Not Born To Inherit

The Name on the Newspaper

Chapter Two

“You are Roman Brooks.”

It was not a question. Zuri said it like she was hoping she had gotten it wrong.

“Guilty,” Roman said, rubbing his jaw where her hand had landed. It still stung, but he was not mad about it. That was the strange part. He should have been furious. Instead he was standing there smiling like an i***t while a woman he had known for four minutes looked at him like he had personally ruined her night.

“I need you to know I did not recognize you,” she said. “I do not read the society pages. I do not care who sits on the boards of what.”

“You slapped me before you knew who I was. That is actually worse for me.”

“It is not worse. It is the same. You were acting like a jerk either way.” But some of the fight had gone out of her voice. She looked past him, toward the tent, where a small cluster of guests had turned to watch. “Is that going to be a problem? For you, I mean.”

“For me? No.” He almost laughed. “For you, maybe.”

Her face changed instantly. “What does that mean?”

“It means my father’s assistant just watched you slap the heir to Brooks Holdings in front of half the west tent, and by tomorrow morning it will be a headline somewhere with a blurry photo and a caption asking who the mystery woman is.”

She looked like she might be sick. “I have a business. I have clients. I cannot have my name attached to—”

“Relax. I am not going to say anything.” He meant it, too, which surprised him. Normally he would milk a moment like this for every ounce of drama it was worth. Tonight he just wanted to keep talking to her. “Nobody has to know who you are. I will handle it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you are the first person all night who has talked to me like I am actually in the room instead of a headline walking around in a suit.” He waved it off, like it was not a big deal, even though it was the most honest thing he had said to anyone in months. “What is your name?”

She hesitated. “Zuri.”

“Just Zuri?”

“Zuri Hayes.” She said it like she regretted it the second it left her mouth.

“Well, Zuri Hayes.” He stepped back, giving her room, giving himself room too, because standing this close to her was doing something to his focus he did not have time to examine. “Good luck with your lighting rig.”

He walked away before she could say anything else. He did not look back, but he could feel her watching him go, and something about that felt better than every conversation he had had inside that tent combined.

By the time he made it back under the lights, Julian was waiting by the stage exactly where the waiter said he would be, arms crossed, jaw tight in that specific way that meant he had already heard something.

“Where were you?”

“Getting air.”

“You were seen arguing with a woman by the sculpture garden.”

Roman kept his face flat. “It was nothing.”

“It did not look like nothing to the three people who came and told me about it.” Julian lowered his voice, looking around to make sure nobody else was close enough to hear. “Roman, I need you to understand something. Every time you make a scene, it is not just your name attached to it. It is the company’s. It is mine.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Because from where I am standing, you spend most nights proving otherwise.”

Roman did not answer that. There was not a version of this argument that ended well, and they had had it enough times that he could recite both sides in his sleep. Julian sighed, rubbed his temple, and went back to working the room like nothing had happened, because that was what Julian did. He absorbed things. He brushed them down. He had been doing it since the day he brought Roman home, and some nights Roman wondered if his father was tired of it. Most nights, he tried not to think about it at all.

He could not stop thinking about her.

Two days later, sitting in his office with a stack of reports he had no intention of reading, Roman kept replaying the way she had looked at him — not impressed, not intimidated, not performing anything for his benefit. Just annoyed. Direct. Real.

He pulled up her name on his laptop before he could talk himself out of it.

Zuri Hayes. Principal, Hayes Design Studio. Architectural and structural design, specializing in public installations and commercial builds.

Small firm. A handful of employees. A few completed projects listed on the site, all clean lines and smart use of light, nothing flashy, nothing trying too hard to impress. He scrolled through her portfolio longer than he would admit to anyone, and somewhere in there an idea started forming that he probably should have talked himself out of and did not.

He picked up the phone and called his assistant.

“I need you to reach out to a design firm. Hayes Design Studio. Tell them Brooks Holdings is interested in a proposal for the new riverside development. Do not use my name.”

“Sir?”

“Use a shell entity. Meridian Projects, whatever is on file. I do not want my name anywhere near the request.”

“Can I ask why?”

“No.”

He hung up before she could push further, then leaned back in his chair, half amused at himself, half wondering what exactly he thought this was going to accomplish. He was not trying to manipulate her. He told himself that clearly, more than once. He just wanted a reason to be in a room with her again — one where she was not already furious with him before he opened his mouth.

It felt, for the first time in longer than he could remember, like something he actually wanted instead of something he was supposed to want.

Three days later, Zuri sat across from her business partner, Marcus, staring at an email that had just landed in her inbox.

“This is huge,” Marcus said, scanning it again. “Meridian Projects. Riverside development. This is the kind of contract that puts us on a completely different level.”

“I know.” Zuri should have been thrilled. She was thrilled, mostly. But something about the email felt off, and she could not place why. The scope was too generous. The timeline too flexible. The budget attached to the initial proposal was almost absurd for a firm their size.

“When do we meet the client?”

“Friday. Apparently they want to keep things low profile until contracts are signed.” Zuri frowned at the screen. “Marcus, does the name Meridian mean anything to you?”

“Should it?”

“No idea. It is probably nothing.” She closed the laptop, telling herself the same thing, even as some small, stubborn part of her brain refused to let it go.

Friday came fast.

Zuri walked into the glass-walled conference room on the thirtieth floor exactly on time, portfolio under one arm, ready to make the pitch of her career.

The door at the far end of the room opened.

Roman Brooks walked in, in a suit, holding a folder with her firm’s name printed across the front, looking exactly as pleased with himself as she had expected the moment she had seen his name on that garden invitation two days too late.