The call connected at ten sharp the following morning, Julian seated at his desk with Gianna positioned just out of frame, a legal pad in front of her already filled with questions they'd prepared the night before. The woman who appeared on screen looked competent and composed, dressed sharply, her background a nondescript office that gave away nothing about her actual location or affiliation. "Mr. Ashford, thank you for making time," Rhea said, her voice smooth, professionally warm. "I hope we can move this conversation forward productively today." "Ms. Okafor," Julian said, matching her tone precisely. "Before we discuss terms, I'd like to understand who exactly comprises this consortium. My legal team wasn't able to locate meaningful public records for your organization." "We operate with considerable discretion, as I mentioned," Rhea said smoothly. "Many of our investors prefer to remain unnamed until terms are closer to finalized. I can assure you the backing is substan

Julian sat in the VIP lounge for nearly twenty minutes before he finally pulled out his phone and typed the message. Something’s come up. I have to leave early. I’ll see you tomorrow. It wasn’t entirely a lie. Something had come up—just not the kind he could explain in a text message, not the kind that had anything to do with meetings or emergencies. What had come up was the sudden, suffocating clarity that Preston’s words had forced into the open, the realization that whatever he’d been carefully not naming between himself and Gianna had already grown into something too large to keep contained. He sent the message and left before she could respond. The drive back to the villa passed in a blur he barely registered. By the time he reached the front door, his decision had already hardened into something he refused to second-guess. He needed to leave. Not eventually. Not once things settled. Now, before this went any further, before his mother’s plans collided with whatever h

Gianna noticed the changes gradually, the way most people probably did—a persistent tiredness that no amount of coffee seemed to fix, a strange aversion to the coffee itself by the second week, a missed cycle she’d initially chalked up to the stress of the past few months. She bought the test on a whim during a grocery run, telling herself she was being overly cautious, that the odds were low, that she’d take it purely to rule out the possibility and move on with her evening. She sat on the edge of the bathroom counter for the full three minutes, staring at nothing, her heart hammering in a way that had nothing to do with anxiety over Apex Innovations or Reyes Holdings or anything remotely professional. Two lines. Gianna stared at the test for a long moment, something between shock and overwhelming warmth spreading through her chest, before she carefully wrapped it and tucked it into her pocket, needing time to sit with the news before figuring out how to share it. Julian fo