WHISPERED TEMPTATIONS

Legitimate Heir

「 ✦ Hero's POV ✦ 」

Niko's voice thundered through the frat house, rattling the cheap plastic cups on the counter.

"LETS GO ALREADY! MY WOMAN IS WAITING FOR ME!"

His six-foot frame bounced with impatience in the doorway, his light hair damp with sweat from the sticky summer air clinging to our skin.

"There will be enough beautiful women to go around for the rest of you fools," he announced, flashing a wolfish grin "but don't even think about going near mine or her sisters. Last thing I need is Halo coming for my head because you fools couldn't control yourselves."

His laughter filled the entryway as he lifted the keg with one arm, the silver cylinder balanced on his shoulder. The sleeves of his Henley strained against his arms as he crossed our front lawn, heading toward his brand-new F-150 he'd bought with his first NFL paycheck after the April draft.

We were all celebrating tonight, our last hoorah of sorts. While most of us would keep in touch, a few of us were off to start new careers or heading to new places, that would leave little time for our typical shenanigans. Next week, the graduating seniors would scatter like dandelion seeds across the country, but tonight, we would party as if morning would never come.

I grimaced slightly thinking about the cold, marble-floored penthouse apartment waiting for me on 10 hours away.

Its stark white walls and chrome fixtures "generously" decorated by my stepmother with the kind of modern art that looked like someone had sneezed paint onto canvas.

I'd most likely needed to hire someone discreet to sweep for hidden cameras and bugs tucked behind those hideous abstract paintings or nestled in the crystal chandelier—that's exactly the kind of invasive scheme that botox-frozen cobra would devise.

There was no way she'd selected those Italian leather couches and imported silk curtains out of the goodness of her nonexistent heart.

As the chaos wrapped up around me, I let my mind drifted to Barcelona—two weeks in my mother's villa where sunlight spilled across terracotta tiles and my grandmother's paella steamed on the table, waiting for me to claim seconds, thirds.

Fuck I can’t wait.

New York would reclaim me soon enough. I'd return to its jagged skyline and bustling sidewalks, perhaps too quickly, but I welcomed the next phase with open arms.

America had sunk its roots into me. And my father, for all his missed dinners and emotional distance, had my heart. Not because he deserved it, but because love rarely follows the logic we assign it.

My phone vibrated in my pocket as I lounged on the leather couch, eighteen-year-old Macallan warming my palm through the crystal tumbler. The bass from the speakers thrummed against my chest while conversations blurred around me into white noise.

I glanced at the screen and felt my jaw tighten. Lesley f*****g Williams. Her name glowed accusingly beneath a preview of yet another desperate text. For fourteen excruciating days, my phone had become a digital confessional for her sins.

"I'm sorry baby, it was a mistake, it will never happen again!!"

"Please Hero, 4 years and you walked away over one mistake???"

"There will only ever be you, please baby forgive me!!!!!!"

On and on it went, a carousel of pathetic pleas. As if walking in to find her tangled in my half-brother's embrace on MY f*****g bed—her crimson lipstick smeared across his neck—could be erased with emoji-laden text messages.

The diamond tennis bracelet I'd given her for Christmas still dangling from her wrist as she scrambled for the sheet. Just like her mother, with those calculating eyes and fake smile, hovering around my family's wealth like it was prey. I downed the scotch in one burning gulp.

Not f*****g today, Satan.

I was jaded, angry, but not surprised.

My half-brother Kyle with the help of his mother, Crystelle and her perfectly coiffed silver hair and viper's tongue, had spent the last decade systematically dismantling everything that should have been my mothers and mine.

My mother helped my father build Horizon Investments from the ground up; her old-money family fortune transformed his family’s failing legacy into the gleaming glass-and-steel conglomerate that now dominated the Manhattan skyline.

But all it took was one champagne flute too many at the company's twentieth anniversary gala, the December air thick with cigar smoke and ambition, and my father's wandering hand on his doe-eyed personal assistant's silk-clad ass, for their empire to crumble like a house of cards.

Nine months later, that same assistant appeared at our Hamptons estate, cradling a pink-faced infant with eyes as startlingly blue as my father's and mine and a DNA test folded neatly beside a legal notice.

My mother's marriage ended with half my father's liquid assets, a controlling stake in Horizon Group, and a private flight to Barcelona, where she clutched my four-year-old hand as we watched America disappear beneath the clouds.

So, to say I was shocked that things turned out this way would be like calling a hurricane a light drizzle.

I'd watched Lesley circling Kyle for months, her predatory gaze following him across every room like a vulture eyeing fresh carrion.

Crystelle and Lesley’s mother Camry—both cut from the same designer cloth, their identical French manicures always curled around champagne flutes they hadn't paid for—had spent the last eight years whispering poison into my father's ear, Crystelle trying to convince my father, while Camry Promised benefits from the Williams group if whoever took over married her daughter.

Crystelle’s ruby-painted lips spread rumors through country club luncheons and charity galas that Kyle would be handed the keys to Horizon Group at his eighteenth birthday celebration in July, that gaudy affair they'd already started planning with imported roses and custom ice sculptures.

But she had been dead wrong.

Flashback

4 months ago

My father's deep and stoic voice sliced through the air-conditioned silence of his corner office.

"It's been a while, Hero."

The morning sun filtered through floor-to-ceiling windows of the Horizon Building's top floor, casting long shadows across his polished mahogany desk.

It was my last day interning at the company. Tomorrow I’d be back in class finishing my two final months of school and cramming for finals before graduation.

I’d gotten the email the night before, requesting my presence at precisely 8:00 AM, no explanation or frills, just as methodical as everything else about him.

"Did you need something, Mr. James?"

I asked, keeping my voice flat and my posture straight. My fingers clenched in my pants pocket as I stared at the older version of myself behind the desk.

I loved the man but Michael James, the CEO of Horizon Investment, and my father.

He required a certain decorum that I'd learned to maintain years ago.

My father's polished mahogany desk gleamed between us as he leaned forward, his gold cufflinks catching the light.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the whisperings around this place, and even at home. About me making your brother my successor.”

His blue eyes – the exact color as mine - dissected my face with surgical precision, his own expression a perfect marble mask.

The familiar acid burn of rage crawled up my throat, hot as whiskey. My fingers twitched in my pocket, but I kept my face placid as a frozen lake.

The homewrecker and her son wouldn't get the satisfaction of knowing how I much their existence bothered me. They’d only get satisfaction out of it.

I made a sound in the back of my throat, something between acknowledgment and dismissal.

"Gossip isn't really my thing."

My father nodded slowly, as he continued to watch me with his blank face.

“Well that good, because whatever your hearing, isn’t true.”

Now that had my attention. My father never responded to the gossip in any form or fashion. He'd always maintained a stony silence whether the rumors were vicious lies or uncomfortable truths.

I stared into my fathers’ eyes, trying to read his expression, as he stared back. Silently we watched each other before, he opened a drawer next to him and pulled out a folder.

“Read through this and then we can go over any questions you might have.” He said in a soft voice.

I walked forward, grabbing the folder before sinking into the stiff leather chair across from his imposing mahogany desk. The leather creaked beneath me, announcing my discomfort to the silent room.

I looked up one last time, meeting my father's eyes—cold and calculating as always, revealing nothing—before I flipped open the folder with trembling fingers and began scanning the documents inside.

SHARE TRANSFER AGREEMENT

Blazed across the top in bold, authoritative letters.

As I digested the contents, a jolt of surprise shot through me, followed by something deeper that lodged in my throat—that I couldn't quite name.

I forced myself to read through the documents twice more, the black ink swimming across the cream-colored paper like schools of fish, before finally raising my gaze to my father.

He remained statue-still in his hand-tailored charcoal suit, his face a perfect mask of corporate indifference beneath silver-streaked hair.

"Why are you doing this? I thought these shares were for Kyle?" My voice cracked slightly.

My father's blue eyes locked onto mine, something ancient and unreadable flickering in their depths.

His manicured fingers tapped once against the polished mahogany desk.

"You are my son, my first born and legitimate heir. No one can take that from you. You have your mother's 35% in shares for the company, and now you have 45% of my shares. That gives you 80% of the shares, making you Majority Holder—leaving your mom with 5%, the other shareholders with a cumulative 5%, and me with 10%."

Each percentage fell from his lips with precision, his baritone voice dropping to a confidential murmur that filled the corner office.

"I never once thought of giving shares to Kyle or Crystelle. It was your mother who helped me build this company and save my family’s company, and it's you who will inherit it all."

A lump formed in my throat as thick as a fist. My tongue felt welded to the roof of my mouth.

"I plan to step down once you graduate from college and are ready to move to New York," he continued, straightening his silk tie.

"I'm hoping to officially become Chairman by September, with you fully succeeding me as CEO."

My father's words hung in the air like smoke as I gaped at him, the weight of an empire settling onto my shoulders.

I looked down at the documents one last time, the heavy cream paper embossed with the company letterhead that had decorated our dining table throughout my childhood. I reached over, my fingers closing around the cool weight of my father's fountain pen—the antique Montblanc with its scratched gold band and ink that always smelled faintly of cedar.

A pen that had authorized acquisitions, dissolved partnerships, and now would mark my official entry into the family business.

Beneath his bold, slashing signature, I inscribed my own name with careful strokes.

When I looked up, my father's eyes had softened at their corners, pride gleaming in them like sunlight on water. A smile—rare and restrained as always— and the slight nod he gave me worth more than any spoken praise.

End of Flashback