His Heir, Her Secret - Chapter 35: Chapter 35

Isla
The morning sunlight poured through the kitchen window, bathing the countertops in gold. Leo sat at the breakfast table, his tiny feet swinging beneath the chair as he colored in his favorite dinosaur book. His face was calm, innocent—completely unaware of the war that brewed just beyond the walls of our quiet apartment.
I watched him with a tight heart, pouring him a glass of orange juice with shaking hands. I didn’t want him to know what today meant. That I was going to sit in a lawyer’s office and finally say everything I’d tried so hard to bury. That I was going to speak Damon’s name aloud again—this time, not as a woman broken by him, but as a mother willing to tear apart her past to protect her son.
Leo looked up at me and grinned, his mouth ringed in purple from a grape Popsicle he’d snuck earlier.
“Mommy, did you know T-Rexes can’t hug?”
I blinked, caught off guard. “They can’t?”
He held up the book proudly. “Too short arms.”
I laughed. The sound came out thin, but it was real. “Poor T-Rex. Maybe they blow kisses instead.”
Leo giggled. “Like this?” He puckered and blew a dramatic kiss across the room.
I caught it midair and pressed it to my heart.
Somehow, in all the chaos and fear, this boy reminded me what love looked like. Unfiltered. Unafraid. Completely untainted by the cruelty I once mistook for affection.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
Lucien: The team’s ready when you are. Myra will meet you at ten.
I typed back:
On my way soon. Leo’s with his sitter. I’ll be there.
It took everything in me to hit send. I was scared. Not of the legal process—Myra had walked me through every step. But of what it would cost me to reopen old wounds. To say, under oath, that Damon once made me feel so small, I’d rather disappear than fight.
But I wasn’t that girl anymore.
Lucien had stood beside me every step of the way these past few weeks. Quietly. Fiercely. Without pressure. Without demands. He let me come to him. And more than once, I had.
Last night, after Leo had gone to bed, we’d sat on the balcony wrapped in silence. He didn’t try to talk me out of my nerves. He didn’t give me any speeches. He just poured me tea, sat beside me, and placed his hand over mine.
And that had been enough.
I kissed Leo goodbye, lingering longer than I needed to. His little arms wrapped around my neck like he knew I needed it.
“Mommy will be back soon, baby,” I whispered. “Be good for Jess.”
He nodded, already distracted by a toy car.
By the time I reached Lucien’s building, my palms were sweating. I’d worn a cream blouse and soft gray trousers—clothes that made me feel clean, composed. A version of myself I could bear to sit beside in a room full of strangers.
Lucien was waiting just outside the glass doors of his office, dressed in a navy suit that brought out the storm in his eyes. His expression softened when he saw me.
“You came,” he said quietly.
“I said I would.”
He stepped forward like he wanted to do more, but kept his distance. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I will be.”
Lucien’s lawyer, Myra, met us in the conference room with a stack of papers and the calm confidence of someone who had done this hundreds of times before. She was all business, but kind—not the kind of woman who’d treat my story like a tabloid headline.
“Thank you for coming, Isla,” she said. “We’re going to take this slow, okay? Everything you say today will help us file the emergency petition. But nothing leaves this room without your consent.”
I nodded, my throat tight.
She offered me a glass of water and sat across from me.
“When you’re ready,” she said, “start from the beginning. Whatever you’re comfortable sharing.”
So I did.
I told her about meeting Damon in college. About how he was charming at first—funny, attentive, always knowing what to say. I told her how the little things changed first. How he isolated me from friends. How he belittled me in ways that sounded like jokes until I stopped laughing. How he tracked my phone. Checked my emails. Showed up outside my classes.
I told her about the day I found out I was pregnant.
How I’d expected fear. But what I’d felt was hope. That maybe this new life inside me would change everything.
But Damon hadn’t changed.
He’d gotten worse.
When I told him, he didn’t celebrate. He didn’t even flinch. He looked at me with that icy calm and said, “You’ll get rid of it.”
That was the first time I realized I was in danger.
The second time came when he cornered me in my apartment, slammed a hand against the wall next to my face and said, “You leave, I find you. You tell anyone, I ruin you.”
That’s when I ran.
Myra sat quietly as I spoke, not interrupting. Just listening. Documenting. Bearing witness.
Lucien didn’t speak either. But I felt his presence behind me like a shield—solid, unyielding. He didn’t try to take over. He didn’t try to fix it. He just stayed.
When I finished, my hands were trembling. My blouse clung to the sweat at the back of my neck. Myra handed me a tissue and gave me a nod that felt like approval.
“You did incredibly well,” she said. “You’re strong, Isla. This—this is going to help so many people understand what’s at stake.”
I looked at Lucien then.
He didn’t say anything. Just walked over and crouched in front of me, his eyes meeting mine.
“I’m proud of you,” he said softly. “So damn proud of you.”
Something in me cracked, but it wasn’t pain. It was relief. And for the first time in a long time, I let it wash over me.
We left the building together. The city buzzed around us, busy and unaware. But I felt lighter. Like I’d just dropped a weight I’d carried for far too long.
As we stood outside waiting for the car, Lucien slipped his fingers between mine.
“You know,” he said, glancing sideways, “when this is over, when Damon’s out of our lives for good…”
I looked up at him.
“What?”
“I want to take you and Leo somewhere quiet. Just us. No headlines. No lawyers. Just family.”
The word struck me like a pulse.
Family.
And for the first time since everything started, I believed we could be one.