Chapter 1 - The Silver Pendant
“May I ask you something personal?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Lily blinked, surprised by the sudden shift in my tone.
“Of course, Mr. Whitmore,” she replied politely.
“That pendant around your neck,” I said, gesturing toward the silver knot.
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
Her hand drifted to her throat, her fingers brushing the tarnished metal.
“My mother gave it to me before she passed away,” Lily answered softly.
The air in my lungs suddenly turned to ice.
“Passed away?” I whispered.
I had spent twenty-five years wondering why Mei Lin never showed up at the train station.
I had convinced myself that she simply changed her mind and chose a different life.
The idea that she was dead had never crossed my mind.
“Yes, sir,” Lily continued, her eyes dropping to the floor.
“She died in a fire when I was a teenager.”
My hands gripped the edge of the linen tablecloth with bone-crushing force.
“What was your mother’s name?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Mei Lin Carter,” she said.
The entire restaurant seemed to spin around me.
This fearless twenty-five-year-old woman with dark hair and hazel eyes was Mei’s daughter.
She was the exact right age to be the child of the romance I left behind.
“May I see the back of the pendant?” I requested, struggling to maintain my composed billionaire facade.
Lily hesitated for a fraction of a second before unhooking the clasp.
She placed the silver knot gently into my open palm.
I flipped it over, expecting to see the romantic Chinese proverb I had carved into it myself.
Instead, the back of the silver pendant was completely smooth, except for a tiny corporate logo.
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It was a perfectly engraved crest belonging to Thorne Industries.
That was the exact same company I had been trying to destroy in a hostile takeover for the past decade.
