Oops... I Married the Wrong Billionaire

8

The private elevator doors slid open, and the heavy, sterile air of the penthouse was immediately broken by the rich, butter-heavy scent of fresh baked goods.

The man who stepped out wasn't wearing a six-thousand-dollar suit or looking around for hidden microphones. He wore a soft dark sweater, dark jeans, and held a greasy paper bag from a bakery three blocks away. He had the same sharp jawline and grey eyes as Lucas, but his face had warm lines around the eyes—the kind formed by years of actually smiling.

"Lucas," the man said, stepping straight past the sleek foyer. "Your building security tried to check my bag for explosives again. I told Harrison if he squished my almond croissants, I would cut his budget."

Lucas didn't yell. He didn't even drop into his usual cold, stiff posture. Instead, his shoulders visibly dropped two inches. "Harrison is doing his job, Uncle Richard."

"Harrison is a robot," Richard said, walking straight into the kitchen and dumping the paper bag on the pristine marble counter. Then his eyes landed on Ava, who was still standing near her stool with a pencil in her hand.

Richard stopped, looking at her oversized sweater and messy hair, and a genuine, bright smile spread across his face.

"You must be Ms. Carter," Richard said, walking around the island and extending a warm hand. "Or should I say, the unfortunate victim of my family's latest disaster."

Ava took his hand, surprised by his firm, warm grip. "Ava is fine, Mr. Ashford."

"Richard," he corrected gently, waving his hand. He looked down at the empty counter, then turned a sharp look toward Lucas. "Did you feed her yet?"

Lucas picked up his coffee cup. "She is capable of feeding herself."

"That isn't the point," Richard said, shaking his head as he pulled two paper plates from the bag. "You accidentally marry a woman, keep her locked up in your glass fortress, and you don't even offer her breakfast? Indeed your mother raised a board member, not a host."

Richard slid a warm, flaky croissant onto a plate and pushed it across the marble to Ava.

Ava looked at the pastry, then at Lucas, who was watching his uncle with a quiet, rare look of tolerance. She picked up a piece of the croissant and took a bite. "Thank you, Richard. Honestly, I thought you were coming here to hand me a non-disclosure agreement."

Richard chuckled, leaning his elbows on the counter. "The last thing this family needs is another legal document. When I heard the news in Paris, I thought my brother William was playing a joke. Then I remembered William doesn't have a sense of humor." He looked at Lucas. "How is your mother holding up?"

"She is managing the press," Lucas said flatly. "And trying to figure out how to un-cancel the Sinclair agreement."

"Good luck to her," Richard muttered, pulling a third pastry out for himself. "Victoria Sinclair is a lovely girl, but if you put her and Eleanor in the same room right now, the windows would shatter from the cold."

Ava let out a sudden, genuine laugh. It was the first time she had laughed out loud since stepping foot in the penthouse. "You noticed that too?"

"I've known Victoria since she was six," Richard said with a wink. "She organized her stuffed animals by gross domestic product. I'm fairly certain she was born with a spreadsheet for a brain."

"That sounds like someone else in this room," Ava said, glancing sideways at Lucas.

"Hey," Richard said, pointing a finger at Lucas. "When Lucas was nine, he organized his Lego sets by part number and color code. I tried to mix them up once, and he refused to speak to me for four days."

Ava stared at Lucas, her hazel eyes wide with delight. "Nine? You were doing this at nine years old?"

Lucas set his mug down with a small, flat sound. "It was a logical system. It prevented lost pieces."

"It was terrifying, Lucas," Richard said warmly, though there was a soft, fond look in his eyes as he looked at his nephew.

Ava watched the two of them interact. It was strange. Lucas didn't talk back to Richard the way he talked to his mother or Victoria. He didn't build a wall of cold, corporate words. He just stood there, letting his uncle tease him, looking almost like a normal, tired man who was glad to have someone around who didn't want anything from him.

Lucas finished his coffee, set the empty cup in the sink, and turned to his uncle. His expression shifted back into something serious and quiet.

"Richard," Lucas said softly. "Follow me to the study. I need to show you something."

Richard glanced at Lucas, reading the subtle shift in his tone instantly. He nodded once, setting his pastry down on a napkin. "Lead the way."

Ava watched them walk down the hallway together. Before pushing open the heavy mahogany door to his study, Lucas looked back at her over his shoulder for a quick second, his gray eyes steady, before closing the door behind them.

Meanwhile, across town, the atmosphere in Ethan’s apartment was thick with tension.

Victoria was standing in the middle of the living room wearing white rubber gloves, holding a spray bottle of organic disinfectant like a weapon. She sprayed down the back of the sofa, wiping it down with a micro-fiber cloth with aggressive precision.

"You missed a spot on the armrest," Victoria said without looking at him. "And the air in this building smells remarkably like old grease."

Ethan sat at his small dining table, staring at her. For the past forty-eight hours, he had been walking on eggshells, sleeping on his own couch, taking orders, and letting her treat his home like a hazardous waste site.

He looked down at his cold coffee, took a deep breath, and felt something snap inside him.

No more.

Ethan stood up. He didn't yell, but he pushed his chair back with a loud, firm scraping sound that made Victoria pause her wiping mid-stroke.

"Put the spray bottle down, Victoria," Ethan said, his voice completely calm, steady, and unyielding.

Victoria turned her head slowly, her dark eyes narrowing through her oversized glasses. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Ethan said, taking three slow steps toward her until he was standing right in front of her. "This is my apartment. I pay the rent here. I built that sofa with my own hands. It does not smell like grease, and my kitchen is not a biohazard."

Victoria stared at him, genuinely stunned. No one spoke to her like this. Board members tiptoed around her, her own family spoke to her in careful corporate memos, and here was a man in a rumpled t-shirt looking her dead in the eye without an ounce of fear.

"Ethan, the sanitary standards in this space—"

"Are completely normal," Ethan cut her off, taking the spray bottle directly out of her gloved hand and setting it down firmly on the counter. "If you want to stay here to avoid the reporters outside your condo, you are welcome to stay. But you are going to stop treating me like your personal servant, and you are going to stop inspecting my furniture."

Victoria opened her mouth to deliver a razor-sharp insult, but as she looked at Ethan's determined face, the words died in her throat. He wasn't backing down. There was a quiet strength in his eyes that she hadn't noticed before—a completely un-corporate, stubborn kind of courage.

A tiny, almost imperceptible shift happened in her posture. She pulled off her white rubber gloves, her sharp gaze lingering on his face for a long second.

"You're pushing back," Victoria noted softly, her voice dropping its usual icy edge.

"I am," Ethan said, folding his arms. "And if you want coffee, you're going to drink the kind I brew, out of a normal mug, without running a chemical test on it first."

Victoria looked at him, her lips twitching upward by a fraction of a millimeter—a microscopic sign of real, genuine respect.

"Fine," Victoria said smoothly, sitting down on the freshly wiped sofa. "Make the coffee. But if it tastes like dirt, we are renegotiating."

Ethan smiled a little, heading into the kitchen. For the first time since this crazy legal disaster started, the air between them felt a little less like a corporate war, and a little more like a real connection.