His Forbidden surrogate

THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK

Wren confronted him the next morning over breakfast. She couldn't hold it in any longer. The question had been burning in her chest since the moment she'd heard him through the study door the night before. She'd rehearsed the words three times before he even sat down, and they still came out sharper than she meant.

"There's a deadline," she said, setting down her coffee. "About keeping this private. You never mentioned that."

Gideon's fork paused halfway to his mouth. His whole posture went rigid, like she'd caught him at something.

"You were listening at my study door."

"I was getting water, and you were talking loud enough to hear through a closed door," Wren shot back. "Don't turn this around on me. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it doesn't change anything about your role in this."

"It changes everything," Wren said, setting her cup down harder than she meant to. Coffee sloshed close to the rim. "You promised privacy. You made it sound permanent. Instead, there's a clock running that I didn't even know existed. I've been living inside these walls for weeks now, trusting you to mean what you said."

Gideon set down his fork, his jaw tight.

"The board requires disclosure once the pregnancy passes the first trimester safely. It's a formality for shareholders, nothing more."

"A formality that puts my entire life on display without my consent."

"I didn't think you needed to know the internal mechanics of a corporate will."

"I needed to know anything that affects my privacy," Wren snapped, pushing her plate away, her appetite gone. "That was the one thing you swore you'd protect. That was the entire reason I agreed to any of this."

Gideon didn't answer right away. His eyes dropped to the table, his jaw working like he was chewing on the truth before letting it out. His fingers tightened around his coffee cup, his knuckles going pale against the porcelain.

"You're right," he said finally, quieter than she expected. "I should have told you. That's on me."

The admission caught her off guard. She'd expected another cold deflection, not something close to an apology. It unsettled her more than his coldness ever had because now she couldn't keep him safely filed away as the villain she'd already decided, days ago, that he was.

"Why didn't you?" she asked, softer now.

Gideon was quiet for a long moment, staring at his coffee like it held the answer.

"Because the last time I told a woman the full truth about my family's business, she used it against me."

Wren's chest tightened despite herself.

"Camille?"

His eyes snapped up, surprised.

"How do you know that name?"

"Delia mentioned her once. In passing."

Gideon's face closed off completely.

"She's not relevant to this conversation."

But two days later, Camille proved him wrong.

She walked into Sterling Manor like she still owned every room in it, dressed in red, every inch of her radiating calculated confidence—the kind of entrance built to be noticed.

Wren heard the click of her heels on marble before she saw her, and something about the sound alone made her arms prickle.

"Gideon, darling," she said, ignoring Wren completely. "I heard the most fascinating rumour about a little surrogate arrangement. I simply had to see for myself."

"You need to leave," Gideon said, his voice dropping several cold degrees, colder than Wren had heard him speak to anyone since she arrived.

"In a moment."

Camille's gaze slid to Wren, cataloguing her from head to toe with open contempt.

"So this is her. How disappointingly ordinary."

"That's enough," Gideon said, stepping between them as if he could shield Wren from the words already spoken.

Camille ignored him. She stepped closer to Wren, smiling in a way that didn't reach her eyes. She studied Wren carefully, the way someone studies an opponent they've already decided how to beat.

"Has he told you anything real about himself, sweetheart? Or just enough to keep you compliant?"

"I know what I need to know," Wren said evenly, refusing to give her the reaction she wanted.

"Do you?"

Camille tilted her head, clearly enjoying the silence stretching between them, savouring it like she'd been waiting for this moment.

"Then you should ask him what happened to the Calloway family. Ask him what his father did to build half of this empire—and watch how quickly that charming honesty of his disappears."

The name hit Wren like ice water down her spine.

Every muscle in her body went still.

Calloway.

Her own name, buried nine years ago along with her father's ruined reputation, said casually in this stranger's mouth like a weapon she didn't understand yet.

"Camille."

Gideon's voice was low, dangerous.

"Leave. Now."

Camille smiled, unbothered, already turning for the door.

"Ask him, sweetheart. Before it's too late to matter."

She left as suddenly as she'd arrived, her heels fading down the hallway until the house fell completely silent.

Wren didn't move. Couldn't.

Gideon stood a few feet away, his jaw set, refusing to meet her eyes.

He hadn't denied a single word Camille had said.

Not the name. Not history. Not the accusation buried inside it.

And if he wasn't going to deny it, Wren was going to find out exactly what he was hiding—tonight, with or without his help, no matter what it cost her to hear it.