Page 161 of Secret Heir For The Billionaire Twin

“Yes.”

He opens the cabinet, pulls out the jar, and carries everything toward the dining table, where his schoolwork already competes for space with the things he builds.

“Keep the pulley away from your food,” I tell him.

“I know,” Theo says as he settles into his chair.

I leave him to it and cross into the small office off the living room. The room used to be the third bedroom, but after years of balancing interviews, deadlines, and motherhood across every available surface, I finally gave myself a proper workspace. My desk faces the courtyard, where the late-afternoon sun filters through the trees and throws shifting shadows across the floor.

My laptop wakes to a full inbox. Three messages are from my editor. Two are from our research desk. Another is from a producer asking whether I can move a founder interview scheduled for Thursday. Beneath those is a note from the investigations team about a source packet I requested earlier in the week.

This is what my work looks like now.

I am not scrambling for access or trying to convince someone that I deserve the assignment after it has already been placed in my hands. When our publication wants a difficult founder profiled, a family empire untangled, or a billionaire who hates interviews persuaded to sit still long enough to answer real questions, my name usually lands somewhere near the top of the list.

It took years to get here, but I did.

I open the first message from my editor, scan it, and move to the next. Our publication—Vanguard Business Journal—operates nationally, with reporters moving between Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington, and wherever the story requires us to be. Over the past few years, I have written about private-equity families, founders who turned modest companies into global corporations, succession fights inside multigenerational businesses, and one particularly unpleasant technology CEO who spent nearly two hours answering questions I had never asked.

From the dining room, Theo calls, “Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have another apple?”

“Go ahead.”

A moment later, his chair scrapes across the floor.

“Thanks,” Theo calls.

“You’re welcome.”

I smile and turn back to my screen. The latest message from my editor is short.

Need you in tomorrow at 9:30. Editorial conference room. New assignment discussion. Please keep the morning clear.

I read it twice.

Being called into an assignment meeting is not unusual, but the absence of any detail catches my attention. My editor is normally specific enough to give me a company name, a subject, or at least some indication of why she wants me in the room. I type a quick reply confirming that I will be there. Before I can close the message, another one appears.

This one’s significant. Come in before you commit to anything else.

I lean back in my chair and read the sentence again.

From the dining room, Theo begins humming to himself while moving something across the table. A few seconds later, I hear the soft rattle of cardboard and the crinkle of a snack wrapper. Whatever is waiting for me tomorrow can wait until 9:30.

I close the laptop and head back toward the kitchen to make sure Theo has actually started his homework instead of redesigning the pulley.

By 5:40, Theo has finished most of his homework, abandoned the pulley on the corner of the dining table, and convinced himself that apple slices somehow qualify as dinner preparation. I am clearing the kitchen counter when the doorbell rings.

Theo looks up from his worksheet.

“Is that Aunt Emma?”

“Probably not,” I tell him as I cross the living room.

“She said she might come after dinner.”