Watch Me Love Your Stepbrother: Rejected, Pregnant , And Claimed

Chapter 7: Chapter 6 No Such Thing as Coincidence

Silence followed his accusations.

But he didn’t push for answers.

That was the scariest part about him—he didn’t need to force a confession; he just filed away my reaction like a hunter tracking a scent.

"Clear your weekend."

"I’m sorry?"

"There’s a charity gala this weekend," he said.

"I don’t think I’ll be able to—"

"That wasn’t a request.... Assistants attend where I attend, Miss Brenner."

I forced a stiff nod.

A high-profile gala meant flashing cameras. It meant local media, international press releases, and worst of all, potential family connections. If a single photograph of me reached the North American branch, Helix would see it.

And then there was the real crisis: Who was going to watch Anastelle on a Saturday night?

By two p.m., the pressure in my chest was suffocating. I sat at my desk outside his glass partition, staring blindly at a logistics spreadsheet, trying to figure out a childcare solution that wouldn’t involve letting Giulia know just how deep into the Monroe trap I had fallen.

Then, my phone vibrated.

I snatched it up, "Pronto?" I whispered, keeping my voice low.

"Signora Brenner?" the voice on the other end spoke. It was the administrator from Anastelle’s preschool. "You need to come immediately. Anastelle woke up from her nap with a severe fever. She’s crying, vomiting, and her temperature is over thirty-nine degrees. Someone needs to pick her up right now."

"W...what?"

I had just started this job yesterday. I had explicitly set a rule to never mention my daughter, to never show a single weakness, and to keep my private life entirely invisible. If I walked into Laziel’s office right now and asked to leave early on my second day, he would fire me before I could even reach the elevator.

But my baby was sick.

For the next ten minutes, I was completely useless. My fingers fumbled over the keyboard, hitting the wrong keys, deleting rows of data by accident. Every three seconds, my eyes darted back to my phone screen, waiting for another update from the school.

"Miss Brenner."

The voice directly above me made me jump.

Laziel was standing right at the edge of my desk. I hadn’t even heard him approach.

"You’ve checked your phone twelve times in fifteen minutes," he said. "And the report you just sent me looks like it was typed by a blindfolded toddler. What is the issue?"

I quickly slid the phone into my drawer and stood up, trying to swallow the lump of panic in my throat. "I apologize, Mr. Monroe. It’s... just a minor personal matter. It won’t happen again."

Laziel didn’t look convinced. He leaned in, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Whatever you’re hiding is affecting my workflow....I don’t pay for distractions."

I bit the inside of my cheek. "I understand. I can finish the manifests—"

"Handle your problem and come back when you’re capable of focusing," he interrupted. "I have no use for an assistant whose mind is somewhere else. Go."

I almost cried in relief. "Thank you."

.....

The office suite was completely dark by the time the cleaning staff finished their rounds on the forty-fifth floor.

Laziel remained at his desk, his mind drifting away from the shipping merger for the first time all day.

Brenner.

The surname had been itching at the back of his brain since yesterday. He wasn’t a man who forgot details, and yet, he couldn’t place why that specific sequence of letters felt familiar.

He clicked open the secure server, pulling up Mireya’s basic HR employee file. He scrolled past her employment history.

Everything looked standard.

Then his gaze stopped at the emergency contact line.

Emergency Contact: Giulia Valli.

Giulia Valli. He remembered that name. She had been a hospitality manager at one of the Monroe luxury hotels in downtown Milan.

It wasn’t enough to prove anything. But in Laziel’s world, there were no coincidences—only links that hadn’t been uncovered yet.

A small, dangerous smile touched his lips as he closed the file.

The next morning,

I walked into his office. Anastelle’s fever had finally broken around midnight thanks to some medicine, but I had barely slept two hours. I was determined to make up for yesterday’s disaster.

I stepped through the doors to deliver his documents.

Laziel was already seated, his head lowered as he scrolled through his tablet. He didn’t even look up as the scent of my perfume entered the room.

I set the papers down on the desk. "Good morning, Mr. Monroe. The updated manifests are—"

"How’s your daughter feeling?" he asked casually.

My heart stopped beating.

I...I had never told him I had a daughter.