The Billionaire's Hidden Son is My Revenge

Marlowe The invitation wasn't mine. I'd lifted the name off a guest list three weeks earlier, then paid a forger four hundred dollars for the rest. Tonight, my forged identity is Selene Cross. A twenty-six-year-old shipping company heiress from Geneva. Nobody at the Kingsley Corp gala would know the real Selene Cross wasn't coming. I have made sure of that myself. I have spent the past three weeks memorizing a life that wasn't mine, a city I've never visited, a family history that wasn’t mine, just so I'd have the right answer if anyone asked the wrong question. The ballroom smelled like candle wax and old money. Chandeliers dripped light onto floors so polished I could see my own mask staring back at me. Gold, feathered, perfect, and expensive. Exactly the way Selene wore masks at the Kingsley annual gala. It hid everything but my mouth and my eyes. I wasn't here for the champagne. So, I kept telling the waitresses in their immaculate white a polite no. I needed to be clear-headed for why I was here and I don’t trust myself after a glass of champagne. I was here for a locked office on the third floor, and the folder inside it that could prove Kingsley Corp faked the numbers that buried my father's company, and buried my father with it. I had ninety minutes before the security rotation changed. I'd counted the guards twice already, once at the gate and once by the east stairwell. I slipped away from the crowd toward the service stairs, keeping my pace slow enough to look like I'd lost my way. A guard stepped into my path before I'd made it past the second landing, arms crossed, eyes moving over my mask like he was assessing if I was a threat. Sh*t sh*t sh*t! "Guests stay on the main floor," he said. "Third floor's private tonight." "I was looking for the powder room. I must have taken a wrong turn." "Powder room's back the way you came." I thanked him and turned around slow, my pulse loud enough that I was certain he could hear it too. That office would have to wait for later when the party thinned and the guards probably changed shifts. What I hadn't counted on was him. He found me near the staircase, two glasses of champagne in his hands. A black mask covered everything above his jaw. "You look like you're planning something," he said. "I'm planning to leave early," I said. "This entire gala is bad company for me." I chuckled nervously. "Careful. I know most of the company here." "Then you'd know I'm right." He laughed at that, low enough that only I could hear it. It should have annoyed me but it didn't. He handed me a glass. I didn't ask his name and he didn't offer it either. Everyone in that room was pretending to be someone else, so a name felt beside the point. "You don't look like you belong to any of these families," I said. "Neither do you. Your type is usually the more interesting kind of guest." An older woman in emerald silk drifted past us just then, squinting at my mask a beat too long, like she was trying to place Selene Cross's face against a memory that didn't quite fit. "Selene, darling, is that you? I thought you were still in Geneva." My stomach dropped, though I kept my voice light and controlled. "Change of plans. You know how restless I get." She smiled, satisfied, and moved on before I had to invent anything further. He watched the whole exchange without comment, one eyebrow raised just slightly above his mask. "Popular tonight," he said. "Apparently more than I planned to be." We danced once. He kept space between us at first, like he expected me to change my mind. By the second song his hand had moved to the small of my back. By the third, I'd forgotten to watch the clock on the far wall. "You're not from here," he said against my ear. "What gave it away?" "You keep looking at the exits like you might need one." I did need one. Just not from him. He pulled me off the dance floor and through a side door before I could answer, into a hallway lit low enough that gold looked like firelight. "I have a room upstairs," he said. "No cameras. No names, if you'd rather." "I'd rather," I said. Maybe it was his audacity, or just how good he smelt. Or maybe I actually need some kind of distraction to feel good because planning to attend this has been so stressful. The entire ordeal with the Kingsleys has been very exhausting. I told myself as I walked up the stairs with this stranger that it could even be strategy, staying close to money, staying close to secrets. He definitely looked and talked like he came from money but on second thoughts, everyone at this gala was crazy rich! So whatever excuses I was coming up with were lies. I decided to just live in the moment. What’s the worst that can happen? We are both wearing masks anyway. The stairs up to his suite felt longer than they should have, his hand loose around mine, neither of us speaking the rest of the way. His hands were steady in a way that made mine want to shake. Immediately we got into the suite, he kissed me like he had nowhere else to be that night, and to be honest, neither did I. “The door… we haven’t shut the door.” I managed to whisper. He grunted and shut the door with his left hand while his right fondled my boobs so hungrily. The suite was very dark and quiet, and for the first time in years I forgot to count exits. The only source of light was a bulb in the corridor that spilled some light rays into the room. His mouth found my collarbone before my mask hit the floor. He said my fake name against my skin like he wanted to memorize it, and I let him, because in that room it was the only true thing either of us had given the other. Every place his hands went, mine followed, until neither of us could tell who was chasing who, and the folder on the third floor in that locked office stopped mattering entirely. He fuc*ed me until we were breathless. I was amazed at how his strokes switched easily between deep and slow and fast and light. His breath smelled of strong liquor and that combined with the musky oud his body smelt off drove me nuts. By the time the room went quiet, the sky outside had turned the color of a healing bruise. I woke before he did, the way I always do when I'm somewhere I shouldn't be. I dressed in the dark with my shoes in my hand rather than risk the sound of them on the floor. I told myself I still had time before the party fully ended, and that the third floor might be worth one more attempt while the house slept around me. The service stairs were darker now, most of the sconces dimmed for the night, and I made it two floors up before I heard voices coming from just around the corner. Two guards, awake and alert, stationed directly outside the office door I needed. Whatever chance I'd had earlier in the night, it had closed along with the most of the party. A lot of the gala attendees had gone; just the heavy party mongers remained. I turned back before either of them saw me, my one real lead for the night dissolving into nothing more than a locked door I couldn't reach. My entire reason for paying that forger nearly all my savings was useless now because I couldn’t think of a good reason to give those guards so I could access that office. Anyway, I told myself I had probably gotten what I came for, a distraction and nothing more. Afterall, my friends have been preaching for me to get laid. Apparently, according to them, I was getting too cranky and lack of good s*x was the reason. I almost believed it until I reached the hallway outside his door. Portraits lined both walls, heavy gold frames holding generations of a family whose name I hadn't bothered to ask for. I meant to walk straight past them, and I don't fully know why I didn't. One photo stopped me. It was a picture from one of the previous family galas. A young man in a dark suit, unmasked, mid-laugh, caught my eye. Weren’t those lips just on mine? Weren’t those hands just all over me? Underneath it, in small gold letters: The Kingsley Family, Founders Gala. I read the name under his face twice, just to be sure my eyes weren't lying to me. Hold on, the Kingsleys have a son?! Oh my God. Under his face was Weston Kingsley. Son of the man whose company had signed the papers that ended my father's life. My shoes slipped out of my hand before I even noticed I'd let go of them, and I stood there utterly dumbfounded. I had snuck into this gala to get information that would vindicate my father. Yet somehow, I just slept with the son of the man who caused us so much pain. Oh my goodness; what have I done?!