Page 240 of Secret Heir For The Billionaire Twin

“I’m sitting down while I build it,” he says.

I give him a look, and Theo smiles before reaching for a piece of toast.

“That still counts,” he says.

I shake my head and turn back toward the counter, relieved enough to let him have the argument.

The townhouse feels normal again. Sunlight comes through the kitchen windows, Theo’s markers are scattered across the table, and the low hum of the dishwasher fills the room. After yesterday, the ordinary rhythm of home feels almost unreal.

Once Theo finishes eating, I carry my coffee into the living room and spread the printed Blackwell notes I brought home across the desk near the windows. My main laptop is still somewhere at the facility with the leather work bag I left behind in my rush to get to the airport, which means I am working from my phone, a few printed interview pages, and the files I can reach through Vanguard’s cloud system on my tablet.

I read the same interview passage three times before giving up.

The retrospective was difficult enough when Julian was simply a subject I had history with. Now I am supposed to take everything that happened at the facility, put it somewhere outside the work, and continue writing about Blackwell with the same distance I had before.

I do not know if that distance exists anymore.

The pages in front of me are filled with notes from the research campus, technical observations from the engineering teams, and pieces of Julian’s interviews. I should be thinking about structure, sourcing, and how the California facility fits into the future-facing section of the retrospective. Instead, my mind keeps returning to the conversation before the storm and everything it changed.

Julian tried to reach me.

I tried to reach him.

Somewhere between those two facts, everything went wrong.

For years, I have lived with one version of what happened because it was the only version I had. Now that version no longer holds together as cleanly as it once did, and I do not know what to replace it with.

Theo looks over from the table.

“Are you working?”

“I’m trying,” I tell him.

“You’re staring at the paper.”

“That is sometimes part of working.”

Theo considers that before returning to his drawing.

“Seems boring.”

“Sometimes it is.”

He goes back to coloring, and I look down at the notes spread across the desk.

I know I cannot keep avoiding the conversation with Julian. What happened between us at the facility made that impossible, and what we learned about those final days in Philadelphia made it necessary.

There is still one truth he does not know.

I have spent years telling myself I kept Theo separate because separation was safer. California became its own life, far enough away from Blackwell that I could protect what mattered without constantly looking over my shoulder. That explanation has always been easier to live with when Julian was somewhere else.

Now he is not.

I tell myself I still have time to decide how to handle it. Time to finish the assignment, time to understand what happened between us, and time to choose the right moment instead of letting seven years of history collapse all at once.

The doorbell rings while Theo is still occupied in the back of the townhouse.

I glance toward the hallway before wiping my hands on the front of my jeans and walking toward the entryway. I am not expecting anyone, and for one irrational second I assume it is Emma coming back for something she forgot.