The black Maybach glided away from the Sterling Group building, its sleek black form merging with the evening traffic. The tension from the boardroom still clung to the air inside the cabin, a thin, sharp wire stretched between us. I leaned my head against the cool window, watching the city's glittering skyline recede, as small, slow droplets of rain fall on the window.
"Another day, another battle won," I murmured, more to myself than to him.
Kaelen's hands flexed on the steering wheel, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. "The battles are never truly won. They just change shape."
The soft purr of the engine was the only sound after, a stark contrast to the storm of silence between us. The city lights bled into long, watery streaks against the rain-drenched windows, isolating us in a moving cocoon of tension. I could feel it radiating from him, a cold, dense weight that had nothing to do with the boardroom victory and everything to do with the name left hanging in the air between us.
Bella.
I watched his profile, the sharp, unyielding line of his jaw clenched tight, his hands firm on the steering wheel. The effortless command he'd wielded just minutes ago was gone, replaced by a stillness that felt… dangerous. Like the calm before a cataclysm.
I couldn't bear it any longer. The silence was a chasm, and we were teetering on the edge.
"Kaelen." My voice was softer than I intended, barely a whisper in the hushed interior. He didn't look at me. "Who is Bella?" I pressed, forcing a steadiness I didn't feel. "Should I be concerned?"
He didn't answer. For a long, agonizing minute, the only response was the rhythmic swipe of the windshield wipers. Then, with a sudden, smooth turn of the wheel, he guided the car away from the main thoroughfare, pulling into the shadowy, deserted lot of a park. He cut the engine.
Darkness, absolute and profound, swallowed us, broken only by the faint glow of a distant streetlamp filtering through the rain-streaked glass. The pattering on the roof was the only sound now, a lonely, percussive beat. He stared straight ahead, into the black, empty heart of the park, his chest rising and falling in a slow, measured rhythm. The silence stretched, so thick I could taste it—metallic, like blood and old grief.
Finally, he let out a sound. Not a sigh of frustration, but a silent, weary exhalation of a man setting down a burden he'd carried for a lifetime.
"David is not my brother."
The words were flat, devoid of all emotion, and they landed like a physical blow in the confined space.
I stared at him, my mind reeling. "What do you mean?"
"My father was Howard Vancourt. Henry's younger brother." He still wouldn't look at me, his gaze fixed on some phantom point in the rain. "They died at Lake Estermont. A boating accident. That's the official story. It was an assassination."
My breath hitched. Lake Estermont. He was hurt then. The young man crusted in dried blood. Hiding under the bush. He had told me about that story some time ago - when we first met.
"After you left," His voice was low, gravelly, the sound of old wounds being torn open. "I survived for more than a day on the water… Until they found me. The Smiths. Bella's parents. They were there on a fishing trip."
He fell silent again, and in that silence, I could almost see him there again—a young man, hurt, weak and shivering, his world shattered into pieces.
"They took me in. For months, I lived in their guest room. I was too afraid to speak, to tell them my name. I thought… I was scared that they were the ones who had sent the men with the guns." The raw, childish fear in his confession, spoken with an adult's bleak acceptance, lanced through me. A sharp, piercing pain bloomed in my chest for him.
"Bella was there. A bright, chattering young girl. She tried to befriend the silent, broken boy her parents had brought home. She'd bring me toys. Try to share her sweets." A muscle ticked in his jaw. "I never took them. I never spoke a word."
"Oh, Kaelen…" I whispered, my heart aching.
"They found out who I was. Saw a picture in the paper, maybe. I don't know. They contacted my grandfather, Joseph. He came for me." He finally turned his head, and in the dim, refracted light, his eyes were black pools of ancient pain. "He was a pragmatic man. He saw the political fallout, the vulnerability. So, he buried the truth. He brought me home and told the world I was his grandson, Henry's second son. David's brother."
The pieces slammed into place with devastating clarity. The deep-seated hatred in David's eyes. It wasn't just professional jealousy. It was the rage of a man whose birthright had been usurped by an orphaned imposter, a ghost who had walked out of the lake and stolen his legacy.
"The Smiths…" I breathed, understanding dawning. "What do they really want?"
"Just more and more." A grim acceptance settled on his features. "I owe them my life. I will never deny that. For taking in a terrified, wounded boy, I would give them anything within my power. And I have. All these years, their business thrives because of Vancourt backing." His jaw tightened. "But it's no longer enough. Saving the Vancourt heir was their golden ticket, and they believe the final prize is a permanent merger. Bella's childhood infatuation, which they never discouraged, has grown into an unwavering expectation. And David…" His voice dipped, laced with cold fury. "David whispers in their ear. He fans the flames of their ambition, telling them how right it is, how deservedit is, positioning himself as their champion against the 'ungrateful' usurper. He uses their sense of entitlement as his own weapon."
The sheer, manipulative calculus of it made me feel ill. My father's words echoed in my mind: 'The world has carved the heart out of him.' No. The world had saved him only to try and cage him, using the very gratitude that should have been a sacred bond. His ruthlessness was the armor he'd forged to protect the one thing they couldn't have: his freedom to choose.
I reached out, my fingers gently covering his clenched fist on the gear shift. His skin was cold. "Kaelen… tell me... This Bella... do you… do you have feelings for her?"
He turned his hand over, his fingers lacing through mine in a grip that was almost painful in its intensity. His eyes burned into mine, no longer just pained, but fiercely, terrifyingly honest.
"No, Elara" he said, the word absolute, final. "My feelings are gratitude, twisted now into resentment. I still appreciate what they did. I will still repay them where I can, but the Smiths... They are now using the debt to try and chain me. And Bella is the best chain there is." He took a sharp breath. "This… this is also why I needed a wife. With a wife, they would hopefully see that an alliance by marriage is not possible. I wanted a real partner. My marriage, the future of Vancourt Holdings... It's not a transaction to settle a childhood debt."
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, not of sadness, but of a profound, aching understanding. We were the same, he and I. Both haunted by the ghosts of people we used to be, both fighting to claim a future that was truly our own.
"You don't owe them this," I said, my voice thick with emotion and conviction.
He brought our joined hands to his lips, pressing a hard, desperate kiss to my knuckles, his eyes never leaving mine. The last of his walls crumbled in that dark, quiet car, in the heart of the rain-swept night.
"Now you know," he whispered, his breath warm against my skin. "You are allied with a man built on a lie, haunted by a ghost."
I leaned forward, closing the small, charged distance between us until my forehead rested against his. "Then it's a good thing," I whispered back, my words a vow into the space between our lips, "that his ghost has just met mine."