Heiress by blood, His by Fate

Chapter Two - The Envelope changes Everything!

The black car was waiting outside my building at exactly seven in the morning, clean and silent and completely out of place on a street like mine, parked between a rusted bicycle and a bin that hadn't been emptied in days.

I stood at my window for a moment before going down, just watching it.

The driver was already outside, standing by the rear door in a dark jacket, hands folded in front of him, facing the building, as he knew exactly which window I was at.

I pulled on my coat, picked up my bag, and left.

The staircase felt longer than usual on the way down.

When I stepped out through the front door, the driver gave me a small nod.

"Miss Voss," he said, and opened the door.

I got in.

The seat was soft in a way that felt almost unfamiliar, the kind of soft that costs money, and the inside of the car smelled clean and faintly warm, and for a moment I just sat there feeling like I had stepped into someone else's life.

The driver didn't speak again, and I didn't try to start a conversation.

I watched through the window as my street disappeared behind us.

The corner shop where I used to buy bread on credit.

The pharmacy where the woman behind the counter knew my name.

The café where I had just been fired the day before.

All of it slipping past the glass and fading, and I felt something move through my chest that I couldn't quite name, not sadness exactly, more like the feeling of a door closing behind you before you have decided if you wanted to leave.

The city changed as we drove.

The streets got wider, the buildings got taller and cleaner, the noise got softer somehow, and the people walking on the pavements started looking like people who had never once worried about rent.

I pressed the letter against my leg through the fabric of my coat, just to feel it there.

Heir.

The word still didn't sit right.

My mother had died when I was seven, and I had grown up with my aunt Clara, who worked long shifts and came home tired but always made sure I had what I needed, and not once, not in all those years, had anyone ever said anything about a family called Voss or a family estate or any of this.

If there was a family out there with money and a name and an estate, why had no one come for me before now?

Why wait until I had nothing left?

That question sat in my stomach the whole ride.

The car slowed as we turned onto a road I had never been on before, tree-lined and private, with hedges on both sides so tall you couldn't see beyond them.

And then the gate came into view.

It was massive, black iron with the letter V pressed into the centre of it in a way that looked both old and deliberately permanent, like whoever put it there wanted everyone who passed it to understand that this family had always been here and always would be.

My breath caught.

Beyond the gate, the estate stretched out wide and endless, a long driveway cutting through manicured grounds, tall marble columns at the front of the building, windows that caught the morning light like they were made of something better than glass, and guards stationed at intervals that made it clear this place was not just wealthy, it was protected.

The gate opened as the car approached, no pause, no buzzer, just opened, like it already knew we were coming.

The car moved slowly through it.

I straightened in my seat without meaning to.

We stopped in front of the main entrance, and the driver came around to open my door, and I stepped out onto stone that felt solid and old and expensive under my feet.

The air smelled different here.

Clean and cool with something underneath it, something I couldn't name, like power had a smell and this place was full of it.

I was still looking up at the columns when I heard footsteps.

Measured.

Unhurried.

A man came through the front doors and walked toward me, and something about the way he moved made me stop breathing for just a second. Tall and broad with a dark jacket and eyes that found mine immediately, as he had already located me before he even stepped outside.

His face gave nothing away.

"Miss Voss," he said.

That voice. The same one from the phone.

"I'm Lucien Hale," he said, stopping a few feet from me, "I have been assigned to oversee your protection and your transition into the estate."

I looked at him properly.

He was younger than I expected from the voice, late twenties maybe, but he carried himself with the kind of stillness that made you feel like he was older than the room.

"My transition?" I said.

"Your adjustment," he corrected, as the difference mattered.

"What exactly are you protecting me from?" I asked.

He glanced at the driver briefly, then back at me.

"We should go inside," he said.

It wasn't a suggestion.

I picked up my bag and followed him through the front doors, and the moment I stepped inside, the air changed again, cooler this time, quieter, with the kind of silence that comes from high ceilings and stone floors and too many rooms for sound to settle in.

I looked up.

The entrance hall was enormous.

Paintings on the walls, a staircase curving upward in two directions, chandeliers that looked like they had been hanging since before my grandmother was born.

And at the top of the left staircase, standing perfectly still with her arms folded, was a girl watching me.

Young.

Pretty.

With eyes so sharp they felt like something being pressed against my skin.

She smiled slowly.

It was the kind of smile that didn't offer anything.

She walked down the stairs one step at a time, unhurried, like she had done this before, like she had watched other girls walk through that door and already knew exactly how their story ended.