The CEO’s Secret Heir

Chapter 11 — The New Contractor

On Monday morning, Lívia arrived at Aster Creative Interiors and Events twenty-three minutes early.

She had learned long ago that being early was the closest poor people came to armor. If she arrived before everyone else, she had time to find the bathroom, learn where the exits were, check whether her blouse had wrinkled on the bus, and breathe before anyone decided what kind of woman she was.

Aster occupied the ninth floor of a renovated brick building in the arts district, far from the polished intimidation of the financial center but close enough that clients in expensive cars could still pretend they were adventurous. The lobby smelled of coffee and paint. One wall displayed photographs of previous projects: gala entrances, boutique hotels, product launches, floral installations, museum dinners. Beautiful things designed to look effortless.

Lívia knew better than anyone that effort was usually what rich people paid to make invisible.

— You must be Lívia.

A woman in a mustard blazer crossed the reception area with a tablet in one hand and a coffee in the other. She was in her forties, with short curls, sharp eyes, and the kind of energy that suggested she could solve a power outage and criticize the lighting while doing it.

— Carla Menezes — she said. — Creative director, emergency manager, and person most likely to ask you for the impossible before lunch.

Lívia shook her hand. — I am used to impossible before breakfast.

Carla smiled. — Good. You will survive here.

The office beyond the glass doors was controlled chaos. Fabric samples lay beside floor plans. Someone argued with a florist over the phone. A junior designer walked by carrying a model of a lobby installation with more care than most people held babies. The walls were covered in sketches, color boards, schedules, and photographs of spaces waiting to be transformed.

A junior assistant rushed past carrying a tray of coffee cups with colored labels. Someone had taped a note to the printer that read: IF YOU JAM AGAIN, WE ARE OVER. The chaos should have intimidated Lívia. Instead, it reminded her of São Miguel's studio on a larger budget: people making impossible beauty under deadlines no client believed were unreasonable because clients rarely imagined the hands behind the shine.

For the first time since returning to the capital, Lívia felt something close to hunger that was not fear.

She wanted this.

Not the glamour. Not the proximity to clients who mistook budget for taste. She wanted the work. The clean satisfaction of making an idea stand upright. The chance to become more than a woman who had survived.

Carla led her to a desk near the windows.

— Temporary contract, three-month review, possible renewal. You will coordinate vendor confirmations, client documents, installation schedules, and project notes. You will also learn to identify when designers are lying about how long things take.

— Always longer than they say?

— You may become my favorite.

Lívia set her bag down.

She touched the edge of the desk once, silently claiming the space as hers for now, however briefly.

For a few hours, the work absorbed her. She created login credentials, read the internal project guide, fixed formatting on a vendor sheet, and reorganized a timeline so cleanly that the operations manager stared at it as if she had performed surgery.

— Where did you work before? — he asked.

— Small studio in São Miguel.

— This is better than small-studio training.

Lívia smiled politely. — Small studios do not have departments. They have panic and one printer.

He laughed and left her alone.

Near eleven, Carla appeared beside her desk.

— Come with me. I need you in the Vasconcelos prep meeting.

The name struck like cold water, though Lívia had known it was coming.

She saved the file with hands that did not shake because she did not allow them to.

— I thought I was still onboarding.

— You are. Consider this immersion therapy.

— Is there a shallow end?

— Not with this client.

Carla walked fast. Lívia followed through a hallway into a conference room where four people were already waiting: two designers, the operations manager, and a senior account executive named Bruno who wore his confidence like cologne.

On the screen at the front of the room was the title:

VASCONCELOS GROUP LEGACY HALL RENOVATION

Corporate Anniversary Exhibition and Donor Reception

Lívia sat near the end of the table and opened her notebook.

The first slide showed the headquarters lobby.

The same marble. The same silver letters. The same space where she had placed the folded message on the reception desk and learned that Dante could call her Miss Andrade as if the night before had been a clerical error.

Her pen paused.

Only for a second.

Carla noticed nothing, or pretended not to.

— The client wants the Legacy Hall redesigned before the anniversary reception — Bruno said. — We are combining corporate history, philanthropy, acquisition milestones, and future vision into one immersive experience.

— In human language? — one designer asked.

— A museum for rich people to congratulate themselves in.

The room laughed.

Lívia looked down at her notes to hide the fact that her mouth had almost done the same.

Bruno continued. — Budget is generous. Timeline is obscene. Decision chain is worse. The chairman's office has opinions, the communications department has fear, and the CEO has final approval.

The CEO.

No one needed to say his name.

Lívia wrote: final approval — CEO.

The letters looked harmless on paper.

They were not.

Carla took over, walking them through installation zones. The history corridor. The interactive donor wall. The temporary exhibition showcasing the company's expansion. A private reception area for investors and international guests. It was work Lívia understood immediately: make power look benevolent, make wealth look tasteful, make legacy look inevitable.

— Lívia — Carla said suddenly.

Lívia looked up.

— First impression. You are new, which makes you useful. What do you see?

The room turned toward her.

For a moment, the old instinct rose. Keep quiet. Do not draw attention. Do not correct people who could decide your future.

Then she thought of Noah asking if the tower had teeth.

She looked at the slide again.

— It feels too cold.

Bruno's eyebrows lifted.

— Cold?

— The design. Glass, steel, dates, achievements. It says the company is powerful, but not why anyone should care. If the reception is about legacy, there should be human texture. Workers, communities, families impacted by projects. Otherwise, it is only a hallway full of numbers with better lighting.

Silence.

One designer leaned forward. — She is right.

Carla smiled slowly.

— Keep going.

Lívia felt heat climb her neck, but she continued.

— Also, the donor wall should not be placed before the founding timeline. It makes the philanthropy look like branding instead of consequence. If you want the company to appear responsible, let visitors see the growth first, then the return to community.

Bruno looked at Carla.

— Where did you find her?

— Early and underpaid, like most useful people.

Lívia looked down quickly, but not before Carla's smile deepened.

By the end of the meeting, Lívia had been assigned to organize the first client presentation documents. It was more responsibility than she expected on her first day. It was also impossible to refuse without looking frightened.

After everyone left, Carla remained by the screen.

— You have history with them?

Lívia's body went still.

Carla clicked off the projector.

— Relax. I asked because you looked at the lobby photo like it owed you money.

Lívia could almost laugh at the accuracy.

— I worked an event there years ago. Not my best experience.

— With the company or with the marble?

— Both.

Carla considered her.

— This project is important. If it makes you uncomfortable, tell me now, not after we are standing in their building with a missing installation crew and a CEO asking why the future vision wall is blank.

The sensible answer was to ask for another assignment.

The honest answer was that no assignment at Aster would pay enough if she started by refusing the biggest client in the office.

The truest answer was that she was tired of arranging her life around Dante Vasconcelos without him even knowing he had taken up space.

— I can do the work — Lívia said.

Carla studied her a moment longer.

— Good. But competence is not the same as invincibility. Remember that.

— I will.

She would not.

People who had been poor too long rarely remembered they were allowed to have limits.

At lunch, Lívia ate rice and chicken from a container Helena had packed and called home from the stairwell.

Noah answered on the second ring.

— Mama, Grandma says I cannot put Professor Bear in the washing machine because he has trauma.

— Grandma is right.

— But he smells like bus.

— We will give him a careful bath tonight.

— With bubbles?

— Professor Bear has not earned bubbles.

Noah sighed. — Adults are very strict with professionals.

Lívia smiled.

— How was school?

— A boy named Tomás said my drawing of the tooth building was wrong because buildings do not have teeth.

— And what did you say?

— I said he lacks imagination.

Behind the stairwell door, someone laughed as they passed.

Lívia covered her mouth.

— Try to be kind to Tomás.

— I was. I did not tell him his car drawing had square wheels.

— Very generous.

— Are you coming home soon?

The question softened everything.

— After work.

— Do you like the work?

Lívia looked through the small stairwell window toward the skyline. From that angle, she could not see the Vasconcelos tower, but she knew where it stood.

— I think I might.

— Good. Then make the serious face and win.

Her throat tightened.

— I will try.

After the call, she stood for a moment with the phone pressed to her chest.

Noah did not need a mother ruled by fear.

He needed rent paid, school fees covered, a bedroom with a window, and a life where his mother did not flinch at every familiar building.

By late afternoon, Lívia had assembled a draft presentation pack. She was cross-checking vendor notes when Bruno leaned over the divider.

— Good news or terrible news, depending on your relationship with sleep.

— I have a child. Sleep and I are acquaintances from the past.

— Then you are ready. Client wants an in-person alignment meeting next week at headquarters.

Her fingers stilled on the keyboard.

— Which department?

— Communications, facilities, chairman's office, and apparently the CEO's office wants to attend.

Lívia kept her face neutral.

— Apparently?

— This project is personal for them. Anniversary year, donor money, public image, all that. We were told Mr. Vasconcelos may supervise key approvals directly.

There it was.

Not chance now.

A scheduled collision.

— Is that unusual? — she asked.

Bruno shrugged. — CEOs like pretending they do not micromanage beauty until the flowers are expensive enough.

Lívia forced a small smile.

— I will update the presentation.

— Carla wants you in the meeting. Your comments were useful.

Useful.

She wondered if Dante would find that amusing.

No.

She would not wonder what Dante found anything.

When the office emptied at the end of the day, Lívia remained at her desk, reading the meeting invite after everyone else had left.

Vasconcelos Group Headquarters.

Monday, 10:00 a.m.

Attendees: Aster team, Vasconcelos Communications, Facilities, Office of the CEO.

Her chest felt tight, but not weak.

Five years ago, she had entered that building to beg for five minutes and left with humiliation burning in her throat. Next week, she would enter with a professional badge, a presentation deck, and a reason no security guard could dismiss.

It did not make her safe.

It made her ready.

Lívia closed the laptop and packed her bag.

As she stepped into the evening, her phone buzzed with a final forwarded update from Bruno.

Confirmed: Mr. Dante Vasconcelos will attend.

She stood on the sidewalk while the city moved around her.

For five years, she had kept his name behind a locked door.

Now the door had sent a calendar invitation.

Lívia took one slow breath.

Then she went home to her son.