THE HEIRESS HE NEVER KNEW のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 1 - チャプター 10

CHAPTER TWO: The Call I Should Have NeverPOV: DamianI knew I had forgotten the anniversary before I even came fully awake that morning.I remembered it at 7 am when I saw the red dress hanging carefully on the back of the bathroom door, pressed and ready, then something in my chest pulled the way it does when you understand that someone has already been thinking about you before you have had a single thought about them.I told myself I would make it up to her. Then my phone rang at 8 am, and the deal I had been chasing for three months needed my full attention immediately, and the anniversary moved to the back of my mind, where I fully intended to deal with it later.Later it didn't come.By the time my business dinner ended at nearly eleven, I had spent the entire day telling myself that Seraphina understood this kind of pressure, that she knew what building something from nothing required, that she would still be awake when I got home, and I would explain everything properly, and

POV: DamianThe house was quiet when I came downstairs at 8 am, and the quiet had a texture to it that I could not immediately explain.Seraphina's shoes were not by the door.I made coffee and stood at the kitchen counter and looked at her plate from the night before, washed and set carefully on the drying rack the way she always left it, and I told myself she had gone out early the way she sometimes did when she needed air, that she would be back before noon with grocery bags and that particular look on her face that meant she had decided not to make something into a bigger thing than it needed to be.I called her at 10 am. Five rings, then voicemail.I texted and watched the message deliver, and then sat there watching the screen for a reply that did not come.By noon, I was moving through the apartment looking for something I couldn't name, opening rooms without fully knowing what I was checking for, until I got to the bedroom and opened her side of the wardrobe and stood there l

CHAPTER SIX: "The Name She Left Behind"POV: Damian"Three rejections, Damian. Three, and they won't even put us on a waiting list."Marcus dropped the papers on my desk and sat down across from me with his arms folded and his face carrying the particular look of a man who had run out of good news to deliver.I looked at the name printed at the top of the rejection letter. Vaughn Group. It was written boldly."Try again," I said."I have been trying," he said. "Their office picks up, listens to the whole pitch, and then says E. Sterling is not available for new partnerships, same answer every single time, it is like they already know who we are and they have decided they don't want us."I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment. Something about that name kept sitting in the back of my mind like a word you recognise but cannot place. Vaughn, Vaughn Group, I had heard it somewhere before, and the fact that I couldn't pull it forward was starting to irritate me m

CHAPTER EIGHT : "The Wrong Woman"POV: Damian"I'm pregnant,"The words dropped into the middle of my living room like something heavy falling from a great height, and everything in that room. The air, the sound, even the light coming through the window, went completely still.I looked at Jade standing by the window with her hands folded neatly in front of her and her eyes watching my face the way someone watches a door they are not sure is going to open for them.She looked nervous. Not the nervousness of someone sharing good news. The nervousness of someone waiting to see if a story is going to hold.My mother was on her feet before I had even drawn a proper breath, moving across the room with a speed I had not seen from her in years, grabbing Jade's hands and holding them between both of hers like she was holding something she had been waiting a long time to receive."Oh my God," she said, and her voice cracked on the last word. "Oh my God, have you seen a doctor? Are you sure?"Th

POV: DamianI was three steps from her table when a man stood up.He was tall, broad, suit fitted like it was made for him that morning, and he turned to face me with the kind of stillness that told me he had been watching me cross that room from the moment I left my chair.He didn't speak.He just stood there between me and the table and looked at me with eyes that had already made up their mind before I even arrived.Then I stopped."I just need a minute with her," I said."She doesn't have a minute for you," he said.His voice was low and completely without heat, which was worse than if he had shouted at me."You don't understand," I said, "that is my wife."I know exactly who she is," he said, "the question is whether you do.I looked past his shoulder.Seraphina was still seated with her back to me, talking to the woman beside her like nothing was happening two feet behind her, like I was not standing there at all, like I was furniture in a room she had already decided to stop se