THE CEO’s FORGOTTEN LEGACY

Chapter Three: A NAME HE SHOULDN’T KNOW

A NAME HE SHOULDN’T KNOW

People think secrets are like shadows quiet, passive, forgettable.

They’re wrong.

Secrets are alive.

They breathe.

They hunt.

They grow teeth.

Mine started growing teeth the moment I turned thirteen, when my mother Thea Carter, professional liar and part-time manipulator told me the truth she never wanted to say but couldn’t take back after it slipped:

“Your father is Daniel Hart.”

Daniel Hart.

The ridiculously polished, ruthlessly admired CEO of Hartwell Dynamics.

The man whose smiling face is on billboards, magazines, Forbes lists, and the screensavers of corporate worshippers everywhere.

The man who has a perfect family, a picture-frame wife, and two children everyone swoons over because they supposedly “represent the future of the company.”

The man who has never once said my name.

The man who doesn’t even know I exist.

Tonight, as I drive through the quiet suburban roads after my car finally started, I feel the familiar bitterness clawing back up my throat.

My mother lies like other people breathe

effortlessly, constantly.

But that lie…

That one truth she didn’t want to speak…

It changed me.

It made me restless.

Curious.

Furious.

Determined.

And somehow tonight I feel like I’ve stepped too close to the life that was stolen from me.

Too close to something I should never touch.

Too close to her.

Aria.

God, even her name hits me like déjà vu.

Like a memory I’m supposed to have, but don’t.

I keep replaying her face those soft stormy eyes, calm and chaotic at the same time. Her voice. The way she laughed. The feather keychain I stupidly gave her like some cliché romance i***t. I don’t do connections. I don’t do softness.

But she looked at me like she saw something.

And that terrifies me.

I pull into the driveway of our townhouse, a modest place far from the glossy neighborhoods where Hart and his “real” family live. The street is quiet, a contrast from the constant noise in my head.

The lights inside are still on.

Which means Mom is awake.

Of course she is.

I brace myself before stepping inside.

She’s seated at the kitchen island, hunched over a glass of wine, her hair tied messily like someone too tired to care. Her eyes flick to me instantly.

“You’re late,” she says.

Not “How are you?”

Not “Are you okay?”

Just another tally mark on her mental list of complaints.

“Car trouble,” I answer, tossing my keys on the counter. “Battery died.”

She tuts. “You should have checked before you left.”

“I’m not psychic, Mom.”

“The attitude is unnecessary.”

“So is the wine at midnight,” I mutter.

Her eyes harden. “Careful.”

I clench my jaw and drop into the chair across from her.

There’s a moment one of those taut, heavy silences where you know what’s coming before it arrives.

“Why were you in Bishop Heights?” she asks.

Damn it.

I should have known she’d check my location. She claims it’s because she “worries,” but I know it’s because she fears I’ll stumble into the truth she’s tried to hide for years.

The truth I already know.

I shrug. “Driving. Clearing my head.”

“You never drive there.”

I keep my voice flat. “Is it illegal now?”

“Liam”

“Mom,” I cut her off sharply. “I wasn’t stalking the Hart estate, if that’s what you’re panicking about.”

Her expression freezes.

Got her.

She grips the stem of her wine glass with too much force. “I’m not panicking.”

“You are.”

“It’s not safe for you to go near that place.”

It.

That place.

She never uses his name unless she has to.

Like it burns her tongue.

Like she doesn’t want to taste the past she regrets.

“Why?” I ask, even though I know exactly what she’ll say.

But I want to hear her say it.

Again.

“For your own good,” she mutters, the usual line. “Nothing about that household concerns you. Your life is here. With me.”

She means: I can’t risk you ruining the perfect lies I built.

I lean back, crossing my arms. “If my father wasn’t a CEO, would you still be this terrified?”

Her face drains.

“Liam…”

“Would you still hide his name like a crime?”

“You don’t understand.”

I slam my palm on the counter. “Then explain it to me!”

She flinches.

Then silence.

Her lips tremble not out of emotion, but out of defense.

She whispers, “You should have never been born.”

The words slice through my chest.

Not because they’re new.

Because every time she says them, they hurt exactly the same.

She inhales shakily. “I didn’t mean ”

“Yes, you did,” I spit. “You always mean it.”

She presses a hand to her forehead, as if I’m the problem. “I told him. I tried to tell him about you and your sister.”

“And he didn’t believe you?” I scoff.

“He didn’t… want to believe me,” she says quietly.

That stings more.

She drinks again, turning away.

I breathe hard, trying to steady myself as the truth twists inside me.

A sister.

Somewhere out there is a girl who looks like me, whose DNA mirrors mine, whose life was easier, brighter, better because she was born to the “right” woman.

A girl who has never known she has another reflection living in the shadows.

A girl who has no idea I exist.

I grab a bottle of water from the fridge instead of saying something unforgivable.

My mother stares at me again, her eyes slightly glassy. “Promise me you won’t go back to that neighborhood.”

My throat tightens.

Too late.

I already have.

And I met someone who made my world tilt.

“Liam.”

Her voice is sharp. Fearful.

“I need your word.”

I lift my eyes and lie to her ironically giving her a taste of her own medicine.

“Fine. I won’t go back.”

She exhales, relieved.

Idiot.

Of course I’m going back.

Because for the first time in years, something feels real. Alive. Magnetic.

Her.

Aria.

I barely sleep.

My mind keeps looping the same images: her smile, the fall of her hair, the way her eyes softened when she talked about escaping noise.

Twins have a strange instinct.

We can feel things before we understand them.

But Aria…

There was something deeper.

Something sharp.

Something invisible.

Something inevitable.

By the time morning light pushes through my window blinds, I’ve made up my mind.

I need to see her again.

I don’t know why.

No I do know why.

Because my whole life has been carved by lies and half-truths and invisible walls, and standing there with her felt like standing near a crack in those walls.

A place where light got in.

I get dressed quickly nothing dramatic, just a hoodie, jeans, and the faint hope that I won’t do something stupid today.

Like tell her my last name.

Or ask if she feels the same strange pull.

Or touch her.

Or tell her we might be connected in ways neither of us can afford.

But I go anyway.

Outside, the air is crisp and cool, tinged with early autumn.

I drive slowly through Bishop Heights, taking the same road as last night. Houses line the street like magazine photos spotless lawns, perfect hedges, front porches that whisper normal.

And then I see her.

Sitting on the bus stop bench with a book in her lap, headphones around her neck, eyes tilted toward the sky like she’s thinking of something too big to say out loud.

My heartbeat stumbles.

I pull over.

Roll down the window.

“Aria.”

She startles just a little but her expression softens when she sees me.

“Liam?”

The sound of my name in her voice is a problem.

A dangerous problem.

I get out of the car and walk toward her.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “What are you doing here?”

I try for casual. “Just driving.”

“You drove all the way back here to… drive?”

My lips twitch. “Maybe I needed to return the weirdness you caused me last night.”

Her eyebrows lift. “I caused you weirdness?”

“Major weirdness.”

She snorts. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Probably.”

A pause.

A breath.

A shift.

“Want a ride to school?” I ask softer.

She hesitates.

And then nods.

“Sure.”

Inside the car, it feels like the air changes not heavier, not awkward just charged. A quiet charge, like a spark waiting to leap.

She studies the dashboard. “You fixed the battery.”

“Yeah. With a jump and some begging.”

She laughs. “What did you do, pray to the engine?”

“Basically.”

Another smile.

This girl smiles like she’s been sad for a long time and only recently remembered how.

I like it too much.

Halfway to her school, she asks, “Do you live near here?”

Damn.

The question I wasn’t ready for.

I keep my eyes on the road. “Not far.”

“Is that a lie?”

“It’s a selective truth.”

“Selective truths are lies with confidence,” she says.

My chest squeezes. “You sound like my mother.”

She elbows me lightly. “Tragic.”

“Very.”

She hesitates, then says quietly, “My dad lies a lot too.”

I glance at her.

Her eyes are on the window.

Soft. Tired. Brave.

“Does he lie to protect you?” I ask.

“No.”

Her voice is almost a whisper.

“He lies to protect someone else.”

Something clenches in me.

I almost ask: Does he protect the mistress?

But that would give away too much.

Hint at too much.

Risk too much.

So instead I ask gently, “Does it hurt?”

She nods. “More than I admit.”

I grip the wheel tighter.

I want to ask who he is.

I want to connect dots.

I want to hear what she doesn’t know.

But I shouldn’t.

Getting close to her

It’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done.

We reach her school.

She unbuckles slowly, then turns to me.

“So…” she says softly, “do I get to see you again?”

My pulse spikes.

Every logical part of me says no.

But logic has never made my heart beat this way.

And something inside me something I don’t understand yet won’t let me walk away.

“Yes,” I say.

Her lips part softly.

“Text me,” she says, handing me her phone.

I enter my number.

She takes it back.

Looks at it.

Smiles.

I don’t move until she disappears into the building.

When she’s gone, the air in my chest collapses.

I rest my forehead against the steering wheel.

And whisper the truth into the silence:

“We’re in so much trouble.”

Because for the first time in my life

I want something I am forbidden from having.

Her.

The girl with my eyes.

The girl who doesn’t know she’s my blood.

The girl who doesn’t know she’s my father’s “forgotten legacy.”

The girl who will hate me one day when the truth finally breaks.

Yet I still want her.

More than I should.

More than I’m allowed.

More than anything.