The Return of the Billionaire Heiress and Her Cold CEO

"You're quiet tonight."

Kylie didn't look up from her drink.

The rooftop bar buzzed softly below the stars just loud enough to feel alive, just dim enough to disappear into.

Cole stood beside her, sleeves rolled to his elbows, whiskey untouched in his hand.

"I'm thinking," she murmured.

He studied her profile elegant and still, a storm wrapped in a silk shell.

"About what?"

She turned to face him, finally.

"About how easy it is to lie to yourself when you want something badly enough."

His brow creased.

She took a sip.

"Like pretending you don't miss someone you shouldn't."

They didn't speak for a moment.

Didn't need to.

The silence said everything.

Because they both knew she wasn't talking about Sebastian.

Not anymore.

The elevator ride back to the penthouse was quiet.

Not tense. Just heavy.

He unlocked the door. She stepped inside.

He didn't ask her to stay.

She didn't wait to be invited.

"I used to have dreams," she said suddenly, kicking off her heels as she dropped onto the sofa. "Back when I was Jacinta."

Cole moved slowly, pouring two glasses of water instead of wine. He handed one to her without a word.

"What kind of dreams?" he asked.

She smiled not with joy, but memory.

"Ones where I'd run Pioneer. Where Collins Global would become something better. Something mine."

"You still can."

She looked up.

And for a moment, she let him see it the raw grief of a stolen future, the aching bones of ambition never allowed to stretch.

"I don't know if I want it anymore," she whispered.

He didn't flinch.

"Then what do you want?"

Her voice was quieter now.

"Something honest. Something that doesn't ask me to be anything but who I am."

She leaned her head back.

"Do you think that exists?"

He looked at her not like a CEO, not like a strategist, but like a man unlearning all his defenses in real time.

"If it does," he said, "it starts here."

The knock on the door came just before dawn.

Three sharp raps.

Kylie startled upright on the couch. Cole was already moving, hair tousled, shirt half-buttoned.

"Security?"

He glanced at the monitor. Froze.

"Katherine," he muttered. "And… someone else."

He opened the door.

Katherine stepped in without preamble, heels sharp against the marble floor.

Behind her stood a man in his late twenties. Lean, well-dressed, anxious.

Kylie blinked.

And felt the floor tilt beneath her.

"Marcus?"

Marcus Albright.

The boy from boarding school.

The one who gave her his notes when she couldn't see through her tears.

The one who kissed her behind the library the night she found out her mother had cancer.

The one she hadn't seen since she became Kylie.

Her breath caught.

"What… What are you doing here?"

Marcus gave her a sheepish smile.

"You look good," he said.

She didn't move.

"Answer the question."

Katherine stepped in.

"He found me. Said he had something you needed to see."

Kylie's voice was sharp. "What kind of something?"

Marcus stepped forward.

"Proof," he said. "About what really happened the week your father changed the will."

Silence.

Then:

"Talk," Cole said from behind her.

Marcus opened his bag and pulled out a tablet.

"I worked at a private banking firm in Zurich. We handled legacy trust distributions. High-level stuff."

"And?" Kylie asked.

"Three days before your father signed the final version of the Collins Global transition papers, a private transfer was made. Two-point-eight million."

"To where?"

"An offshore account. Under a shell company linked to Sebastian Carter."

Cole let out a breath.

"You're saying Sebastian bribed him?"

Marcus nodded. "Your father didn't change the will willingly. He was blackmailed."

The words didn't feel real.

Even as they soaked into her bones.

Even as they cracked something wide open in her chest.

"He knew," she whispered. "He knew what they were doing and he… let them."

Marcus hesitated.

"There's more."

Of course there was.

"There was a clause in the will," he said, swiping through the documents. "A sealed addendum. It never went public."

He turned the screen toward her.

Kylie's name.

In her father's handwriting.

"To be delivered upon proof of rehabilitation."

Her hands trembled as she took the tablet.

Her father had left her a message.

But only if she could prove she wasn't broken.

Tears burned the back of her eyes.

She blinked them away.

"I don't want this," she said softly.

Cole moved beside her.

"You deserve to know."

"No," she said. "I mean… I don't want to fight for a man who thought I needed to earn his love."

The silence between them grew thick.

Heavy.

Then Cole said, "Then don't do it for him. Do it for the girl he tried to erase."

That night, Kylie sat alone in her bedroom.

Tablet still open beside her.

The message stared back.

Her father's voice, in words she never got to hear.

"To Jacinta when you are ready, you will find your place. But not until you've proven to yourself that you are stronger than the world that tried to silence you."

She didn't cry.

She didn't rage.

She just sat in the quiet.

And then, finally, she closed the screen and stood.

"Cole?" she said, stepping into the hallway.

He was leaning against the far wall, like he'd been waiting.

He looked up.

And that was all it took.

She walked toward him.

Took his hand.

Didn't let go.

They didn't speak again until they were in the kitchen, bathed in the soft hush of early morning.

He poured her tea.

She didn't touch it.

"What happens next?" he asked quietly.

"I burn it down."

Cole raised a brow. "The company?"

"No," she said. "The illusion."

He nodded slowly.

"You're going to reveal everything?"

She shook her head.

"Not yet."

He leaned back.

"Then what?"

She looked at him, eyes sharper than before.

"I'm going to make Sebastian play a game he can't win."

"And what's that?"

She smiled.

"Trust."

The next move came faster than either of them expected.

A call.

Anonymous.

Female voice. Modulated.

"You think you're the only one he destroyed?"

Kylie froze.

"Who is this?"

Click.

Dead line.

The trap wasn't hers this time.

It was already set.

And the next move?

Might just kill them both.