MAYA

"Maya, please. Just get to the office. It’s an emergency.”

As I sprinted toward my father’s office, I realized my mother really should have swallowed me in a blowjob. Or at the very least, I should have lost the race to be born. Why did I swim so hard? Was the prize really this?

I was running in four-inch heels that were about to snap. My hair was a bird's nest, and I looked more like a runaway than a corporate heiress. Judging by my father’s nineteenth voicemail, getting kidnapped would have been a better way to spend my Tuesday.

I could barely hear him through his sobbing. I wondered which girl he wanted me to pay off this time. Was it the twenty-two-year-old yoga instructor or the cocktail waitress who finally realized his credit cards were made of plastic and lies?

I knew the truth, even if he refused to accept it. The Sullivan fortune was a house of cards. It was held together by my willpower and the last few pieces of my mother’s jewelry that he hadn't gambled away yet. My father couldn't handle a single crisis without dragging me into the middle to make it my problem, too.

I reached the heavy doors of my father’s office, leaning against the wood for support. My lungs were burning, and I needed a second just to catch my breath.

Marcus, my father’s secretary, was standing there. He had been my father's right-hand man for a decade, but today he looked like he was waiting for a funeral to start. He looked like he’d aged ten years overnight.

"Good god, Marcus. What did he have you doing all night?" I panted. I pointed a finger at my messy hair. "Don't even look at me. I got into a fight with the wind, and the wind won."

Marcus didn't laugh. He didn't even crack a smile.

"Just give me the rating," I said, keeping my voice low. "On a scale of one to ten, how much of a disaster am I walking into?"

Marcus swallowed hard and looked away. "Just go in, Miss Sullivan," he whispered.

He pulled the doors open, and the heavy hinges groaned as I stepped inside.

"He’s finally knocked up some woman, right?" I sighed. I didn't wait for a reply. I didn't have time for this, especially with a date with Liam in an hour. I just wanted one normal night with Liam this week. He was the only thing in my life that was sturdy, predictable, and safe.

I wasn't going to let my father’s latest crisis ruin my evening. I stepped inside, my voice already loaded and ready to fire.

"Dad! If I’m here because you’ve managed to create a secret sibling, I’m changing my name and moving to a different continent. I am not babysitting a mistake born from cheap tequila and a hunt for a paycheck.”

He didn't answer me.

"Dad?" I panted, wiping a stray hair from my forehead.

He didn't even turn around. He was standing in the far corner by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the city like he was waiting for it to give him an answer that wasn't coming.

I frowned, letting my eyes wander away from my father’s trembling back. I expected to see a sobbing girl with a baby bump. Instead, my eyes landed on the man sitting in my father’s oversized leather chair. The chair my father usually used to look important while doing absolutely nothing.

Our eyes met, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe.

He had the kind of handsome face that made you stop and look twice. Dark hair, sharp jawline, and cold blue eyes that seemed to see right through me. There was something familiar about him, a nagging feeling that I’d seen his face before, but I couldn't place where.

“This will do.”

He nodded slowly, snapping me out of my trance. His blue eyes raked over me, from my messy hair down to my flushed face, ending at my scuffed heels. He trailed back up, lingering on the curves I usually tried to hide under my blazer, looking as if he were checking the ripeness of a piece of fruit.

I blinked. My mouth, which usually had a mind of its own, suddenly felt very dry. I pulled the edges of my blazer together, suddenly feeling far too exposed.

A small, satisfied smile touched his lips. “She looks better in person,” he spoke quietly, but his voice seemed to fill every corner of the room.

He was looking at me like a pervert, and that was all the motivation I needed. My mouth was no longer dry; it was loaded and the sarcasm was already bubbling up. I was currently overdosing, and I was about to give him a lethal dose.

I let out a scoff. "Oh, I get it now." I leaned in slightly, looking over his expensive black suit. "Honestly, I didn't realize Dad had finally run out of girls half his age and moved on to whatever you are. A high-end trophy husband?”

"Maya, stop," my father’s voice cracked from the corner. "Please, just be quiet.”

I didn't even look at him. I was too busy staring down at the man in the chair.

He didn't even blink. His blue eyes stayed fixed on mine, heavy and unreadable. He looked like a man who had seen everything and was still waiting for me to impress him. He wasn't just looking at me; he was challenging me to keep going.

I didn't stop to think. I let a slow smirk spread across my face and started to clap. "I have to hand it to you, Dad. You really outdid yourself this time.”

I leaned in closer, forcing myself into his personal space until our faces were inches apart. I wanted him to feel as uncomfortable as I did. “So, are you here to check out your new step-daughter? Do you like what you see… Daddy?”

Up close, his eyes weren’t just blue, they were the color of the ocean right before a storm.

"Maya Sullivan! Shut your mouth right now!" My father choked out. He sounded absolutely terrified.

The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. His gaze dropped to my lips for a heartbeat, a brief, heated moment that felt like a physical touch. Then he leaned back slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. I snapped back to an upright position and crossed my arms.

"Because if there isn't a secret sibling, why the hell am I here?" I tilted my head. "I hope you got the money upfront for fucking him because my father’s cheques have a habit of bouncing higher than your ego.”

My survival instinct had officially kicked in, and she was a massive, relentless bitch.

"Maya, for the love of God!" my father hissed. I heard him rushing toward me, but I held up a hand and silenced him with a single look. I wasn't finished.

“Why do you look so scared, Dad? No one cares about who you’re fucking or if you're bisexual. It’s the twenty-first century. Own it.”

"Be quiet!" my father strained to say, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts. "Do you have any idea who you're talking to? This is-"

I ignored my father and turned back to the man, leveling a finger at his chest. "And you? You’re just the latest in a long line of Dad’s expensive mistakes.”

“Maya!” my father shrieked.

His legs finally gave out. He fell to his knees with a heavy thud, his face pale and dripping with sweat.

I rolled my eyes. God, how dramatic could he be? He was acting like I’d just insulted a god instead of a high-maintenance boy toy in a well-tailored suit.

But the man in the chair didn't argue. He didn't even look angry. He just looked like a man who had just found a new favorite toy and was deciding exactly how to break it.

I had seen my father, Arthur Sullivan, drunk, crying over lost bets, and begging mistress number four not to leave him.

But this? This was nothing compared to how broken he had looked the night he sat me down and told me my mother was never coming home.

Surprisingly, I wasn't getting a reaction from this man. He was terrifyingly calm. He rested his elbows on my father’s desk, lacing his fingers together.

"Your father isn't being threatened, Maya," he finally spoke up after everything I had said. "He’s paying back what he owes."

He paused, his gaze lingering on my lips as if he were memorizing them.

"And you should watch what you say. That mouth of yours is going to start a fire you aren’t ready to put out.”

“What he owes?” I let out a frustrated sigh, looking at my father as he trembled on the floor. "Dad? Really? What did you do this time? Is he the reason Marcus looks like he’s about to have a heart attack?"

I wasn't done. I turned back to the man in the chair, my lip curling. "So how much does he owe you? Enough to keep on affording Botox for your face?”

“Botox?” he repeated. The corner of his mouth tugged upward. He let out a short, dry laugh, his gaze staying locked on mine. He didn't look like a man who had been insulted; he looked like a man who had finally found something interesting enough to keep him from being bored.

"Maya, please," my father muffled into the carpet, his voice trembling so hard I could barely understand him. His forehead was pressed to the floor. "Don't talk to Mr. Blackwood like that.”

“Mr. Who?” I snickered, looking down at my dad.

But his voice echoed in my head again. Did he just say Mr. Blackwood? I snapped my head toward the man in the chair. My eyes widened with realization.

“Mr. Blackwood?” I pointed at him, my finger trembling despite myself.

Silas Blackwood. The CEO of Blackwood Holdings. The man who bought entire companies just to tear them apart.

That was why he looked familiar. I’d seen his face on the covers of every major business magazine, usually under headlines about Hostile Takeovers.

Did I just throw insults at a man who could buy my father’s company and everything we owned without even checking his bank balance? With a snap of his fingers?

God, why couldn't I just shut up for once? I should have asked why he was here instead of picking a fight over the way he looked at me. I groaned internally. I hadn't just started a fire; I’d poured gasoline on it.

Silas suddenly stood up, towering over the desk. He walked around the edge with the slow grace of someone who never had to hurry because the world waited for him. Every step he took toward me felt like a countdown I couldn't stop.

I chuckled nervously, the sound dying in my throat. “Mr. Blackwood.” I cleared my throat, lifting a single finger to try and regain some ground. “Listen, this is clearly just a misunderstanding regarding-”

Silas didn't say a word. He just looked down at my pointed finger as if it were a toddler waving a stick. He didn't move a muscle, but the coldness in his stare made my finger tremble. I held it for three seconds until the silence became so loud that I slowly, embarrassingly, let it fall.

“Five hundred million dollars,” he finally said.

The room started to spin. Five hundred million dollars debt? I couldn't breathe properly.

Has my father gone mad? Or was Silas Blackwood insane?

Silas didn't wait for me to recover. “Did I really just exchange five hundred million dollars for a chatterbox who doesn't know how to shut the fuck up?” He turned his gaze to my father, his eyes narrowed into slits. “I expected a lot more for that price tag.”