The photo was a shard of glass in her gut.
Kian. Beatrice. The woman from the coffee shop. A child.
Audrey stood on the busy sidewalk, the city’s noise fading to a dull roar in her ears. She stared at the image on her phone, a perfect little family tableau lit by the sun. This was the secret. This was the past the woman had warned her about. The wreckage he’d left behind.
She didn’t confront him. The anger was there, hot and sharp, but underneath it was a cold, terrifying calm. Beatrice had declared war, and this photo was the first shot. Running to Kian with accusations would be walking straight into an ambush.
She needed to think. She needed to survive.
The days that followed blurred into a fractured nightmare. Audrey became two people.
By day, she was the ghost of the museum, enduring the whispers and the pitying looks. Her probationary review meant every decision was scrutinized, every memo second-guessed. She was a captain on a ship where the crew had already abandoned her.
By night, she was a liar.
She’d drive to the waterfront, the lie a tight knot in her chest. The moment Kian opened his door, the role would begin. She would fall into his arms, letting him hold her, letting his heat chase away the chill of the day.
But it was different now. The photo was always there, a phantom in the room with them.
While he slept, she’d trace the lines of his face in the moonlight, searching for the man in the picture. When he kissed her, she’d wonder if his lips had said the same things to the sad-eyed woman.
One night, he was pulling her closer, his hand splayed on her back, when a phone buzzed. It wasn’t his usual battered smartphone. This was a sleek, black sliver of metal he pulled from a jacket pocket. The screen lit up with a text from “B. Sterling.”
His entire body went rigid.
He saw her looking and shoved it back in his pocket. “Wrong number.”
The lie was so quick, so blatant, it was a slap. But then he turned to her, his eyes dark with a desperate emotion, and crushed his mouth to hers. The kiss was punishing, possessive, as if he could erase her doubts with brute force. She let him. She kissed him back with the same ferocity. This was real. His touch was real. The rest was just noise.
The poison, however, was spreading.
Cole called. He didn’t text or threaten. His voice was a smooth, infuriating balm of sympathy.
“I heard what the board did,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Audrey. They’re fools.”
“I don’t want to talk to you, Cole.”
“I know. But I’ve been looking into this. For you. For us. I think I know who’s trying to ruin you.”
She hated the flicker of hope in her chest. “What are you talking about?”
“Meet me. Tomorrow. The cafe by the park. I have something you need to see.”
She went. She hated herself for it, but she went.
He was already there, a folder on the table. He looked polished, concerned. The perfect ally.
“You’re wondering how I know,” he said, sliding the folder toward her. “When you ran out, I got worried. So I hired a private investigator. To protect you.”
Her blood ran cold. He had her investigated.
“Look inside,” he urged.
Hesitantly, she opened it. Inside were printed emails. Bank statements. Phone logs. The documents painted a meticulous, damning picture of Marcus Thorne, a rival curator at the museum. Ambitious, bitter, and recently passed over for a promotion in favor of Audrey.
“Marcus has been complaining about you for months,” Cole said, his voice a low, convincing murmur. “The investigator found these emails between him and his cousin, who sits on the board of the NHF. Marcus fed him the details for the complaint. It was his cousin’s family trust that made the anonymous donation.”
Cole tapped a highlighted line on a bank statement. “And here’s the payment. From his cousin’s holding company to Marcus. Thirty pieces of silver.”
It was perfect. Too perfect.
It was a simple, understandable evil. A jealous colleague. It made sense in a way that Kian’s shadowy world of billionaire mothers and secret families did not. She wanted to believe it. God, she wanted an enemy she could see.
“He wants your job, Audrey,” Cole said, his eyes full of feigned pity. “He engineered this whole thing.”
The next day at the museum, she felt a wave of dizziness and leaned against the cool marble wall, a hand flying to her stomach. Underneath the silk of her blouse, she felt it. A tiny, definitive flutter. A little fish swimming in a secret sea.
I’m here.
The reality of it cut through everything else. This wasn’t just about her anymore.
That night, she ran to Kian’s door. The moment he opened it, she was on him, her hands in his hair, her mouth on his. She needed to anchor herself to the one thing that felt true.
He kicked the door shut, lifting her into his arms. There was no gentleness, only a shared, frantic need. It was a storm. Clothes were torn away, whispers bitten back, skin meeting skin with a desperate heat.
He laid her on the bed, his body a heavy, welcome weight. His eyes burned into hers.
“You’re mine, Audrey,” he growled, a raw, primal claim.
“Yes,” she breathed.
He moved inside her, and the world outside ceased to exist. There was no Cole, no Marcus, no Beatrice. There was only this. Only him. It wasn’t just passion; it was a drowning. And she welcomed it.
The call came the next morning. It was Cole. His voice was electric.
“I have it,” he said. “The smoking gun. Meet me. Now.”
She found him at their usual spot. He was practically vibrating with triumph.
“He got sloppy,” Cole said, tapping a new folder. “My guy got a recording. Marcus, talking to his cousin on the phone, bragging about it.”
He slid a small digital recorder across the table. “Listen.”
She pressed play. The audio was crackly. But underneath it, she could hear Marcus’s voice.
“…she never saw it coming… the board is eating it up… another month and she’ll be out on the street, and the job will be mine…”
It was damning. It was also expertly edited. A masterpiece of deception.
Cole watched her face, his eyes gleaming. “This is it, Audrey. This is what we needed. Now we take him down. Together.”
He reached across the table, his hand moving past hers. He laid it gently on her stomach, his palm flat against the place where her child was sleeping.
“We’re going to be a family again,” he said softly, his voice full of a chilling sincerity. “I’m protecting all of you now.”
The possessive heat of his hand felt like a cage closing around her. He had her. He had the fake proof, the perfect story, and now he was claiming her future. He expected her to march into the museum with his beautiful poison and destroy a man’s career to save her own, binding herself to him forever.
She looked at his smiling, triumphant face.
The game was over. Now, she had to make her move.