~HUNTER’S POV-
The investigator’s voice was steady as if he wasn’t unraveling a thread that could snap at any second.
“I confirmed it, sir. Celine Davis was at The Royale Lounge about two years ago. She wasn’t on staff-she was just… there. A guest. A party.”
I pressed my thumb against my temple, leaning back in the chair behind my desk. The leather creaked under the shift of my weight. The Royale Lounge.
The ce was upscale, but it was still the kind of ce that left a film on your skin afterward. A ce where people lost their limits.
A ce I’d only gone when I didn’t care about mine.
I went there for business. Not pleasure. I told myself that then. I told myself that now.
But no matter how far back I searched in my mind, flipping through nights that blurred together in dim lighting and expensive whiskey, I couldn’t see her
there.
I couldn’t picture Celine sitting in a corner booth, or at the bar, or anywhere at all.
“She wasn’t seen there again,” the investigator continued, dragging me back. “Not long after, she had her son.”
Caesar.
My hand lowered from my temple to my chest, pressing t for reasons I didn’t understand. It was like hearing that her life had existed before me made something shift inside my ribs.
Made me wonder what else I didn’t know.
“She had no record,” the voice said again. “Nothing suspicious. No history of theft or lies. Whatever’s been said about her in your household doesn’t line up with what I found.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. It burned on the way out.
“Understood,”
“You want me to keep looking?” he asked. I should’ve said yes. I should’ve told him to turn her life upside down and shake it until every secret fell out.
But… I didn’t. I stared at my desk. At nothing. At everything.
“No,” I said quietly. “That’s enough.”
Lended the call, but it didn’t feel like an ending.
It felt like a beginning.
I stood, pushing away from the desk, but the questions followed. They stayed pressed against my skin, beneath the cor of my shirt, behind my ribs.
She had been somewhere I had been. But I didn’t see her then. Now? Now I couldn’t see her.
And I wasn’t sure if it scared me more… Or if it made me want to know her even more than I already did.
I walked out of the room. Down the stairs. Toward her. Because there was something between us, and no investigator could ever exin it.
~CELINE’S POV~
Bianca was still at the gate. Her voice-shrill, desperate-carried through the air like nails dragging across ss.
“I was framed!” she screamed. “I didn’t do anything wrong! I belong here!”
The guards didn’t flinch. They didn’t believe her.
And honestly? Neither did I.
I stood by the kitchen window, pretending not to watch the scene unfold, but my reflection in the ss gave me away. My hands were still trembling even as they gripped the edge of the sink.
Behind me,
the staff whispered, their words like small needles pressing into the back of my neck.
“Did you see the way Mr. Hunter looked at her?”
“She must be important to him.”
“I’ve never seen him like that before.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Just for a second. They didn’t get it.
They didn’t know what it was like to be me. They didn’t know what it felt like to be stripped bare in front of them all, to be used of something that could’ve taken everything from me.
But the worst part wasn’t the humiliation. It was the way Hunter had looked at me. Like I wasn’t a stranger anymore. Like he saw something he wasn’t sure he liked.
I shook my head and forced myself back to the countertop, scrubbing it even though it was already clean. I needed to do something. I needed to pretend I was fine.
But the silence behind me changed. I felt it before I turned around. He was there.
Hunter.
Standing in the doorway like he was debating whether or not to step closer. And when our eyes met, it was like everything inside me stopped.
I swallowed hard. “Sir.”
He didn’t answer right away. He looked at me like he was trying to solve an equation that refused to make sense.
And then he asked it.
“Are you okay?”
I didn’t have an answer for him. Not a real one. Because no, I wasn’t okay. I was holding on to a thread, and it was fraying in his hands.
But I nodded anyway. “Yes. I’m fine, sir.” His jaw flexed. He didn’t believe me.
“And Caesar?”
I lifted my chin. “Sleeping.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not softer. Just… quieter. Like he’d swallowed something he wasn’t ready to taste.
I wanted to ask him why he cared. But I was too afraid of the answer. And then his phone rang. He nced at it. Didn’t answer right away.
“Goodnight, Celine,” he said.
And just like that, he turned and walked away. Leaving me staring after him, wondering if the sound of his voice saying my name was something I should
be afraid of.
Or something I was starting to need.
The next morning, the kitchen felt different. Like something had cracked open overnight and no one was quite sure what was going to spill out.
I could still feel yesterday on my skin. In my chest. In my head. The usations. The looks. The way Hunter had said my name was like it was a question he didn’t want to be answered.
It was all there, reying on a loop I didn’t ask for.
Bianca was gone, but she’d left something behind. Suspicion. Whispers. Curiosity dressed up as judgment.
I could feel their eyes on me before I even made it past the doorway.
Some of them looked at me like I’d won a prize I didn’t deserve. Some like I’d gotten away with murder. And some, well… they just stared like they were waiting for the next twist in the story.
And I didn’t me them.
Because I was starting to wonder the same thing.
The metal of the knife was cool in my hand as I sliced through a ripe tomato, and I focused on the way it felt.
The way it grounded me. I didn’t focus on the voices behind me. On the words that weren’t meant for me, but somehow always were.
“Looks like someone’s moving up in the world,” one of the younger maids said, her voice a little too loud to be an ident.
I set the knife down. Quietly. Carefully. Like it might break if I held it too tight. Like I might.
I’d been through worse. I reminded myself of that. Over and over. But this… this was different. And I couldn’t exin why.
A soft tug at the hem of my skirt broke through the noise in my head.
“Mommy?”
I turned. Caesar stood there, his hair sticking up in a way that made me smile, even when I didn’t want to.
“You should be sleeping,” I said, kneeling so we were at eye level.
He shrugged. “Didn’t want to.”
And just like that, my heart forgot about breaking for a second. I ran my hand over his curls, smoothing them back. “Alright. But you have to be quiet, okay?”
He nodded. But then his face scrunched up like it always did when he was thinking too hard about something.
“Are you sad?” he asked.
I wanted to lie. But I couldn’t. Not to him.
“I’m just tired,” I said instead.
He stared at me like maybe he didn’t believe me, but he was going to let it slide this time. Then his eyes shifted. Past me. Toward the doorway.
I followed his gaze.
And froze.
Hunter was there. Leaning against the frame like he had all the time in the world. But his eyes said something else entirely.
I didn’t know how long he’d been standing there. Watching. Listening.
But it felt like long enough.
He pushed away from the door and took a step forward. “I need to speak with you.”
I stood up, smoothing my hands over my apron. “Yes, sir.”
His gaze flickered to Caesar. Then back to me.
“Alone.”
And just like that, my stomach dropped. “I-“I started. But I didn’t get the chance to finish.
“I’ll watch him,” a voice sang out from across the room. <fn280d> Fresh chapters posted on find~novel</fn280d>
Charlotte. Of course. She walked in like she owned the ce, her hair perfect, her smile sharp. “I don’t mind looking after the little prince,” she added with a sweetness that tasted more like poison.
I hesitated. Everything in me screamed *no*. But Hunter didn’t even flinch. He nodded, already turning away like the decision had been made long before I got a say.
I knelt back down to Caesar, my hands resting on his tiny shoulders.
“Mommy?” he whispered.
I smiled, but it didn’t quite reach. “I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t wait to see if he believed me. Because right now, I wasn’t sure if I believed me either.
I followed Hunter into his study, the heavy door closing behind me with a soft thud. The sound felt final. Like a period at the end of a sentence, I hadn’t had time to read.
He didn’t move right away. Just stood there, hands in his pockets, staring out the window like maybe the answers he wanted were hiding somewhere in the trees outside. Maybe they were.
I wouldn’t me him for looking.
I stood there awkwardly, like a guest who had overstayed her wee but didn’t know how to leave.
“Sir,” I said, my voice small but steady. “You wanted to talk?”
When he turned, his eyes pinned me in ce. And I mean pinned. Like I was a butterfly under ss and he was the kind of man who liked to study things that couldn’t fly anymore.
“I heard you visited The Royale Lounge,” he said, his tone casual, but there was nothing casual about the way he was watching me.
I blinked. “Excuse me? Did Caroline tell you that?”
He tilted his head a little, something like amusement flickering in his gaze. “Why would my cousin do that?” His voice was slower now like he was giving me time to eithere clean or build a better lie.
“Tell me, Celine. What made you stop going?”
I swallowed, suddenly very aware of how small the room felt. How big he was standing there. “I got pregnant.”
There. Simple. True. But somehow, it still felt like a confession.
His eyes darkened at my words. “And the father?”
I stiffened. My hands balled into fists at my sides before I could stop them. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to share my personal bife with you, ale ?
That word-sir-felt sharp between my teeth.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was loaded. Heavy.
Then he smirked. But it wasn’t the kind of smirk that made you feel warm. It was the kind that made you check if your heart was still beating
“You always get defensive when you’re hiding something,” he said.
The anger bubbled up faster than I expected. “I’m not hiding anything.”
He took a step closer, slow, deliberate. “Then look me in the eye,” he said, his voice low, “and tell me the father was a man you loved.”
And that’s when the air left my lungs.
Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t say it. Not because I was hiding something-but because love had never been part of the story. Not even close.
He saw it. The way my mouth opened but nothing
out.
And his smirk faded. His jaw clenched. Like something inside him had snapped tight, but he wasn’t about to show me where.
He turned away from me, muttering something I couldn’t quite catch. Maybe I didn’t want <ol><li></li></ol>
I stood there, gripping my dress like it might hold
me
together.
Just when I thought he was done with me, his voice cut through the quiet. “Stay away from Charlotte.”
I blinked. “What?”
“She’s been eyeing you since yesterday,” he said, turning back to me. There was something different in his expression now-something careful. “And she doesn’t like losing.”
I didn’t know which part of that stunned me more. The warning. Or the way his voice softened ever so slightly like he was worried. Like I mattered.
I didn’t get a chance to ask him.
His phone rang, and he nced at it, his features hardening all over again.
“Go,” he said, voice rough, like the sound of a door closing. Not softly this time.
I turned, forcing my feet to move toward the door. Forcing myself not to look back.
But I could feel it. The way he’d rattled me.
29
Like he always did.
1
AD
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