43. Margot
43
MARGOT
T he sky outside the penthouse windows is still that lavender-blue blend of early dawn, where the city hasn't quite made up its mind whether to wake up or keep dreaming. The softest hint of gold starts brushing against the skyline, spilling through the glass and catching on the pale fabric of our living room curtains.
I’m curled up on the sofa, legs folded beneath me, one hand resting lightly over the bump that used to be a whisper and now makes herself known with steady, opinionated kicks, especially around 6:30 a.m.
Grayson walks in from the kitchen barefoot, hair still mussed from sleep, holding a mug in each hand. He’s shirtless, wearing only a pair of low-slung joggers, and he looks so unfairly good like this that I can’t help but smile.
“Is that for me, or the other Evans in the room?” I ask, nodding to the coffee.
He sets both mugs on the side table and bends low to press a kiss to my stomach. “You’re sharing now, baby girl,” he murmurs, then straightens and kisses me slower. Deeper. Like the world isn’t falling apart outside these walls.
“You know she’s going to be the one running this place by the time she’s five, right?” I murmur against his lips.
He smirks. “Only if she inherits your terrifying ability to negotiate while hormonal.”
“I’m not hormonal. I’m pregnant. There’s a difference.”
“Sure,” he says, taking a sip of coffee and raising one brow. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“I’m not sleeping. Because someone keeps reading news headlines aloud at 3 a.m. like we’re starring in our own horror film.”
He sobers slightly, the smile on his face dimming but not disappearing. “I’m sorry. I just... couldn’t stop reading.”
“I know.”
And I do. Because Eleanor didn’t just release a press teaser, she detonated a legacy.
***
By the time we arrive at headquarters, the air inside Perfectly Matched feels tighter, charged with something that rides the line between fear and adrenaline. The building is quieter than usual, as if people are tiptoeing around the possibility that this is the moment everything collapses.
I step off the elevator first. Olivia is already waiting, phone to her ear, tablet clutched in the other hand. “CNN, Forbes, and the Times are all running versions of the story,” she says the moment she sees us. “The PulseMatch account is teasing Eleanor’s interview for tomorrow morning. They’re calling it, wait for it, ‘The Royal Reckoning.’”
I roll my eyes. “Of course they are.”
She lowers her phone. “We need to get ahead of this. Fast.”
“I’ll take lead.”
Grayson shoots me a look. “You don’t have to…”
I stop him with a glance. “I know I don’t have to. I want to.”
His jaw flexes, but he nods.
I turn back to Olivia. “Pull the team. Priya, Cassian, Sophie. I want a strategy outline within the hour. And I want our narrative on every channel before Eleanor’s lipstick is dry.”
***
An hour later, I’m standing in the middle of the same boardroom where we’ve launched companies, pitched investors, and rebuilt algorithms from the ground up. Only now, there’s a visible crack in the foundation, and everyone feels it.
“We’re not denying the story,” I say clearly, pacing slowly in front of the long glass wall. “We’re not playing defense. We’re reframing. If PulseMatch wants this to be about legacy, let’s show them what real legacy looks like.”
Cassian frowns. “You want to lean into it?”
“Absolutely. They think exposing a secret about Grayson’s biological father makes him unworthy of this company.” I stop, turning to face them. “But Perfectly Matched wasn’t built on bloodlines. It was built on intention. On resilience. On choice.”
Olivia nods. “We can do a campaign rollout by end of day. Interviews. Client quotes. Video testimonials.”
“Good,” I say. “And I want to lead it. Not just as CEO, but as someone who chose to build a life with a man the world is trying to strip down to DNA.”
Silence falls. Then Priya exhales, nodding slowly. “Okay. Let’s go to war.”
***
By late afternoon, I step out for air. The city moves like it always does, horns blaring, people shouting into phones, the occasional child wailing about ice cream from a stroller, but today, everything feels sharper. Every sound more jarring. Every shadow longer.
I lean against the stone balcony outside the twelfth-floor lounge and let myself breathe. That’s when I see him. Grayson. Alone. Sitting at the corner of the rooftop garden we’d had built for client meetups, though we haven’t used it in weeks. His elbows rest on his knees, head bowed, the posture of someone trying not to collapse under something heavy. I walk to him slowly, heels echoing across the pavers. He doesn’t look up.
“I didn’t know,” he says quietly. “About him. About any of it. She never told me.”
“I know.”
“I keep thinking maybe if I’d asked more questions... if I’d pushed harder...”
I sit beside him and take his hand, threading our fingers together. “Then what? You’d have gotten the truth sooner and still been blamed for a lie you didn’t tell?”
He looks at me then, really looks, and in his eyes, I see the man I love, the man who’s carried the weight of legacies and empires and now a baby girl with my stubborn streak.
“You didn’t choose your name,” I whisper. “But you chose me. You chose this life. And that makes you more of a King than any man who’s ever passed down a last name.”
His throat moves with a hard swallow. “What if I don’t know how to fight this?”
“You don’t have to fight it alone.”
***
We’re back at the penthouse when everything finally unravels. The moment the door closes behind us, something shifts. Grayson doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. He just watches me like I’m the only solid thing left in a world that won’t stop spinning.
“You still think you’re not worthy of this?” I ask, walking toward him, my voice softer now.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he steps forward, cupping my face in both hands, his mouth capturing mine in a kiss that says everything he can’t. It’s deep, demanding, raw. His touch is fire. His body, a storm. His hands trail down my sides, slipping beneath my blouse, pushing it over my head. His lips are everywhere, my throat, my collarbone, the sensitive skin just above the lace of my bra.
“You said I didn’t choose my name,” he murmurs, voice rough. “But I chose you. Over and over again.”
He lifts me in one fluid motion. I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me to the bedroom, shedding clothes with each step. When he lays me down, his eyes trace over every inch of me, hungry, reverent.
He kisses my belly first. Then everything else. I gasp when his tongue finds me, wet and aching. My fingers twist in his hair, thighs trembling. He licks, sucks my pussy and drives me to the edge and back, until I cry out his name. When he finally slides his dick inside me, it’s with a groan that rumbles through his chest. We move together like fire meeting air, furious, breathless, inevitable.
“Mine,” he growls into my ear.
“Always,” I gasp.
When we fall apart together, it’s with hands clutching, bodies shaking, hearts wide open. We don’t need blood to define us. We have this.