His Heir, Her Secret - Chapter 50: Chapter 50

Lucien
There are moments when power feels like armor—something you wear, polish, and let the world admire.
And then there are moments like this… when it feels like glass.
Shattered.
Jagged.
Useless.
I stood outside the courthouse conference room, my hand still resting on the door Isla had disappeared behind. She’d needed space, and I’d given it to her. But every second she spent on the other side of that wall scraped against me like a blade.
I’d built empires. Bought governments. Walked through scandals that would have destroyed other men. But nothing—absolutely nothing—had prepared me for the ache in my chest as I watched her crumble today under Damon’s ambush.
The bastard knew exactly where to hit her. And I wasn’t fast enough to stop the blow.
My jaw clenched. I could still see Isla’s face the moment Damon’s attorney unveiled the fabricated photos—her caught in compromising angles with Kael, the bartender from Leo’s preschool fundraiser. Pictures that made it look like an affair, taken months ago, and carefully framed to support a narrative Isla didn’t deserve.
It didn’t matter that I had already investigated Kael. That I knew the man was harmless and had no real ties to Isla beyond surface-level acquaintance. Damon’s lawyers had spun it as evidence that Isla was unstable, unfit, and potentially “emotionally volatile in front of the child.”
It was a lie.
And it had wounded her.
She looked at me afterward like I hadn’t protected her—like she was slipping through cracks I hadn’t thought to seal.
“Mr. Wolfe,” came a voice behind me, dragging me back to the corridor. It was Charles, my lead attorney, holding a phone and looking pale.
“What now?” I asked, voice rougher than I intended.
“It’s already online,” he said grimly. “The pictures. The courtroom sketch. The media is running with the narrative Damon fed them.”
I took the phone. My own face stared back at me from the screen—frozen in a moment of anger, caught mid-step beside Isla. The headline screamed: Billionaire’s Secret Family Torn Apart by Scandalous Affair?
Disgust flooded my throat.
“They’ve baited the press,” Charles muttered. “We’re trending in four countries.”
“Let them,” I said coldly, handing the phone back. “Let the world watch. They’ll see the truth soon enough.”
Charles gave me a cautious look. “Lucien. We need to play this smart. We need damage control.”
“No,” I said. “We need a war plan.”
He blinked.
“I want everything Damon’s touched in the last decade reviewed,” I snapped. “His financial records, campaign donations, the offshore shell company he used to hide his father’s estate. Every woman he’s paid off, every board member he’s bullied, every bribe. I want it all.”
Charles nodded stiffly. “And Isla?”
My chest tightened.
“She’s off-limits,” I said. “You protect her name. You drag mine through the mud first if you have to—but she stays untouched.”
He nodded again and disappeared down the hall, already calling our PR crisis firm.
I turned back toward the door, my fingers grazing the handle. I hadn’t told her everything yet. Not about what Damon had done in the past. Not about how I knew he was capable of worse. Not even about the private investigator I’d quietly sent to dig into Damon’s sealed juvenile record in Paris. But she didn’t need more weight right now.
She needed truth. And time.
And maybe… me.
I finally stepped inside the room.
She sat by the window, staring at the city below with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Her makeup had smudged under her eyes. She looked breakable in a way Isla never was—like a diamond dulled by soot.
“Isla,” I said gently.
She didn’t look at me. “Did you know about the photos?”
“No,” I said immediately, moving closer. “I knew he’d try something. But not that.”
She nodded once. “And the media?”
“Already working on it. But I can’t stop the fire—only redirect it.”
She let out a short, humorless laugh. “You’ve always been good at that. Controlling the narrative.”
I knelt in front of her.
“This isn’t about spin, Isla. This is about truth. You did nothing wrong.”
She finally met my eyes, and the weight in hers nearly knocked the air from my lungs.
“It doesn’t matter if I did or not,” she whispered. “The world already decided I’m a liar. A whore. A manipulative woman who used her son as leverage.”
“No,” I said fiercely. “You’re a mother. The strongest one I’ve ever known. And Leo—he’s the best of both of us because you loved him enough to walk away.”
Her eyes shimmered with tears.
“I don’t want him growing up in a war zone, Lucien.”
“He won’t,” I promised. “Not as long as I breathe.”
She exhaled shakily. “So what now?”
“Now,” I said, rising, “we go on the offensive.”
She frowned.
“You think Damon was bold today?” I asked, my voice steel. “He made it personal. So I will, too.”
“Lucien…”
But I was already reaching for my phone. I dialed the media coordinator directly.
“Full statement,” I said when she answered. “I want it out in twenty minutes. Start with: ‘I, Lucien Wolfe, am the father of Leo Wolfe. I have no intention of hiding it, nor am I ashamed of the woman who gave him life.’ Got that?”
A pause. Then a stunned, “Yes, Mr. Wolfe.”
I hung up and met Isla’s shocked gaze.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” I cut in. “Let him try to smear you now. Let the world see whose side I’m on.”
For a long, fragile second, silence stretched between us.
Then Isla whispered, “What if this breaks us?”
I stepped closer, brushing my knuckles along her jaw.
“Then we rebuild. Stronger. Together.”
And finally, finally, her lips trembled into the beginning of a smile.
But even as her hand reached for mine, the shadow of Damon still hung like smoke around us.
And I knew, with bone-deep certainty, that his next move would be even darker.