Chapter 2 - Secrets of the Crest
The silence inside the sprawling penthouse office was deafening. Down on the streets of Manhattan, sirens wailed through the rain, but inside this glass cage, time seemed to grind to a total halt.
Sebastian Romano was not a man who lost control. As the billionaire CEO of Romano Global Enterprises, he was accustomed to dictating terms, crushing corporate rivals, and maintaining absolute dominance over every environment he entered. Yet, as he knelt on the marble floor holding my nine-month-old daughter and staring at that tarnished silver pendant, he looked like a man standing on the edge of an abyss.
“Claire,” Sebastian repeated, his voice dropping into a register that sent a shiver straight down my spine. “I asked you a question. Who was her father?”
My hands clenched tightly into the fabric of my apron. I had spent fourteen months running from shadows, hiding my identity, changing my last name, and scrubbing floors in high-rise buildings just to keep Lily safe from the predatory world Sebastian inhabited. Opening this door meant inviting the hurricane back into our lives.
“He’s gone, Mr. Romano,” I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to keep it steady. “He died in an accident before Lily was born. It has nothing to do with me, and it certainly has nothing to do with my job here.”
Sebastian slowly stood up, keeping Lily securely—almost instinctively—against his chest. The baby didn't cry or fuss; she simply reached up and patted his clean-shaven cheek with her small hand. A muscle ticked sharply along Sebastian’s jawline.
“An accident,” he echoed bitterly, his dark eyes locking onto mine with terrifying intensity. “People in my world don't just vanish into thin air, Claire. And men who wear that specific crest don't die ordinary deaths.”
He walked over to his massive mahogany desk, placing Lily down gently onto a plush leather armchair before turning his computer monitor away from the London conference call—which had long since gone dead silent as unseen investors hung up in confusion.
Sebastian opened a heavy bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a velvet-lined mahogany box. He flipped the latch, opened the lid, and reached inside. When he pulled his hand out, he was holding an identical silver pendant, resting on a matching chain.
My breath caught in my throat.
“My brother, Julian, wore this every single day of his life,” Sebastian said, his voice dangerously quiet as he held his family heirloom side-by-side with the one hanging around my daughter's neck. “It was forged in Milan three generations ago. Only two were ever made—one for the primary heir, and one for the secondary.”
He looked up, his gaze piercing through me like shattered glass. “Julian's body was never recovered when his yacht went down off the coast of Sicily fourteen months ago. But this pendant... and your daughter's face... tell me a very different story.”
The room seemed to spin. The cold reality crashed down around me: I hadn't just accidentally stumbled into the home of a wealthy stranger. Through some cruel twist of fate, I had spent the last two years scrubbing the floors of my dead fiancé's older brother—the most ruthless, powerful man in Italian-American high society.
“Julian didn't die in a yacht accident, Mr. Romano,” I whispered, tears finally spilling over my lashes as the dam broke. “Someone wanted him dead. And if they find out he left a child behind... they'll come for us, too.”
Before Sebastian could answer, a sharp, urgent chime echoed from the secure intercom on his desk.
His private secretary's voice crackled through the speaker, breathless with panic: “Mr. Romano, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you have an unannounced visitor in the lobby. Board Member Arthur Vance is demanding immediate access to your office. He says it’s an emergency regarding the Mediterranean shipping logistics.”
May you like
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed into lethal slits. He slipped Julian's pendant into his breast pocket, scooped Lily back up into his arms, and looked at me with an expression that brooked no argument.
“Vance is one of the men who tried to destroy my brother,” Sebastian growled softly. “Hide in the private washroom. Do not make a sound. Because if Arthur Vance walks through that door and sees my brother's child... none of us will survive the hour.”
