VALENTINA POV'S
The boardroom smelled of fresh coffee and old ambition. I was already seven minutes late for the most important meeting of my life when the CFO slid a single sheet of paper across the glass table like he was handing over a live grenade.
Item 7 – Major Shareholder Activation.
I frowned. "We don't have major shareholders. It's founder-controlled. One hundred percent me."
He didn't meet my eyes. "Actually… we do. Forty-nine percent. Silent since the first round."
The room temperature dropped. I felt it in my bones.
"Who?"
He turned the page over.
Matteo Luca De Luca.
The name hit like a slap I'd been expecting for five years but still wasn't ready for.
My fingers curled around the edge of the paper until it creased. The letters blurred, then sharpened again, mocking me.
Forty-nine percent.
Almost half of everything I'd bled for. Every late night, every rejected investor, every time I told myself I didn't need anyone.
And he'd been here the whole time.
Watching.
Funding.
Owning.
I laughed once short, sharp, the sound bouncing off the glass walls. The entire board froze.
"Everybody out," I said, voice low enough that they had to lean in to hear it.
They left faster than if the building had caught fire.
When the door clicked shut, I picked up my phone. His number was still there, of course. I'd never deleted it. I'd just stopped pretending I'd ever use it.
It rang twice.
"Valentina."
His voice was deeper than I remembered. Still velvet. Still dangerous.
"You have exactly ninety seconds to explain why you own almost half of my company," I said, "and why I'm only finding out the morning we're supposed to file for IPO."
Silence stretched long enough that I thought he'd hung up.
Then he answered, calm as ever, the way he used to speak when he was trying not to explode.
"Because four years ago you were three weeks from bankruptcy. You refused every bridge loan on the planet. I couldn't watch you lose everything you'd built from nothing. So I became the everything you refused to accept."
My grip on the phone turned my knuckles white.
"You don't get to play saviour after you ghosted me while I was pregnant, Matteo."
"I know."
The simplicity of it made me want to throw the phone through the window.
"Then why now? Why surface today?"
Another pause longer this time.
"Because the Italian parliament just voted to change the succession law. If Alessandro dies without a named heir, the crown goes to the next legitimate male bloodline. My mother found out about Luca two weeks ago. She's already filed a paternity claim in Rome. And if the IPO goes public tomorrow… the press will find the funding trail. They'll find him. They'll find us."
The room tilted.
I looked through the glass wall at the open-plan office. Luca was sitting on the rug in the creative corner, wearing noise-cancelling headphones, carefully arranging scent strips into a rainbow pattern. My entire universe in one small body.
I closed my eyes.
Opened them again.
"Tell your lawyers to stall the claim," I said. "Tell your mother I will burn this company to the ground before I let her near my son."
His voice came softer, almost pleading.
"I'm not asking you to give him up, Valentina. I'm asking you to let me stand between them and both of you."
I laughed again colder this time.
"You had five years to stand somewhere. You chose silence."
I ended the call.
The silence in the boardroom was deafening.
I stared at the name on the paper until the ink seemed to pulse.
Then I stood, smoothed my blazer, and walked back into the main office.
Every head turned.
I placed both palms on the nearest desk.
"We're not going public tomorrow," I said.
The room erupted.
I raised one hand. Silence fell instantly.
"And we're not accepting any further investment from Matteo De Luca."
I met every pair of eyes in the room.
"Effective immediately, I'm activating the founder's buy-back clause. I'm buying back every single share he owns. With interest. With penalties. With whatever it takes."
I looked straight at the CFO.
"Tell the lawyers to prepare the hostile tender offer."
I paused.
"We're going to war."
Then I walked out, picked up my son, and carried him past thirty stunned board members like I was carrying the crown itself.
Because I was.