, collected, that I wouldn’t let my emotions get the best of me, I knew that was a lie.Everything about this situ

Chapter 8

Lucien’s POVWe walked in silence for a few more moments, the cool evening air surrounding us as the last rays of the sun dipped behind the trees. Leo was a few steps ahead, his little legs moving quickly, clearly enjoying the freedom of the open space. But it was Isla’s silence that weighed heavily on me.I could feel the distance between us—the invisible gap that had only grown wider with the years. She was here, but she wasn’t here. Her presence was physical, but her heart, her mind—they were somewhere else, locked away behind walls I wasn’t sure I could scale.I knew she was angry. I knew she had every right to be.But more than that, she was scared. And I understood that fear. Hell, I lived with it every day. Fear of the unknown, fear of things not working out, fear of losing the one thing that had kept me human for so long: Leo.“You don’t trust me,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.Isla didn’t flinch, but I saw the tightening of her jaw. She kept her eye

Chapter 9

LucienIt had been a week since our first encounter in the park. A week since I’d stood there, like a man on the edge of something I couldn’t quite grasp. Leo had barely spoken to me since that day, and Isla—though she hadn’t pushed me away—kept her distance in her own way.Every day since, I found myself wanting more. Wanting to be there for Leo, to prove that I could be the father he deserved. But Isla was right. It wasn’t going to happen overnight. Trust was something that had to be earned, and right now, I was starting from scratch.Today, though, felt different. I was in the office, running through the usual meetings, handling the endless flow of calls, but my mind kept drifting back to them—Isla and Leo. I hadn’t expected this, not when I first found out about Leo. I thought I could just buy my way into his life, maybe offer a few grand gestures, and call it a day. But it wasn’t like that.It was harder. It was so much harder.The door to my office opened, and Marco, my right-ha

Chapter 10

IslaThe weight of my decision to let Lucien into our lives again felt heavier with every passing day. I should have known that once he was back, once he set foot in our world again, I wouldn’t be able to keep him at arm’s length forever. But I had tried. I had tried so hard.I never expected him to show up the way he had. No grand gestures, no expensive gifts, no trying to buy his way back into my heart. He simply showed up. He spent time with Leo. He played games. He did all the right things—the small things that made it impossible to ignore him.I had to admit, I had seen the change in him. I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there. But I also couldn’t ignore the reality of what had happened in the past. Lucien wasn’t just someone I had loved. He was the person who had abandoned me when I needed him the most. He was the father of my son, yet he had barely been there for either of us.I knew I was being unfair. I could see that. Leo deserved to know his father. He deserved the chance to ha

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