Billionaire's Secret Heir

I was begging my ex for money when he threw his wedding invitation in my face. He has no idea our son is lying in a hospital bed, dying.

Six years ago I took $300,000 from his mother, told him I'd gotten rid of our baby, and walked out on him. Nobody knows I got that money on my knees. Nobody knows it was a loan.

Nobody knows I spent every cent of it saving his life. Now he's untouchable, and any day now he marries a beautiful woman from a family exactly like his. His fiancée was on his arm.

Then he leaned down and told me not to come. Chapter 1 Six years after I sold him, Julian Ashford walked back into the room. Class reunion. Nobody thought he'd show.

Someone laughed and asked him, "Mr. Ashford never returns our calls. What brings the big man out this year?" "Heard Wren was coming, maybe?

Still carrying a torch?" I was sitting in the corner. My spine locked up. He was already watching me, cigarette in his teeth, his face empty.

Everyone in that room knew how much he used to love me. He was the only heir the Ashfords had. The year he fell in love with me, he threw the whole inheritance away.

Cut himself off. No trust, no name, no money. He fought like hell to keep me. We lived in a oneroom walkup. Split one packet of instant noodles. Split one can of soup.

It was hard and we were happy. Every night we lay there with our fingers laced together and swore forever. Then I got pregnant.

His mother gave me $300,000 and told me to get rid of it and disappear. That day Julian was on his knees outside the operating room, slamming the door with both fists.

Over and over, crying through it. "Baby girl. Baby girl, listen to me. I'll work. I'll make money. I'll take care of us.

I'll make three hundred thousand a hundred times over and hand you every cent of it, okay?" "Please. Don't leave me.

Don't take our baby too..." I lay on the table and bit down on my lip so he wouldn't hear me. Through that little door, I heard him say he would hate me for the rest of his life.

Nobody knows how ugly the end of us got. Someone shoved me toward him, laughing the whole way. "Ashford loved this girl more than his own life.

How'd you ever let her go?" The whole table was egging them on. Second chance. Second chance. One of his friends looked me up and down.

Smiled, contemptuous. "Julian can have any woman alive. Who the hell is Wren? What makes her worth remembering?" He said there'd been a woman with Julian for three years.

Softer than me. Prettier than me. Better suited to him in every way. Three years, and his friends already called her the future Mrs. Ashford. Word was, the wedding was close.

The laughing stopped. Only that friend kept going, telling everyone they had to come. He threw it. It hit me in the face and dropped into my lap. Nobody at that table said a word.

I didn't either. I looked down. Julian's name. Beside it, another woman's. Serena Vance. I came to that reunion to borrow money. I asked every person in the room.

Not one of them said yes. Chapter 2 Six years apart, and he was doing well. Good.

I swallowed what was rising in my throat, lifted my head, and said it. "Congratulations." He stared at me. He heard the word and his face broke open into a smile.

He crushed his cigarette out. "Wren. Don't come to the wedding." "My wife wouldn't like seeing you. And I don't like her unhappy." I held that thin card in my hand. "Okay," I said.

The whole table waited for me to cry. I folded the invitation in half and set my glass down on top of it. Nobody could get over how much we'd loved each other once.

And now he was getting married, and the bride wasn't me. I knew he didn't want to look at me. I left early. On the drive home a friend sent me a photo. Serena is laughing in it.

When she laughs, her eyes curve into little crescents. Exactly like mine. Her: [Wren. Doesn't she look like you when she smiles?] Her: [Do you think he still loves you?

Is that really how it ends?] He will never know I kept our baby. He will never know I hid the whole pregnancy from every person I had left, and had that baby alone. Our son is sick.

He's dying. That was the poorest, hardest year of my life. I worked myself down to nothing so he could have the good medicine. The kind that meant it hurt him less.

For money I'd walk into a class reunion and beg. For money I'd pour drinks for men at the Meridian Club until my stomach bled.

I figured that was the last time Julian Ashford and I would ever be in a room together. A few days later, Serena Vance came looking for me.

Somebody must have told her we looked alike. She wanted to see for herself. She brought friends to the club and asked for me by name. One of them looked me over. "You're Wren?

The first love?" Her eyes moved across my mouth, my eyeliner, the dress they make us wear. Like she'd found gum on the bottom of her shoe.

I made a fist under the table and let it go. I asked if they wanted to order anything. If they weren't drinking, they were costing me money. She took it as disrespect. "Excuse me?

I asked you a question. I'm being nice here and you're throwing it in my face." She pointed at a bottle behind me. Eighty proof, the expensive one. "Fine. You like money.

Finish that bottle in one go and I'll give you $20,000." That bottle would put me in a hospital bed. Serena arranged her face into worry. "We talked about this.

We were only going to look. We weren't going to make it hard for her." "I know what people say. That she's good with men, that I should watch myself around her.

Even Jules thinks I'm too trusting. He's scared she'll hurt me." "But I'll be fine." I listened to all of it.

She was here to tell me how much he loved her, and how much he hated me. I smiled. I didn't say a word to her. I turned to her friend instead. "One bottle. $20,000.

That's the deal?" I reached across the table and picked it up. I twisted the cap off. The private room went quiet. They thought I was bluffing.

The first swallow went down burning, and the only thing in my head was Si's medicine. Chapter 3 Serena took my hand.

Her voice came out soft. "Sweetie, how can you do this to yourself? Over money?" "A woman should know what shame is. I wasn't going to say anything, I didn't want to hurt you.

But you should know. Jules can't stand women like you..." I finished the bottle. The pain came up through my stomach with teeth in it.

I cut her off. "Where's the money?" "What Julian likes, what he can't stand. What does any of that have to do with me?

I want the $20,000 you promised." Serena's brows drew together. She looked at me the way you look at a disappointing child, and her voice got even smaller. "Sweetie, honestly?

Twenty thousand is nothing to me. I'd hand it to anybody. Just not you." "Hate me if you want. I'm doing this for your own good.

I can't stand here and watch you sink any lower..." Her friend shoved my shoulder, laughing. "I was messing with you. I'm not giving you a cent.

What are you going to do about it?" I laughed with her. My mouth did it on its own. Then I brought the bottle down on the table. Glass went everywhere.

A shard opened a line across Serena's leg. Blood came up through it, slow. Her tears dropped that same second.

The women who'd been so loud a minute ago couldn't find a single word between them. The door opened. Julian stood in it. His face had gone flat. I froze.

I couldn't make myself look at his eyes. The makeup. The lipstick print on somebody else's glass. Pouring drinks for men and laughing at whatever came out of their mouths.

He'd seen all of it now. I don't care what people think of me. Only him. He was the one person who was never supposed to know. Even that, I didn't get to keep.

I made myself look up. He pulled Serena into his chest. He wiped her cheek with his thumb. Then he asked me, one word at a time. "Wren.

Who exactly do you think you're pushing around, in front of me?" "You want money? Fine. Apologize." He was standing over her the way he used to stand over me.

He wanted me to make her feel better. Fine. For money I'll do anything. Serena tucked her face into his shirt and smiled at me where he couldn't see it.

I looked at the cut on her leg. Then I got down on my knees. Six years ago Julian was on his knees outside an operating room, beating on the door, begging me.

Today I was on mine, at his feet and his fiancée's. The women who'd been laughing a minute ago were looking at the floor. I didn't apologize.

I just held out my hand. "Give it to me." "$20,000." Julian looked down at me and his eyes went red at the rims. Serena watched his face and her smile stalled out.

She pulled a card from her bag and pressed it into my palm, soft as anything. "Sweetie, I'm giving you this today. Not because I owe you.

Because I never want to be the kind of woman who makes an ugly scene over a little money." I put the card in my pocket. I didn't look at her once.

I made it to the door and someone caught my wrist. He said my name. He said it through his teeth. "Wren. Does it not fucking hurt?

Would it kill you to be broke?" The way his brows pulled together, you'd think he was the one bleeding.

I ripped my arm out of his hand and turned around and smiled at him with nothing in it. "I've always been a woman who loves money, Julian.

You didn't know that?" "Mind your own business. Mind your woman. And stop coming near me." Chapter 4 Julian stared at me. Whatever was left in his eyes had gone cold.

He gave up everything he had for me. I sold him for money. My stomach was folding in on itself. I was done talking. I turned to go. Then the floor left my feet.

He had me over his shoulder like he'd come to collect on something, cigarette still in his teeth, and he carried me out through the room. Every head turned. I fought him.

I told him to put me down. One hand clamped over my legs so I couldn't kick him. "Wren. I must've been a monster in a past life.

This is the one where you make me pay for it." He put me in the car. He leaned in and pinned my legs down.

One hand braced by my ear, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his wrist. He didn't touch my face. Not yet. His breathing had gone wrong somewhere in his chest.

Then he took my chin and made me look at him. "Sometimes I really want to kill you." His hand was shaking. His face hated me. His eyes never once stopped saying the other thing.

My stomach hurt too much to answer. I was sweating through it. I glared at him. He frowned.

Opened the console, took the stomach pills out of the corner where he always kept them, and pushed one past my lips. In the corner of that drawer: a lipstick, used up.

A snapped hair tie. A pink barrette. He bought it for me. It was childish and I told him it was ugly. Six years. They sat in this car and kept him company for six years.

In my place. My eyes filled before I could stop them. I turned my head and dragged my hand across my face before he saw. All this time. He still remembers my stomach is bad.

I'm not even in his life and he still keeps something in the car for when it hurts. I put both hands on his chest and shoved him off me with everything I had.

I made myself smile at him. "Julian. Stop chasing me, okay? It's pathetic. It makes my skin crawl." "I guess you haven't heard. I got married.

I have a kid..." "You thought we were picking up where we left off? Don't embarrass yourself." He went back two steps. Then he stopped moving entirely.

I stood up to leave and he had me against the car door, one hand braced on either side of my shoulders. His voice wasn't steady. "Wren.

I don't believe you." "You'd better tell me you're fucking joking. Or I'll kill you." I held his eyes. "Fine. I'll prove it." Northshore Children's.

Nine at night, and the inpatient ward hadn't dimmed the lights yet.

I stood outside the room, on the other side of the glass, and pointed at the little boy sitting up in bed with a book. "That one is mine." His name is Silas. I call him Si.

He is my whole heart. He has my face and his father's temper. Thoughtful. Gentle. A little bit of a tyrant. Stubborn, always, behind his eyes. He got every good thing Julian has.

He is such a good kid. And he's sick. Almost six years old, thin, small for his age, and so well behaved it takes something out of you.

Julian stood at that glass and looked at the boy for twenty solid minutes. He didn't say one word. Then he put his fist through the wall. His head went down.

Something wet hit the back of his hand. I had never seen him like that. The last thing he said to me that night: "Wren.

You've got some nerve." He didn't ask who the boy's father was. He didn't recognize him either. One pane of glass. He stood there and looked at his son.

Then he turned around and left. Chapter 5 After that, Julian didn't come looking for me again. I heard he bought Serena a gown and a ring worth more than most people make in a year.

I heard he brought her home to meet his mother. I heard his mother adored her. I heard Julian said it out loud: her or nobody.

The class group chat couldn't get enough of it. "I'd kill to be Serena Vance. Imagine a man like Ashford treating you like the last good thing on earth." "She deserves it though.

She's so gentle, so generous. She heard Wren was broke and wanted to send her money.

To help her." "A woman that kind should be protected her whole life..." Even her name sounds soft. That is the whole trick of her. I read it twice. My hands went cold.

I found out at the hospital. The nurse said Julian and Serena had come to see Silas. She said the young woman had given Mr. Ashford's name at the desk.

On the intake form, the line marked Father is blank. One look, and everybody knew. I got to the door and heard Serena's voice inside. "Honey.

I heard your daddy didn't want you or your mom. Is that true?" "You know, your mom has such a hard life.

To pay for your treatment she goes and drinks with all kinds of men, every night. It's dirty.

Honestly, a man not wanting a woman like that, it isn't so strange..." Silas screamed at her. "You're lying! You're the dirty one! We don't want your money!

Get out!" I came through that door shaking. Serena turned, saw me, and blinked. Then she frowned. "Sweetie, look at your son.

I only wanted him to know how hard you work for him, and he yells at me. Nobody's taught him anything..." She didn't get to finish it.

I took a fistful of her hair and slapped her across the face. Twice. Then I dragged her to the door and put her out in the hallway. I pointed at her. "Serena.

You just cannot leave me alone, can you." She held her cheek. She looked at her hand like she expected blood on it.

Then she arranged her face and let her voice break. "Sweetie, I was only trying to help. I didn't mean a thing by it." "Jules wasn't going to lift a finger for you, you know.

Lucky for you he listens to me. He knows what kind of person I am. I'd have felt guilty." "I really did want to help you.

And now you've hit me, and Jules is going to be angry with you all over again..." I laughed at her. It came out cold. She hadn't come here to help me. She'd come here to show me.

She couldn't stand it. She needed me to know how much he loved her. More than he ever loved me. "Serena. You want Julian? He's a man. Take him.

I'm giving him to you." "But that's not enough for you. You had to come find me." I got a handful of her collar and brought my voice down. "Keep pushing me.

I'll wish you a beautiful wedding. And then I'll tell him the boy I gave birth to is his." "Guess whether he still wants you." Serena went very still.

The blood left her face, and I said it through my teeth. "Now. You're going to apologize to my son. Then you're going to get out." The door to the room opened.

Julian pulled Serena behind him with one arm. The force of it took me sideways and my back went into the wall. He heard the sound it made. His step caught.

His hand was still on Serena's arm, and it did not move. He didn't turn around. Chapter 6 He looked down at me and he was smiling. "Wren.

When did it start being your call, who I bring home?" "My wife married me. She doesn't need you to hand her over. Who the hell do you think you are?" Bare feet on the floor.

Silas came out. He put himself in front of me with both arms out and stared up at Julian and dared him to touch me again. Julian looked down at him. He crouched. He reached out.

His hand stopped in the air. Serena slid her arm through his and laughed. "You're just like your mother. Nobody can stand either of you." Julian stood up. He didn't say anything.

My son's chin came up. His mouth shook and he couldn't stop it. There's a photo of Julian under his pillow. He has always known who his father is.

All those nights after he got sick, the ones where it hurt too much to lie still, he'd fall asleep against me and dream his father came home. In the dream, Daddy said he missed Si.

Said he cried about it in secret, the same way Si did. Said he wasn't leaving again. Said Mom would never have to work like that again.

Then the dream ended, and Si finally met his father. And what he heard was nothing. Daddy walked past him. Like walking past a stranger.

Julian gave the boy one look and took it back. He shifted, impatient. He frowned and tossed a card at me. "Take it. Get your precious son treated. A million. Ten million.

I don't care what you run through it. It's black." "No more pouring drinks. And don't forget to thank my wife." Then he put his arm around Serena and walked out.

Silas watched him get smaller down the hallway. "Daddy..." He said it so quietly. Then he turned around and held his face still and said, "Mom.

Si doesn't want a dad anymore." He looked so serious. Like there was more he'd been saving up to say. Then he started coughing. Blood on the floor. Blood on me.

Blood on the photograph of Julian, the one he kept under his pillow. He went soft in my arms. "Mom isn't dirty. Mom is clean." His voice was barely there. "It's Si.

Si got your clothes dirty." "Mom. Throw Si away. Don't keep Si. Stop working so hard..." His voice went smaller. His eyes closed. I screamed his name until it stopped being a name.

I never got to tell him. There is no mother anywhere who throws her child away. I carried him for nine months. He came out of my body. Nurses everywhere.

They took him out of my arms and ran him back through the doors, and I made myself stand up and follow. I looked up. At the end of the hallway, Julian was running toward me.

He stopped. He was white to the lips. "Wren." His voice wasn't holding. "Just now. Was someone calling me Daddy?" Chapter 7