Chapter 10: The Forbidden Study
427 Words
The silence of the Sterling Estate at 2:00 AM wasn't peaceful; it was heavy, like the air before a lightning strike. I couldn't sleep. The silk sheets felt like a cage, and the scent of lilies in my room was starting to feel like a funeral parlor.
I crept out into the hallway, my bare feet sinking into the plush, expensive carpet. The night-lights cast long, amber shadows against the white marble walls. I found myself wandering toward the West Wing—a part of the house Marcus had never shown me.
At the end of the hall was a door made of dark, unpolished iron. It looked out of place in this house of glass and gold. I pushed it open.
The room inside didn't smell like sandalwood or lemon. It smelled of old paper, sea salt, and engine oil.
It was a workshop. Scattered across a massive wooden table were hand-drawn blueprints of fishing trawlers—not the high-tech steel ships Alexander’s company built, but wooden boats. The kind my father used to own. In the corner, a small, half-finished wooden model of a boat sat under a single lamp.
I picked up a piece of sandpaper from the table. It was rough and gritty against my thumb, a sharp contrast to the silk I had been wearing all week.
"I told you not to wander, Cynthia."
I spun around. Alexander was standing in the doorway. He wasn't wearing his suit. He was in a simple black t-shirt, and his hair was messy. In the dim light, he didn't look like an "Ice King." He looked like a man haunted by something he couldn't buy his way out of.
"You build these?" I whispered, gesturing to the blueprints.
He walked into the room, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floor. He looked at the model boat, and for a second, his silver eyes softened. "My grandfather was a fisherman in Badagry. Before the money, before the Sterling Group... there was just the water."
He reached out, his hand hovering over the wooden model. "It’s the only thing in this house that’s real. Everything else is just... glass."
He looked at me then, and the distance between us felt shorter than it ever had in the boardroom. The cool draft from the open window carried the scent of the lagoon, and for the first time, I didn't see a billionaire. I saw a boy who had lost his way in a forest of gold.
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