Page 36 of Fallen Heir

“You’re not going to tell me the truth, are you?” he finally asked, voice low. Controlled. But barely.

I blinked. “I told you. I got sick.”

He stepped closer—just a few feet—but I felt every inch of it. “Savannah, I’ve seen people panic. I’ve seen people get physically ill. That wasn’t the shrimp cocktail.” He paused. “That was fear.”

My throat tightened.

I forced a shrug, lighter than I felt. “Maybe it was the champagne too. I don’t usually drink.”

We stared at each other. And I could feel the wall cracking.

Before I could spin something else, I shifted—grasping for distraction. “Have you seen the tabloids this morning?”

His brow arched, clearly thrown.

I reached across my desk and flipped open my laptop, turning the screen toward him.

The headlines were already up:

Jaxson Westbrook’s Newest Flame? Charity’s Darling Turns Heads at the Met.

And just below it, in even bolder font:

Manhattan’s Most Eligible Bachelor Strikes Again. WhoIsThis Mystery Woman?

I gave a half-smile, trying to mask the nerves buzzing beneath my skin.

“Think they’ll be shocked when I show up to the next one?”

His lips twitched, just slightly—like he almost wanted to smile. Almost.

My office phone rang, and I was grateful for the reprieve. I grabbed the phone—nearly tripping over myself to avoid the line of questioning I knew was coming. Jaxson was about to ask more. And I wasn’t ready for any of it. “Yes?”

“Miss Sinclair,” the receptionist’s voice chirped. “I have a call on the line—says it’s urgent. Wouldn’t leave a name. Just said… it’s about Barbara.”

With one name, the axis that was my center of gravity tilted.

I felt the blood as it left my body.

Barbara.

There was only one Barbara I knew. My mother. My deceased mother.

Jaxson was watching me now, his face sharpening at my expression.

“I—uh—put them through,” I heard a faint sound, but my mind was already splintering.

And then—

“Not going to say hello to me, are you…wife?”

That voice.

It was velvet and venom, coiled like a snake in my ear.

The pain hit before the meaning did. Instant. Crushing. Like every wound he’d ever left on my body had reopened all at once. The long deep scar on my thigh. The cracks in my ribcage. The bruises no one ever saw. The deep scars down my back.

My skin prickled. My stomach flipped. And my mind—my mind just shattered. Because it wasn’t just the voice.