The Billionaire's Cursed Heir

Chapter 2: No

CHARLOTTE

I don't sleep. Not really. I lie in bed and watch the ceiling and count the days until Ethan's surgery deadline. Twenty. That's all I have left.

I run the numbers again in my head, the same way I've run them every night this week. Twenty days. Zero savings. One ring already sold. It doesn't matter how many times I do the math. It never adds up to enough, and now there's an updated cost hanging over the number too, one the hospital hasn't even finalized yet.

By morning, I've made a decision. I'm going to ask Damian Blackwood for a salary advance. It's humiliating. It's also my only real option that doesn't involve selling something else I love, or accepting whatever he meant by that sentence last night.

I get to the office at seven, before anyone else. I need to catch him alone, before his day fills up with calls and meetings and the wall he hides behind. My hands are cold even though the building is warm. I practice the words in my head one more time. I need help. Just this once.

His office door is open. He's already at his desk, reading something on his laptop, sleeves rolled up like last night never happened, like he didn't say those strange, dangerous words to me in the dark.

I knock on the frame. "Do you have a minute?"

He doesn't look up right away. "Depends what it's about."

That's not encouraging, but I don't have the luxury of waiting for a better mood. I step inside and close the door behind me, because some things shouldn't be said where anyone could hear.

"I'd like to ask for an advance on my salary." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Three months, taken out of future paychecks. I'll sign whatever agreement you need."

Now he looks up. His eyes are sharp, unreadable, the kind of eyes that have said no to a hundred people before me and never once felt bad about it.

"No."

Just that. One word, flat and final, like he didn't even need to think about it.

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't urgent," I say. "I have collateral. I can put my car up, my savings account, whatever you need to feel secure about it."

"It's not about security." He closes his laptop, folds his hands on the desk. "It's about precedent. If I advance your salary, I advance everyone's. I have four hundred employees. I'm not running a bank."

"This isn't about four hundred employees. This is about me." My chest tightens. "You already know why I need it. You told me yourself last night. Ethan's surgery, my old boss, all of it. You know exactly how urgent this is, and now the hospital's asking for even more than we thought."

Something flickers behind his eyes, gone before I can name it. "How much more?"

The question catches me off guard. "I don't know yet. They wouldn't give me a number over the phone."

"Then find out today." His voice sharpens, urgency I haven't heard from him before. "I need the real total, Ms. Rivers, not an estimate."

"Why does the exact number matter to you at all?"

"Because knowing your situation and making an exception for it are two different things." He says it too fast, like he's covering something. "And I don't make exceptions without understanding exactly what I'm agreeing to."

"Then what was last night?" The question comes out sharper than I mean it to. "You stood in that doorway and told me my price had already started. Was that just something to say, or did you mean it?"

He's quiet for a second too long. My pulse picks up.

"I meant it," he says finally. "But it's not a loan. And it's not something I'm going to explain standing in my office at seven in the morning."

"Then explain it now. I'm here. I'm asking."

"You're not ready to hear it."

"Try me." I plant my hands on the edge of his desk, done being careful, done being polite about a conversation that's already cost me a night of sleep. "I have twenty days before the hospital pulls Ethan off the surgical list. Twenty days, Mr. Blackwood. I don't have time for you to decide when I'm ready."

For the first time since I walked in, something like respect passes over his face. It's there and gone in a blink, replaced by that same controlled calm he wears like armor.

"Fine," he says. "Sit down."

I don't sit. I stay standing, arms crossed, bracing for whatever comes next.

He studies me for a long moment, the kind of look that makes me feel like he's already calculated three different outcomes of this conversation and is deciding which one to use.

"My family has a problem," he says slowly. "One that requires a solution I can't buy off the shelf. I need something specific, from someone I can trust to keep it quiet. You need money faster than any loan or advance could give it to you. I think we could solve both problems at once."

"That's not an answer. That's a riddle."

"It's an offer I'm not ready to make yet." He stands, buttons his jacket, every motion precise, like even getting dressed is a performance of control. "But when I do, you should know it will change everything. Your life. Ethan's. Possibly mine."

My stomach drops. "You're scaring me."

"Good," he says. "You should be careful around people who scare you. But you should also listen to them, because sometimes they're the only ones telling you the truth."

"That's supposed to make me trust you?"

"No." He meets my eyes, and for once there's no performance in it. "It's supposed to make you careful. Trust comes later, if it comes at all."

He walks past me toward the door, close enough that I catch the clean, expensive scent of him, close enough that my whole body goes still without my permission.

"Twenty days," he says, pausing at the door. "I'm aware of the deadline, Ms. Rivers. More aware than you think. Aware enough that I already know the exact hour it runs out."

"Then help me."

He turns back, and for one second, the ice in his expression cracks just enough for me to see something underneath it. Something that looks almost like guilt.

"I will," he says. "But not the way you're asking for. And once I do, there's no undoing it. Are you sure you want that kind of help?"

I open my mouth to say yes, to say anything, but he's already gone, disappearing down the hallway before I can answer.

I stand alone in his office, my heart pounding, twenty days shrinking to nineteen in my head, and one thought circling louder than all the rest.

Whatever Damian Blackwood is planning, it's already too late for me to walk away from it.

My phone buzzes on the desk behind me. Ethan again. I don't answer it. I can't, not yet, not with my hands still shaking and his voice already promising things I haven't agreed to.

Whatever comes next, I have a feeling I won't get a say in it, and somehow, that terrifies me less than it should.