THE PADDOCK CONTRACT PRINCESS

CHAPTER 10

Viral

By sunrise, the kiss had become the biggest story in Formula One. Sports networks carried the footage, social media filled with clips, and fans began calling Sofia the Paddock Princess with an enthusiasm that made her regret opening her phone. Sponsors loved the attention because Vantari’s brand had suddenly become romantic, glamorous, and human. Lucien hated the attention because it meant strangers were now studying Sofia for weaknesses.

He told her they needed to change the security arrangement. Sofia refused to let him turn the penthouse into a fortress, and the argument became their first disagreement after the kiss. Lucien said threats had increased since the engagement announcement, while Sofia reminded him that she had survived far worse than gossip. He finally admitted that the danger was not gossip but the people who could use public attention to reach her.

Sofia asked whether he believed Elias was behind the threats. Lucien said he did not know, but he had ordered an investigation into every person connected to the Mauritius demolition. Sofia told him she wanted access to the investigation. Lucien agreed, then warned her that the deeper they went, the more likely they were to discover something neither of them could undo.

The warning did not stop her. Sofia reviewed corporate records and discovered that the company responsible for the Black River demolition had been incorporated only months before the order was issued. Its directors were listed as independent investors, but its funding traced through three holding companies before reaching an account connected to a Vantari subsidiary. Sofia followed the trail until it disappeared behind a private trust.

She showed Lucien the findings. He stared at the screen and said the trust had never appeared in official corporate records. Sofia asked whether Henri controlled it, and Lucien said his grandfather had controlled hundreds of structures over the years. Then Sofia pointed to the incorporation date and said the trust had been established after Mateo’s death.

Lucien became silent. He asked her to send the records to his private investigator and said he would handle the rest. Sofia refused, telling him she was part of the investigation whether he liked it or not. He looked ready to argue, then stopped and nodded. “All right,” he said, “but if someone comes after you because of this, you tell me immediately.”

Sofia asked whether he was giving an order. Lucien answered that he was asking. The distinction mattered enough that she smiled. He noticed the smile and looked away, but not before Sofia caught the faintest hint of relief in his expression.

The sponsor event became complicated when Chase Bennett arrived from Texas. Chase was an American billionaire whose investment group controlled a major portion of Vantari’s commercial future, and he greeted Lucien like a man greeting an equal he intended to defeat. He shook Sofia’s hand, complimented her engineering background, and then casually suggested that she could become a valuable part of Vantari’s public image. Sofia thanked him and said she was more interested in designing systems than selling them.

Chase laughed, but his eyes remained calculating. He told Lucien that the engagement had solved one problem but created another because the board would want to know whether Sofia could be trusted with confidential information. Lucien replied that Sofia had earned his trust more quickly than most executives who had worked for him for years. Chase smiled and said, “Then you had better hope she never learns what you have not told her.”

Sofia heard the sentence from across the room. She turned toward them, but Chase had already walked away. Lucien followed her onto the terrace and admitted that Chase knew about the dispute involving Mateo. Sofia asked what else he knew, and Lucien said he did not know. She told him she was tired of answers built from uncertainty.

That night, Sofia found Lucien in the office, staring at a file that contained her father’s name. She asked what was inside, and he said the file showed payments from Henri to Mateo during the final year of their partnership. Sofia opened it and discovered amounts far larger than the family workshop could have required. One payment had been made days before Mateo ended the project.

She asked Lucien why his grandfather had paid her father so much money. Lucien said he had no explanation. Sofia turned the final page and found a handwritten notation beside the transfer: Project Sovereign — compensation for silence. Her heart began pounding because the words transformed every assumption she had made about her father.

Lucien read the notation and went completely still. Sofia asked whether he knew what Project Sovereign was, and he said he had heard the name only once, years earlier, when his grandfather warned him never to discuss it. Before either could speak, the lights flickered and the security alarm sounded downstairs. Neither moved.

She opened it. Inside was a single photograph of Mateo standing beside Henri and a younger Lucien outside the Black River workshop. On the back, Mateo had written a sentence that made Sofia look at Lucien with sudden suspicion. She stopped breathing. The message was clear: If Sofia ever finds this, she must know the first lie was not about the land.



Lucien reached for the photograph, but Sofia pulled it away. The room seemed to shrink around them as the meaning settled into place. She had believed the mystery began with the demolition order, but now she understood that the order was only the latest move in a much older game. And somewhere in Lucien’s family, someone had spent twenty years making sure neither Sofia nor Lucien discovered the truth at the same time.