CELESTE
The Apex Innovations annual family picnic was a mandatory display of "corporate harmony," held on a sprawling, private green in Central Park. To the world, it was a day of sunshine and catering. To me, it was a minefield.
"I don't like this, Maya," I whispered into my phone as I navigated the edge of the crowd.
"Just stay in the shadows, C," Maya's voice was firm over the line. "I'm ten minutes away. I had to grab Gabriel's extra inhaler. Just keep him by the face-painting station.
Nobody looks at kids' faces when they're covered in tiger stripes."
I looked down at Gabriel. He was three years old, a bundle of pure, chaotic energy in a tiny denim jacket. He was currently fascinated by a blade of grass. I had dressed him in a baseball cap pulled low, hoping to obscure those piercing blue eyes—the eyes he had inherited from a man who was currently standing fifty yards away, being photographed by the social press.
"Mama, look! A doggy!" Gabriel chirped, pointing toward a golden retriever.
"Stay close, Gabe," I warned, my heart thumping a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I scanned the crowd. Allen was surrounded by city officials and Yona Vance, who looked like she had stepped off a yacht in the Hamptons. He looked bored, his gaze scanning the park with predatory detachment—until his eyes found mine.
Across the lawn, his stature went rigid. He knew the risk of me being here. He knew that today, the secret was walking on two legs.
"Celeste! Darling!"
The voice was like a bucket of ice water down my spine. I turned to see my mother, Margot Lawson, accompanied by my father and a very uncomfortable-looking Chris. They were "Apex Partners," invited to the gala as a formality.
"Mother," I breathed, pulling Gabriel behind my legs.
Margot didn't even look at me. Her eyes were fixed on the child peeking out from behind my skirt. Her face, usually a mask of Botox and boredom, contorted into a look of sheer, visceral disgust. "So, this is the... consequence. I heard rumors you were back in the city, working like a common clerk."
"His name is Gabriel," I said, my voice trembling with a decade's worth of repressed rage. "And he is not a consequence. He is my son."
"He is a stain," my father, Laurel, muttered, refusing to meet my eyes.
Chris stepped forward, his expression pained. "Celeste, maybe you should go. Before this becomes—"
"Before what, Chris?" I snapped. "Before people see that I'm happy without your money?"
Suddenly, the crowd parted. The air seemed to grow heavier. Doncan Cross, the patriarch of the Cross empire, was walking toward us. He was a mountain of a man with silver hair and a gaze that could devalue a currency.
"Lawson," Doncan boomed, his voice carrying across the lawn. "I didn't know you were attending. And who is this lovely young woman?"
Margot's face smoothed into a fake, oily smile. "Doncan. This is my... former daughter, Celeste. And her unfortunate situation."
Doncan't gaze shifted to me, then dropped to Gabriel.
Gabriel, never one to be shy, stepped out from behind my legs. He had lost his hat in the grass. He looked up at Doncan, tilting his head exactly the way Allen did when he was thinking.
"Hello, big man," Gabriel said, his voice high and clear.
The world went silent.
Doncan Cross froze. I watched as the blood drained from his face, replaced by a deep, ruddy flush of shock. He looked at Gabriel's dark hair. He looked at the sharp, aristocratic curve of Gabriel's nose. And then, he looked into Gabriel's eyes.
Those piercing, icy Cross blue eyes.
Doncan looked up at me, then over his shoulder at Allen, who was now moving toward us with the speed of a man running toward a car wreck. The resemblance wasn't just a hint; it was a biological shout.
"My God," Doncan whispered, his voice shaking. He looked back at Gabriel, a strange, hungry light appearing in his eyes.
"He's a Cross."
"He is mine," I said, stepping forward to scoop Gabriel into my arms, my protective instincts screaming.
"Doncan, what are you talking about?" Margot hissed, her eyes darting between the boy and the tycoon. "The girl is a pariah. The father was some nobody—"
"The father," Doncan interrupted, his voice rising to a roar that silenced the entire picnic, "is standing right there."
He pointed a shaking finger at Allen, who had just reached the circle.
The socialites gasped. The photographers' flashes began to pop like rapid-fire artillery. Yona Vance's jaw dropped, her face twisting into a mask of pure, murderous jealousy.
Allen didn't look at his father. He didn't look at the cameras. He looked at me, his expression a mixture of profound regret and a new, terrifying resolve.
"Father," Allen said, his voice low and dangerous. "This is not the place."
"Not the place?" Doncan laughed, a booming, triumphant sound. He ignored the Lawsons entirely, stepping toward me and Gabriel. "I've been asking for an heir for five years, and you've been hiding him in Brooklyn? Look at him! He's the image of you at that age!"
"He is not an heir," I cried out, backing away as the crowd began to close in. "He is a little boy! Stay away from him!"
But the Lawson parents were already moving, their greed overriding their shame. "If he is a Cross," Margot stammered, her eyes wide with the sudden realization of the leverage she had lost, "then we have matters to discuss. Family matters."
"You are no family of his!" I shouted.
I turned to run, but a hand caught my arm. It wasn't the Lawsons. It was Allen.
"Celeste, wait," he urged.
"You did this!" I sobbed, clutching Gabriel to my chest as he started to cry, frightened by the shouting. "You brought us here! You exposed us!"
"I will handle this," Allen said, his eyes burning with a fire I'd never seen. He turned to the crowd, his voice projecting a power that made the photographers stumble back. "The next person to take a photo of this child will find their agency sued into bankruptcy by morning. This picnic is over. Now!"
As the security teams began to scramble, Allen looked at his father. "We are going to the penthouse. All of us. Now."
I looked at the Lawsons, who were watching their "disgrace" turn into the most powerful child in New York. I looked at Yona, who was already on her phone, likely calling Anastasia to burn my world down.
The secret was dead. The war had begun.