A wealthy heir tried to pay off his ex with a black card, completely unaware the seven-year-old boy beside her was his son.

Victoria’s breath caught in her throat. Her cheeks flushed a light, embarrassed pink under her flawless makeup, but she quickly turned her eyes back to Ethan, seeking his immediate intervention.

Ethan, however, wasn't looking at Victoria. His mind was racing, grappling with a detail that had just clicked into place.

He looked down at the centerpiece table. There were six place settings laid out with gold-embossed place cards and polished sterling silver. He was sitting in one; Victoria in another. Emma and Noah occupied two settings across from them. But directly at the head of the table sat a fifth setting—an empty, high-backed master chair, completely untouched, flanked by a glass of sparkling water and a small, vintage silver place-card holder that bore no name.

Ethan looked at the nervous maître d' standing ten feet away near the wine cellar entrance, clutching a leather reservation leather binder against his chest.

Ethan raised two fingers, hailing the manager with a cold, commanding gesture. "Manager. Over here."

The manager, a polished man in his fifties who had served heads of state and Wall Street titans, approached the Blackwood table with hurried, anxious steps. He bowed his head slightly toward Ethan.

"Yes, Mr. Blackwood? Is there something wrong with the wine service?"

"Who reserved this table?" Ethan asked, his voice low and dangerous. "I was told this was a private dinner for Victoria and me to discuss the foundation gala. Why are there six settings? Why is she here?"

The manager’s eyes darted nervously between Ethan’s thunderous expression and Emma’s calm, silent posture. He cleared his throat, adjusting his lapels.

"Mr. Blackwood... the reservation was not made through your office," the manager explained softly, leaning down so as not to draw the attention of nearby tables. "This private alcove was booked directly three days ago. By your father."

Ethan went perfectly still. "My father?"

"Yes, sir," the manager confirmed, pulling open his leather binder to show a digital signature. "Mr. Richard Blackwood called personally from his estate in Greenwich. He specified the exact seating arrangement, requested the child's menu for young Master Noah, and paid for the entire evening in advance. He informed us he would be arriving shortly after eight."

Ethan slowly turned his head to look at Emma.

For the first time since he had stepped into the restaurant, the cold, arrogant hatred in his eyes began to give way to a profound, unsettling uncertainty.

He had spent seven years believing that Emma Carter was a ruthless opportunist—a young, ambitious woman from a working-class background who had entered his life, stolen his heart, accepted a six-figure wire transfer from his family to walk away, and vanished into thin air the moment his world became complicated. He had built a wall of ice around his heart, convincing himself that her absence was proof of her greed.

Yet here she sat, invited not by a desperate play for his attention, but by Richard Blackwood—the iron-fisted patriarch who had spent forty years running the family enterprise with clinical, unemotional precision.

Why would Richard Blackwood invite Ethan's abandoned lover and a six-year-old child to an intimate family dinner at Le Ciel?

"You didn't come here to trap me," Ethan said, the words slipping from his lips before he could stop them. It was not a question; it was a realization that shattered his primary assumption.

Emma looked at him, her dark eyes filled with a tired, hollow pity that stung Ethan deeper than any insult could have.

"I didn't even know you were in the country, Ethan," Emma said quietly. She placed her hand over Noah’s shoulder, pulling the boy slightly behind her dress. "Your father told me he wanted to see his grandson. He told me it was time Noah knew where he came from."

"Grandson..." Victoria whispered beside him, her hands tightening in her lap until her knuckles turned white. "Ethan... this is absurd. Your father is testing you. He's trying to disrupt the announcement of our merger—"