Page 169 of Secret Heir For The Billionaire Twin

“He should try less.”

Claire almost smiles, but it disappears quickly.

“Take twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t need twenty-four hours.”

“Then you can tell me no again tomorrow.”

I push my chair back and stand. The Blackwell packet remains on the table between us. I leave it there.

Claire says nothing.

I make it three steps toward the door before stopping. I turn around, pick up the packet, and tuck it beneath my arm.

Claire raises one eyebrow.

“This isn’t a yes,” I tell her.

“I didn’t say it was.”

I open the door and walk out with Julian Blackwell’s name pressed against my side.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Julian

The presentation on the wall shifts from quarterly projections to a rendering of the new systems laboratory outside San Jose while I listen to three institutional investors argue about a number they already know I’m not changing.

“We can accelerate the second phase,” Martin Cho says from the far end of the conference table, “but only if California gets the additional capital allocation this quarter.”

“It’s already getting it,” I tell him.

Martin glances down at the financial model in front of him.

“The current authorization is six hundred million.”

“The revised authorization is eight-fifty.”

That quiets the room.

Across the table, our chief financial officer, Evelyn Hart, turns her head toward me.

“You approved the increase?”

“Yesterday.”

One of the West Coast investors appears on the screen at the end of the room, his image framed by morning light somewhere in San Francisco.

“That’s a significant shift toward California.”

“It’s a significant shift toward where the technology is going,” I reply.

“The advanced systems division exceeded its three-year projections eighteen months early. I’m not going to slow it down because the allocation looked aggressive when we wrote the original plan.”

Evelyn taps her pen once against the folder in front of her.

“The board will want the revised return assumptions before Thursday.”