The Billionaire's Secret Heir (The Crossridge Group #3)

1. Declan

Declan

“Tell him if he wants another concession, I’m charging him by the hour.” The comment does what I intend it to, drawing real laughter from the far side of the conference table instead of the polite corporate kind people use when they’re trying to decide whether the billionaire in the room is joking.

I am joking. Mostly.

Across from me, Ashcroft Financial’s senior negotiator sits back with a reluctant smile, one hand still resting on the printed term sheet as if physical contact might keep me from changing anything else.

Poor man. He came into this meeting thinking he was here to protect his client’s upside.

I came into it knowing he was here to give Crossridge exactly what we needed, and leave convinced the idea had been mutual.

That’s the trick, really. Not winning. Anyone can win if they’re willing to scorch the room. The art is making the other side feel clever for losing ground.

Beside me, Marcus doesn’t look up from the tablet in front of him. “You already charge by the hour.”

“I charge by the charm,” I correct.

“Then we should request a refund.”

That earns a quieter laugh from Graham, which is satisfying mostly because Graham is trying very hard to appear above this conversation.

He’s sitting at the head of the table in his dark suit and CEO expression, looking like a man who has never once smiled over a contract negotiation in his life, even though I watched his eight-year-old daughter put glitter stickers on his laptop last week while he took a call with legal.

Across the room, Adrian lifts his coffee and hides his amusement behind the rim. He never laughs loudly in meetings. He doesn’t have to. His amusement has weight all by itself.

“You know,” he says mildly, “there was a time when deal negotiations involved fewer insults.”

“Before my time, then,” I say.

“Unfortunately.”

This time, even Marcus’s mouth shifts slightly.

Barely.

A suggestion of humor rather than the full thing, because Marcus Vale believes in emotional austerity even when making fun of me. It’s one of his many tragic flaws, but I keep him around anyway.

The conference room hums around us with the clean efficiency Crossridge has spent years cultivating.

Glass walls. Polished table. City skyline beyond the windows, all steel and sunlight and restless motion.

The city moves below us like a living thing, traffic threading between buildings, people crossing intersections with coffee in one hand and phones in the other, everybody going somewhere, everybody convinced getting there faster matters.

I understand that.

Movement has always made more sense to me than stillness.

Stillness gives things room to catch up, and I've never found much value in that.

Deals don't ask questions. Flights don't demand answers.

Meetings that bleed into other meetings and cities that blur together are easier to manage than the quiet.

So I don’t sit still. I move, and right now, movement is working.

The Ashcroft merger has taken six months of calls, dinners, revised proposals, late-night spreadsheets, and exactly one disastrous golf outing Graham still refuses to discuss.

If we close it, Crossridge expands its financial reach and pushes enough funding into the Foundation’s child development programs that will make Tessa cry when Graham tells her.

He’ll pretend that isn’t the part he cares about most. Everyone will pretend to believe him.

That is part of the trick, too. We all play our roles.

Graham is the steady hand at the center, Marcus is the control point, and Adrian is the wisdom none of us admit we rely on until we've already followed it anyway.

Me? I keep the room loose enough that nobody notices how carefully I'm moving the pieces.

Everyone has a talent. Mine just happens to involve jokes, timing, and convincing people that the idea they fought me on twenty minutes ago was theirs all along.

“Back to the revenue adjustment,” Marcus says, because he’s allergic to joy.

I sigh. “Fine. Back to the part where everyone pretends we don’t already know how this ends.”

Graham gives me a look, and I give him one back.

He knows I’m right.

The Ashcroft team knows I’m right too, even if they’re not ready to say it yet.

Their lead negotiator has started tapping his pen against the term sheet, not from nerves but calculation.

Their junior counsel keeps looking at the redline as if she can make a more favorable clause appear through sheer will.

On the far end, one of their finance directors has stopped taking notes and started watching Marcus, which is always the point in a negotiation where people realize the room has narrowed.

Good. We’re almost there.

“We can agree to the revised earn-out structure,” the negotiator says finally, “provided your side accepts a longer integration review period.”

Marcus looks at me, and Graham looks at Marcus, which is usually how these things go.

Adrian has already lost interest in pretending this outcome is still in doubt.

He's studying the skyline beyond the windows, a sure sign that he knows exactly how this is going to end and has decided to let the children work through it themselves.

I lean forward, folding my hands on the table. “Define longer.”

The negotiator names a number, and I laugh. Not rudely. Just enough to make it clear that if he's testing whether I'm awake, the answer is yes.

“Absolutely not.”

His smile tightens. “It’s a reasonable ask.”

“It’s an opening ask,” I say. “Reasonable is where we end up after you stop testing whether I’m awake.”

Graham exhales through his nose. Marcus keeps his expression flat, but his eyes flick briefly to the term sheet. He’s already recalculating. I can practically hear the numbers shifting in his head, which would be more irritating if it weren’t so useful.

The negotiator studies me, and I let him. Silence, when used correctly, is not empty. It’s pressure with manners.

Finally, he glances toward Rebecca Lawson, Ashcroft’s senior partner, who has been quiet for the last ten minutes. That matters. Rebecca doesn’t speak unless she intends to move something.

She checks the time on her watch and sets her pen down.

“We may have someone joining us before we move forward.”

My attention sharpens. Not because I dislike surprises. I like surprises. I make a living turning them into opportunities. But the way she says it changes the room by half a degree. Marcus and Graham notice it too. Adrian’s gaze leaves the window and returns to the table.

“Additional counsel?” Graham asks.

“Consultant,” Rebecca says. “We brought her in to review the integration risk model.”

A strange, stupid awareness moves through me before I can put a reason to it, which is ridiculous because there are billions of women in the world. Several of them are consultants. Most of them are not ghosts from hotel rooms I've spent the last seven years pretending I don’t remember.

Still, my pulse shifts, not enough to alarm me, just enough to annoy me. When the boardroom door opens behind me, I don't turn immediately because I’m not a man who reacts before he knows what he's reacting to. At least, I used to be able to say that with confidence.

Then I catch the faintest trace of perfume in the air, something clean with a warmer note beneath it, and my body recognizes her before my mind permits the possibility. For one suspended second, everything inside me goes still, which is inconvenient and, frankly, more than a little insulting.

Seven years should have dulled something. That's what time is supposed to do, isn't it? Instead, every traitorous inch of me appears to have filed Talia Wynn under unfinished business and kept the record pristine.

Wonderful. Apparently, my subconscious believes in excellent recordkeeping.

I turn, and there she is. Not a memory or a trick of my imagination, but Talia herself, standing in the doorway like the last seven years are both yesterday and a lifetime ago.

Her dark hair is shorter now, brushing just past her shoulders instead of falling down her back the way it did that night.

She wears a charcoal suit with a cream blouse, simple earrings, and the kind of calm that tells a room she has already identified its weak points and is deciding whether to be polite about them.

She looks older, though not in a way that lessens her.

If anything, it makes the memory of her feel young by comparison.

She's sharper now, maybe a little more guarded, but somehow more complete too.

And she's still beautiful enough to irritate me on a cellular level, which would almost be funny if my body wasn't busy reacting like an absolute fool.

A hard pull low in my stomach, and a tightening through my chest. It was the kind of heat that has no business existing in a room full of executives and legal documents.

I keep my expression pleasant because I am a professional, and because there are very few problems in life that cannot be improved by looking like none of them belong to me.

Talia's gaze finds mine across the room, and for a moment, her composure changes. Not much, just a small pause in her step and the faintest catch before her expression smooths again. I watch as her hand tightens once around the leather folder she's carrying before relaxing.

Oh. So not just me, then.

That realization shouldn't satisfy me as much as it does, and it definitely shouldn't feel like evidence. But some reckless, younger version of myself sees that tiny crack in her composure and immediately perks up with an entirely unhelpful, There you are.

I shut him down at once.

Mostly.

Rebecca steps aside. “This is Talia Wynn, our lead consultant on integration risk.”

Graham rises with an easy smile. “Graham Cross. Welcome.”

“Thank you.” Talia returns the handshake. “I appreciate the opportunity.”

Her voice hits worse than her face. It's lower than I remember and wrapped in the kind of control that should make it easier to ignore. Instead, it drags my mind somewhere entirely inappropriate before I can stop it.

A hotel balcony. Her laugh muffled against my shoulder. The soft, disbelieving way she said my name when I told her pineapple on pizza was a character flaw. The warmth of her bare knee brushing mine under tangled sheets while morning threatened the edges of the windows.

Not helpful.

I push the memory aside, where it joins the many other things I have become skilled at not touching.

Marcus introduces himself next, all restraint and assessment. Talia meets him without flinching. Adrian offers a polite nod, and something in his expression tells me he has already noticed too much, which is Adrian’s most inconvenient talent.

Then Rebecca turns toward me.

“And this is Declan Ward, Crossridge’s Chief Development Officer.”

Talia looks at me fully then. Not through me this time. At me. Her face gives away almost nothing, but I know what almost nothing looks like when it costs effort. I know because I can feel my own expression working harder than usual to hold its shape.

“Talia,” I say.

Her name comes out evenly. Thank God for small mercies.

“Declan.”

One word, and seven years vanish and return all at once.

The negotiator glances between us. “You two know each other?”

There it is. The question with teeth.

Graham's attention shifts toward me, subtle but immediate. Marcus stills. Adrian lowers his coffee to the table with maddening calm, as though he'd been waiting all morning for the room to become interesting.

I could lie. It would be easy enough. We met years ago.

Briefly, professional circles. Nothing worth discussing.

I've told more elaborate lies with less motivation.

But Talia holds my gaze before I can choose one, and something in her eyes tells me not to make this smaller than it was.

Not softer, safer, or neater. Just not false.

It’s the first real thing she’s given me since walking into the room, and I feel it more than I should. Her mouth curves faintly, not quite a smile but something that looks dangerously like recognition and challenge wrapped together.

Talia doesn't look away, but neither do I.

“We've met,” she says quietly.

And just like that, my entire world stops moving.