THE CEO’S UNPLANNED HEIR

CHAPTER FOUR

MAXWELL

“How long?”

Dr. Reyes didn’t answer right away. He looked down at the file on his desk instead, like the paper might rearrange itself into something easier to say.

“Maxwell, we’ve been over this.”

“I know what we’ve been over. I’m asking you how long.”

He finally met my eyes.

“If you keep refusing treatment, I can’t give you a definite timeline.”

I leaned back, staring at a water stain on the ceiling tile instead of at him.

“Give me your best estimate.”

He exhaled slowly. “Around a year. Maybe less. Maybe more.”

A year.

I almost laughed.

Thirty-one years old, and apparently it was time to start measuring my life in months instead of decades.

I’d spent years building Blackwood Industries into a multibillion-dollar company, expanding what my father left me into something he probably never imagined it could become.

I’d made billions from wood. Furniture. Luxury interiors. Private estates. Yachts. Hotels. Things people bought when they had more money than they knew what to do with.

I’d built an empire. And somehow my own body was the one thing on this earth I couldn’t control.

That prognosis was just another number added to the pile — another figure to file away next to the white blood cell counts, the platelet counts, all the numbers doctors had been handing me since my diagnosis. I’d stopped keeping track of them a while ago.

Numbers had never frightened me before. I’d built an empire out of them. Revenue. Investments. Acquisitions. Losses. Every one of them had a solution.

Except this.

“I’m not spending the rest of my life watching a machine tell me how much of it I have left.”

Dr. Reyes leaned forward. “Chemotherapy isn’t a death sentence, Maxwell.”

“No. But it isn’t a guarantee either.”

“Nobody said it was.”

“My father did it.”

The room went quiet.

“He spent the last months of his life believing there was still hope,” I continued. “The vomiting. The weakness. The pain. He lost so much weight he couldn’t recognize himself in the mirror anymore.” I looked back at Dr. Reyes. “And where did it get him?”

“Your father’s case was different.”

“Everyone says that until it isn’t.”

“You’re not your father.”

“No.” I stood and adjusted my jacket. “I’m not.”

I picked my watch up off the desk.

“I’ve watched what treatment does to a person. I’m not interested in spending whatever time I have left being poisoned just so everyone else can feel like we’re doing something.”

Dr. Reyes stared at me. “And what exactly do you intend to do with that time?”

I didn’t answer right away. I’d already thought about it more than once. I’d keep working. I’d travel. I’d give more. I’d make sure the foundations were funded properly — the scholarships would continue, the children’s hospital would get finished.

And my mother.

My jaw tightened.

Sunday dinner, three weeks ago. She’d set the table for two, same as always, then spent forty minutes on Diane Castellano’s granddaughter — the christening, the tiny white dress, how loud and full Diane’s house had gotten with three grandchildren running through it now. She hadn’t been subtle about why she was telling me.

“I’m not asking for much, Maxwell.” She’d refilled my wine before I could say I didn’t want more. “Just don’t let me die without holding one of my own.”

She knew about the diagnosis — I’d told her myself, the day I got it. She’d begged me for weeks afterward, tried everything from tears to ultimatums to get me into chemo. I refused every time. Eventually she stopped fighting me on it. I still didn’t know if that was peace or just a quieter kind of denial — a way of loving me without having to look straight at what was coming. Either way, all of it had been redirected here instead: a wife, children, a house loud with noise she could complain about and secretly love. She believed no amount of money could replace that. Maybe she was right.

It didn’t change anything about what I was working with. I wasn’t going to spend whatever was left of my life pretending to be a man I wasn’t.

I walked toward the door.

“Maxwell.”

I stopped.

“Think about it.”

I glanced back at him. “I have.”

Then I left.

Mathias usually drove me around town, but I’d given him the day off. I wanted the quiet of driving myself for once — no conversation to hold up, no one watching my face in the rearview mirror.

I was meeting Raymond. I needed the latest update on the adoption process.

I loved children. I’d spent years hosting galas and fundraisers to fund scholarships, healthcare, housing—anything that gave a kid a better shot than the one they’d started with. That had been the priority for as long as I could remember.

Five galas last year alone, all for the same reason. It wasn’t charity work to me. It was closer to a hobby — one that happened to keep a few hundred kids fed and housed along the way.

In time, I pulled up outside Raymond’s office. Easier for me to come to him than to make him fight traffic to mine, one of the small privileges of being the client instead of the one billing by the hour. The street was quiet for a Saturday. No driver, no assistant trailing two steps behind with my calendar. Just me, the car, and forty minutes to think about a conversation I already suspected wouldn’t go the way I wanted.

——

“I spoke with the adoption agency.”

“And?”

Raymond hesitated. “There’s a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The paperwork’s going to take longer than we expected.”

I frowned. “How long?”

“Several months, at minimum.”

“Months?”

“They have to complete background checks, a home assessment, financial review, medical evaluation, and a handful of other things before they’ll approve the placement.”

I leaned back in my chair. “I can have all of that completed within a week.”

“Max, that’s not how it works.”

“Everything has a price.”

“Not this.”

I stared at him.

Raymond sighed. “There’s another issue.”

“What?”

“Because you’re unmarried, some agencies want additional assessments before approving a sole adoptive parent. And considering your medical history —“ He stopped.

I already knew where this was going.

“They want a medical evaluation?.”

“Yes.”

“And if they decide I’m too sick to raise a child?”

Raymond didn’t answer. The silence told me everything I needed to know.

“Find another agency.”

“I’ve already contacted three.”

“And?”

“Same problem.”

I rubbed my jaw.

Raymond had said this was one thing money couldn’t fix.

He was wrong. Everything had a price. I just hadn’t found this one yet — and I didn’t have months to go looking for it.