His Heir, Her Secret - Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Lucien
She looked at me like I was a ghost.
It wasn’t the usual reaction I got when walking into a room—fear, awe, admiration, maybe a hint of jealousy. People read the name Lucien Wolfe and either scrambled to impress or to hide. I was used to being the one in control, the one others studied like a predator in the wild. But this… this was different.
Her expression hit me like a cold wave—eyes wide, skin pale, breath caught in her throat.
And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.
Isla Monroe.
The name lingered in my mind long after the meeting ended. Her voice echoed too—soft, poised, but trembling at the edges, like she was trying to hold herself together. I knew I’d seen her before. Not in a vague, have we met at some gala? kind of way. No, this was different. She struck something deep, something old. Like a song you haven’t heard in years that still makes your chest tighten, even if you don’t remember the lyrics.
But I couldn’t place her. And that infuriated me.
I’d spent years sharpening my instincts, reading people in seconds, uncovering lies with a glance. I could dissect a man’s life from his handshake alone. Yet the moment I looked into her eyes, all of that precision slipped. It felt like standing on the edge of a memory I wasn’t allowed to access.
Familiar. That’s what she was.
Too familiar.
I stood at the window of my penthouse hours later, the city skyline stretched before me like a conquest. The glass walls framed a world I’d carved out with my own hands—skyscrapers that bore my mark, a legacy that had no room for fragility or emotion.
But tonight, I wasn’t thinking about stock prices or acquisition deals. I was thinking about her.
That look on her face. The way she flinched when I said her name.
Isla.
There was something in the way her lips moved. A memory that wouldn’t form completely. A moment just out of reach. I closed my eyes, trying to force clarity.
And then it came. Italy.
My hand tightened around the crystal tumbler of scotch. It had been five years, but suddenly, that summer came back in sharp flashes. A quiet village outside Florence. The smell of lemons and dust. A woman with sun-kissed skin and laughter in her voice. I’d gone by Luke then. My middle name. Trying to escape my life, my name, the headlines. A sabbatical of sorts—except no one really escapes who they are.
And her.
The girl who never asked who I really was. She didn’t care about Wolfe Capital or my last name. She just saw me. Luke, the man who painted awful watercolors and burned pasta. The man who held her under the stars and kissed her like the world was ending.
Could it be…?
No. It couldn’t be.
But the timelines matched. Her reaction matched. The way she looked at me—like I’d shattered her.
And her eyes… God, they were the same ones I remembered looking up at me beneath a Tuscan sky. I’d buried that summer under layers of ambition and steel. I told myself it didn’t mean anything, that it was just a break in the storm.
But it had meant something.
And now I couldn’t ignore the question gnawing at me.
I set the glass down with a sharp click and pulled up her employee file on my tablet. Legal consultant. Hired three years ago. Good reputation. Met deadlines. Clean record. No red flags.
Except there was a gap.
A full year missing.
Maternity leave?
The thought hit me like a brick to the chest. My jaw clenched. I opened a deeper background search—something the standard HR system wouldn’t show. Isla Monroe. Age 29. Born in Seattle. Moved to New York six years ago. One dependent.
Leo Monroe. Age four.
Born nine months after that summer.
I stared at the screen, unmoving. My throat dried. My ears rang like I’d been thrown into the ocean. The facts were lining up too neatly. Too painfully.
A son?
My son?
No. I was jumping to conclusions. Assumptions. Dangerous ones.
I needed proof. I needed truth. Because if she lied—if she kept my child from me—then this wasn’t just betrayal. It was war.
I leaned against the desk, trying to breathe through the storm of thoughts crashing through my head. Four years. She’d known for four years and said nothing. What kind of woman does that? What kind of mother?
And yet… part of me wasn’t angry.
Part of me was gutted.
Because I hadn’t known. I hadn’t been there for his first steps, his first words. I hadn’t even known his name until tonight.
I picked up the phone.
“Darren,” I said, my voice low and clipped. “I need a quiet DNA test run. Fast. Get me something off Isla Monroe. Coffee cup, pen, anything she’s touched.”
There was a pause. “You think she—?”
“Just do it,” I snapped.
I ended the call and paced the room for what felt like hours. The scotch sat untouched. My phone buzzed with updates I ignored. None of it mattered right now. Not until I knew.
That evening, I found myself parked outside her apartment building. I hadn’t planned it. I told myself I was just in the area. That I needed air. But I didn’t move. I stayed. Watched.
She emerged just after six, bundled in a long coat, scarf wrapped tight around her neck. Her hair was tucked beneath a wool cap, and in her hand was a much smaller one—chubby fingers, a navy-blue mitten, a little boy no taller than her hip.
He laughed as they walked. Bright, wild, unfiltered joy. The kind I hadn’t felt in years.
And then—just for a second—he turned his head.
Our eyes met.
Grey.
Not maybe grey. Not sort-of grey.
My grey.
My mouth went dry. My chest caved in.
He looked just like me. Same bone structure. Same smirk. Same damned eyes.
I couldn’t breathe.
She hadn’t told me. She’d gone on with her life, raised a child who carried my blood, my legacy—without me.
He was mine.
And I’d missed everything.