Page 1

Stefan

Chapter 1

“He’s yours,” Anja said, her eyes locked on mine. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Your son.”

I felt like I’d been shot in the gut, like the whole world had gone still around me.

I heard Tori gasp at my side, and instinctively tightened my grip on her hand. My gaze shifted to the dark-haired boy on the couch. This was…my son?

The shock was visceral. My whole body was cold, my pulse pounding in my ears, as if I’d just plunged under the surface of an iced-over Lake Michigan.

How was this possible?

Anja, the first woman I’d ever loved, the woman I’d lost, the woman I’d tried so desperately to find for almost a decade—I’d spent all this time searching for her, and this was the moment she chose to reappear? Right when things with my wife were finally coming together, when my plans to tear down my father and take over KZ Modeling were starting to coalesce?

Memories flooded back to me as I took in Anja’s waterfall of black hair, her long legs, the wide eyes and sharp arch of her brows. Eight years later, and she hadn’t changed a bit. It was almost like she was taunting me, the way she was suddenly sitting right here in front of me in my father’s library. Looking at me with tears in her eyes and a hopeful smile. As if this was merely a reunion. As if no time or trauma had passed between us. With a child beside her that I was supposed to believe wasmine. Was this the reason she’d disappeared all those years ago?

Eyeing the boy more closely, I could see that the kid had the same full lips as most of the men in my family, and similarly dark hair—but Anja had dark hair, too. With lips fuller than mine. I couldn’t say with certainty that he was my offspring. But could I honestly say he wasn’t?

The timeline made sense. Her disappearance made sense. Yet I still couldn’t process it.

As something exploded in a bright flash on the kid’s screen, he glanced up from the game he’d been absorbed in and our eyes met. It was only for a split second, but it was enough to hit me like another gut shot. His eyes were green. More of a blue-tinged green than my own pale olive color, yes, but maybe that was owing to Anja’s mix of colors. Who could say for sure? But if it was true—if I did have a son—what did it mean for the boy, for Anja, for me and Tori?

I was numb, speechless, my mind blown. It was all so unreal.

My chest constricted and I sank into a chair, my brain reeling with all the questions I’d bottled up inside over the years. Even if I could form the words, they all felt irrelevant given the situation. Like pebbles to a mountain. Because the fact of this child sitting here—changed everything.

Looking up at Tori, our hands still locked together, I realized she still hadn’t spoken either. And she refused to look at me. God, why did this have to happen now? As much as I wanted her here, I wished she had never come with me to my father’s tonight. Because despite the fact that I loved her and needed her at my side, I knew this bombshell could destroy us, could destroy our marriage, could destroy everything we’d built. It was all crumbling in the wake of this impossible revelation.

And I couldn’t lose her. Not after everything we’d been through. Everything that was still to come.

I needed to talk with Anja, but there was no way I could rehash my personal history with her in front of my wife. I would never subject Tori to that. But how could I just walk out the door now and leave Anja here? Especially with her son—our son—at her side? Even now, I could see my former love eyeing the huge diamond ring on Tori’s finger, probably noticing the way my wife and I were holding hands so tightly. As much as I deserved an explanation, Anja probably had some questions of her own. And the boy—did he know anything about me? Did he want to?

There was no way out of this. No easy solution. I was trapped.

I looked back across the room at my father, taking in the familiar smirk on his face, and that’s when I realized: he’d done this all on purpose.

Konstantin Zoric, ever the conniving, manipulative puppeteer. He’d arranged all of this—Anja, the boy, inviting me and Tori over for dinner just so he could pull off this surprise meeting—to cause maximum pain for everyone involved. The sadist. He’d stop at nothing to maintain his power over me, his control of the family business…even if that meant destroying my life and the lives of everyone around me.

“Look, son,” he was saying now, his smug voice dripping with self-satisfaction, “Anja’s finally returned. Now you two can build a real family together, once and for all. Just like you always dreamed of.”

I stood, my fists clenching. It was all I could do to keep myself from lunging at my father. My first instinct was to punch him in the face, but I couldn’t. There was a child in the room. My child. But I was enraged in the face of my father’s gloating, and even more disgusted by the way he was acting as though Tori—my wife—wasn’t even here. Like she meant nothing, wasn’t even worth a passing thought to him. But her grip on my hand only grew tighter, and she finally looked at me, offering a tight smile that I couldn’t read.

Then she turned toward my father, and though I was grateful she’d interfered before I could engage in a full-out assault, I braced myself for what my wife was about to say.

“Konstantin, why don’t we give Stefan and Anja a chance to speak alone?” she suggested, keeping her voice calm and neutral.

“What?” I blurted. I had no idea what I’d expected from Tori, but it wasn’t that. Judging by my father’s expression, he was just as surprised as I was.

“An excellent idea,” my father said, quickly recovering his cool demeanor. “I’m sure they have a lot of…catching upto do.”

Anja was looking at me expectantly, but I shook my head. “No. The last thing anybody needs right now is to—”

“Stefan,” Tori interjected, cutting me off before smiling apologetically at Anja and my father. “If you’ll excuse us for just a moment?”

“Of course,” Anja said, her Romanian accent now just a hint of what it once was.

Then Tori gently led me out of the room and into the hallway, closing the library door shut behind us. I slumped against the wall, grateful for the dim lighting, and rubbed a hand over my face.