Page 83 of In Love With Mr. Wrong

“She just sat down. PulseMatch is live.”

We move to the screening room. It’s dark. Quiet. The screen in front of us fills with the stylized PulseMatch logo, then cuts to Eleanor, seated on a velvet chair beside a polished male anchor.

She looks elegant. Regal. Every line of her suit is perfection. Her hands are folded in her lap like she’s waiting to deliver a eulogy, and maybe she is.

“I raised Grayson King to lead,” she says smoothly, “but I didn’t raise him to lie.”

My jaw flexes.

“He knew the truth,” she continues. “He knew he wasn’t a biological heir, and he chose to withhold that information from the board, the investors, the public. I’m not here to destroy him. I’m here to correct the record.”

The anchor leans in. “And his real father?”

She pauses. Then smiles.

“Let’s just say… the truth is always more complicated than the narrative he prefers.”

She doesn’t name him. But it doesn’t matter. She just cracked the door open, and the world will shove it the rest of the way. Margot curses softly beside me. I reach for her hand again. Olivia enters with her phone, her expression pale.

“We have a problem,” she says.

“What kind of problem?”

“There’s a leak.”

She hands me the phone. My eyes skim the screen. A headline is already live on a media blog that shouldn’t have this fast of a turnaround. But there it is:Who is Grayson King’s Real Father? Sources Say He’s Still Alive—and Watching.

My breath leaves me in one controlled exhale. “She didn’t just want to humiliate me,” I say, the words razor-sharp in my throat. “She wants to pull him into it.”

“Do you think he’ll come forward?” Margot asks.

I don’t answer. Because I don’t know. And for the first time in a long time, I feel the edge of something I haven’t let myself feel since I was a teenager. Fear.

45

GRAYSON

The hum of the elevator is the only sound as I descend alone to the executive level. It’s early. The kind of early that wraps the city in gray mist and makes the skyline look like something half-dreamed. Through the glass panel behind me, Manhattan is still sleeping, traffic lights flicking through empty intersections, clouds hanging low like they’re eavesdropping on something sacred.

I haven’t slept. I told Margot I was going to try. I even slid into bed beside her, pulled her close, felt the heat of her back against my chest. But my eyes never closed. My body never relaxed. I just lay there, counting every minute between contractions of panic and whatever cracked thing has been building in my chest since Eleanor looked into that camera and dropped the match. She didn’t even say his name. She didn’t have to.

When the elevator doors open, Olivia is already waiting. She’s in her signature black blazer and heels that click like a metronome as she turns and walks with me toward the boardroom. Her phone is in one hand, tablet in the other. Her entire posture reads: calm, deadly, exhausted.

“Investor call moved up. They want answers before the markets open.”

I nod.

“Do you want to speak?” she asks without looking up.

I pause. “No.”

She finally glances at me. “Okay.”

We don’t say anything else. Not because we don’t have words—but because there’s too much weight in all of them.

***

The boardroom is a cathedral of glass and tension. The morning light glances off the mahogany table, gilding everything in sharp, sterile gold. Cassian’s leaning against the far wall like he’s auditioning for a GQ spread in wartime. Priya has three screens open, one earbud in, and a frown etched deep enough to leave a scar. Margot’s not here yet.

---