Bidding on the Billioaire

Chapter 3

The invitation arrived in a black envelope.

No return address. No embossed crest. Just Lila's name in white script and a time: 7:30 p.m. sharp.

The location: Voss Holdings Private Estate. North River View.

It might as well have said, "Welcome to another world."

Lila stood at the base of the sweeping stone staircase, her fingers wrapped around the violin case like it was a lifeline. Her coat felt too thin for the cold elegance of this place two stories of glass, steel, and silence perched above the river like a crown.

The door opened before she could knock.

A man in a sharp gray suit gestured for her to enter without a word. Inside, the air was cool, infused with faint notes of sandalwood and wealth. Real wealth. The kind that didn't speak loudly, it just stared you down with ancient oil paintings and glass chandeliers.

She followed the man through an open atrium and into a drawing room more like an art gallery than a space for human comfort. Everything was too clean, too intentional.

And then—

"Miss Evans."

Killian.

He stood near the fireplace, dressed in a tailored black suit, glass in hand, posture relaxed. But nothing about his presence was soft. He was the kind of man who could command a storm by simply whispering to the wind.

"You came," he said.

"I said I would." She swallowed. "And I don't break contracts."

His smile didn't reach his eyes. "A woman of principle. Rarer than diamonds these days."

"Where do I perform?"

He gestured toward the open archway, where a sleek grand piano sat under soft lights. "There. You have twenty minutes. Just for me and one guest."

"One guest?"

"She's curious about you."

That froze her. "Who?"

But before he could answer, a woman entered the room.

Tall. Elegant. White-blonde hair in a chignon. Ice-blue heels clicking against the marble. She didn't need to be introduced—Lila had seen her in headlines before.

Vivienne Blackwell.

CEO of a rival hedge fund. Power broker. Billionaire in her own right. And, if the gossip columns were right, Killian's former lover.

Lila felt her stomach twist.

Vivienne looked her over like she was inspecting a piece of antique furniture. "So you're the one Killian couldn't stop talking about at the gala."

"I didn't know he was talking about me."

"Oh, darling," she said smoothly. "He doesn't talk about anyone unless they're useful."

Killian's jaw tightened slightly, but he didn't interject.

Lila set down her violin case with steady hands, though her heart was racing.

This was no simple performance.

This was a test.

She played like the room wasn't full of vipers.

The first note broke the silence like sunlight cracking a storm.

It was Bach. G minor. Bold. Defiant.

Her fingers moved with practiced ease, but her heart carried the weight. Every note was drawn from her mother's breath, from the rent bill tucked into her pocket, from the cold nights she played in subway tunnels and empty lounges.

She didn't perform for Vivienne.

Or even for Killian.

She performed for herself.

And when she finished, the room didn't clap.

Killian simply said, "Again."

Her head snapped up. "What?"

"Again. Something different this time."

Her jaw clenched. "You said twenty minutes."

"I'll pay for twenty more."

She hesitated, then raised the bow again.

This time, it was a piece she'd written herself. Quiet. Aching. A memory in sound.

When it ended, Vivienne stood slowly. "Well. She's good."

"She's exceptional," Killian said, still watching Lila like she was a riddle.

Vivienne gave a smile that didn't quite touch her lips. "Talent is easy to find. But the story behind the song... That's what makes something dangerous."

She turned to Lila. "Be careful with him, Miss Evans. He doesn't collect things unless he's planning to use them."

Then she left the room in a soft rustle of silk and frost.

~~~

Lila exhaled when she was gone.

Killian finally moved toward her.

"She's not wrong," Lila said quietly, not meeting his eyes. "You're using me."

"Am I?"

"I don't know what you want, but I know it's not just music."

He took another step. "You don't want to be used. But you still came."

"I didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice."

She looked up at him then, fire in her eyes. "Not for people like me."

That landed. For a moment, Killian didn't speak. Then, something flickered across his expression.

Regret? No. He didn't seem like a man who allowed that kind of softness.

He turned away.

"Your father was a man of choices."

The air went still.

Lila's voice dropped to a whisper. "You knew him?"

"I knew of him."

"You said you did research on me, but you didn't just mean the violin, did you?"

Killian's back was still turned. "Not tonight."

She stepped forward. "Then when?"

He glanced back over his shoulder. "When you're ready to hear the whole truth. Not just the part that fits the story you've told yourself."

Lila's breath caught.

There it was again. That shadow behind his eyes. That knowledge he hadn't yet given her.

And suddenly, the distance between them felt smaller. Charged.

"You're playing a dangerous game," she said.

"So are you."

He looked at her like he was trying to memorize her face. Then he walked toward the door and held it open.

"Your car is waiting. Take the rest of the night. The next performance is in three days."

Lila wanted to ask more. She wanted to scream, cry, demand answers.

Instead, she picked up her violin case and walked out in silence.

Outside, in the backseat of the luxury town car, she opened her phone and did something she hadn't done in years.

She searched her father's name.

Richard Evans.

An old headline blinked on the screen:

"Evans and Voss: Once Partners, Now Enemies. The Silent Collapse of a Billion-Dollar Empire."

Lila scrolled further, heart racing.

Pictures. A grainy courtroom sketch. A younger man with familiar eyes.

And beside him... Killian Voss. Just a boy then.

Lila's fingers tightened around the phone.

She wasn't the only one playing music in this game.

And the man holding the strings?

He had once watched her father fall.

~~~

The night after the performance, Lila didn't sleep.

Not because of the elegance of the estate, or Vivienne's razor-edged words.

But because of that article.

The image of her father standing beside Killian's. A courtroom. A collapse.

And the headline:

"Evans and Voss: Once Partners, Now Enemies."

She'd never even known her father was involved in business with the Voss family. He'd died when she was ten, at least, that's what her mother always told her. A car crash. Nothing more.

But the truth was unraveling faster than she could catch it.

And somehow, Killian Voss had known all along.

Lila sat at the kitchen table in her small Brooklyn apartment. The city filtered in through cracked windows, car horns, laughter, the faint buzz of neon.

She had her father's violin resting beside her, untouched.

And her mother, asleep in the other room, unaware that the past she'd buried was crawling back with a vengeance.

She opened her laptop and clicked through article after article.

Richard Evans.

A respected venture capitalist. Silent partner in several multi-million dollar companies. Then—scandal. A betrayal. Court documents sealed.

But one name kept appearing next to his:

Nathaniel Voss.

Killian's father.

There were no solid details. No convictions. No interviews. Just rumors of embezzlement. Allegations swept under the rug.

And a settlement that silenced everything.

Then one final headline.

"Evans Declares Bankruptcy Weeks Before Mysterious Death."

The timeline didn't make sense.

Her mother said he died in a car crash. But this article didn't mention that at all.

No accident. No obituary. Just silence.

And in the middle of it, the boy who would grow up to become Killian Voss.

Why her? Why now?

She shut the laptop and stared into the dark.

The next morning, a black SUV waited outside her apartment. Right on time.

She considered not getting in. She considered walking away from the contract, the mansion, the man who seemed to hold answers like secrets in his clenched fist.

But she didn't.

Because the closer she got to Killian Voss, the closer she came to understanding what happened to her father.

And herself.

The drive uptown was silent. Her driver never spoke unless absolutely necessary.

When the gates of the Voss private estate opened, she felt it again that pressure in her chest. Like she was walking into a storm she didn't know how to stop.

But this time, when the door opened, Killian wasn't waiting in the drawing room.

Instead, it was an assistant.

"You're not performing today," the woman said crisply. "Mr. Voss has requested your presence upstairs."

Upstairs.

She hadn't been upstairs yet. Not once.

Not when she performed. Not even when she signed the contract.

Every time she'd been here, Killian kept her in the same three rooms. Public rooms. Elegant. Distant.

But now... upstairs.

She followed the assistant to a marble staircase, up to a long hallway lined with minimalist art and muted lighting. The floors were silent under her feet.

At the end of the corridor: an open door.

Inside was a study. Dark wood shelves. Floor-to-ceiling windows. And behind the desk—

Killian.

No suit today.

A navy shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow. A few undone buttons. A man in his private skin, not his public armor.

He didn't look up when she entered. Just motioned to the chair across from him.

"You found the articles," he said.

So he had known she would search.

Lila sat, but didn't relax.

"You wanted me to."

He looked at her now. "I needed you to."

"Why?" Her voice cracked a little. "Why bring me here? Why use music, of all things, to draw me in?"

"Because it's the only thing you'd trust."

Lila blinked. "You don't know what I trust."

"I know enough." He leaned forward. "You don't trust men. You don't trust wealth. You don't trust anything you can't hold in your hands or earn with your own sweat. But music?" He tapped the table once. "That, you trust."

She hated that he was right.

"I'm not some pawn you get to move around your glass palace, Killian."

"No. You're the daughter of the man my father ruined."

There it was.

Truth.

Cold. Unvarnished. Brutal.

Lila's breath left her chest like a punch. "So this is what? Revenge? You bring me here, parade me like some collectible, so you can sleep better at night?"

"No." His voice dropped. "I brought you here because I'm trying to fix something. For both of us."

She narrowed her eyes. "Fix what?"

"Legacies."

He stood and walked toward the window, his posture tense, like the truth weighed too much on his shoulders.

"My father destroyed yours," he said quietly. "He framed him. Used him. Then cut him out of everything. Your family was left with nothing. I was seventeen when I found the files. Hidden accounts. Payments. I took them to my mother, and she—she made them disappear."

Lila stared.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I didn't have proof. Not enough. And your father, he was already gone."

"Gone how?"

Killian turned to her.

"I don't think he died in a car crash, Lila."

The world stopped spinning.

"What do you mean?"

"I think he faked it."

~~~

Lila walked the streets for hours after she left the estate.

The violin strap pressed into her shoulder, her thoughts a blur of images and names and lies.

Her father. Alive?

No. It couldn't be. Her mother would have known. Her mother would have told her.

Wouldn't she?

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a photograph she'd never paid attention to before.

Her father, holding her as a baby.

There, in the corner, barely noticeable stood a teenage boy with dark eyes.

Killian.

He'd known her since before she could remember.

That night, she sat on her fire escape, Brooklyn below her feet.

She played the violin without sheet music, without thought.

And she thought about legacies. About blood and names and lies and music.

She thought about the boy who had once watched her father fall.

And the man who was now trying to hold her from the same edge.

She didn't know what Killian wanted.

But she was done playing to his rhythm.

Next time she saw him, it would be her performance.

One with no notes written down.

Only truth.