Chapter 3 - The St. Regis SecretsZ
The morning sun filtered through the dense grey fog hanging over Manhattan, casting a cool, metallic light across Fifth Avenue. I stood outside the grand revolving doors of the St. Regis Hotel at precisely 8:45 AM, wearing a sharp, dark grey trench coat over a high-necked black dress. In my left hand, I held my leather bag; in my right, I gripped Owen Rodgers' steel business card so tightly the edges bit into my palm.
My phone had been buzzing non-stop in my coat pocket for two hours. Harold had sent forty-three text messages and called sixteen times.
Where the hell are you? The board meeting starts in fifteen minutes.
Anastasia, pick up the damn phone!
If you embarrass me today, you will regret it for the rest of your life.
I switched the phone to silent and stepped through the revolving doors into the quiet luxury of the hotel lobby.
The concierge at the desk barely blinked when I presented the steel card. His eyes flicked to my face, recognizing me instantly from the news stories that had already broken online this morning—“Prescott Foundation Gala Disrupted by 20M Bid for Founder’s Wife.”
"Mrs. Robbins?" the concierge asked smoothly, deliberately using the name Owen had spoken the night before.
"Yes," I said softly, the name still feeling strange on my tongue.
"Mr. Rodgers is expecting you. The private elevator to the Penthouse Suite is around the corner to your right. Keycard access has been pre-programmed." He handed me a sleek black brass key.
As the elevator accelerated smoothly toward the top floor, my stomach churned with anxiety. Who was Owen Rodgers? What did he mean when he said someone had spent years looking for me? My parents were middle-class teachers who had died in a tragic rollover accident on a slick highway thirty years ago. They had no wealth, no secret legacy, no connections to global financial firms like Sterling & Vance.
The elevator doors slid open directly into a magnificent high-ceilinged suite overlooking Central Park. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a breathtaking view of the city, but the room itself was understated—furnished with deep leather armchairs, a large mahogany desk, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined with legal briefs and financial ledgers.
Owen Rodgers was standing by the window, a cup of black coffee in his hand. He had discarded his navy suit jacket from the night before, wearing a crisp white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He looked to be in his late thirties, with sharp blue eyes, a defined jawline, and an aura of quiet, formidable authority.
He turned as I stepped into the room.
"You came," Owen said, setting his coffee cup down on a nearby side table.
"You disrupted my life and offered twenty million dollars for a woman you don’t know," I said, staying near the entrance, my hand firmly on my bag. "I think I earned an explanation."
Owen did not smile, but his eyes softened slightly. "I apologize for the theatrical nature of my arrival last night, Anastasia. But Harold Prescott has spent the last five years blocking every legal query, intercepting every private investigator, and keeping you entirely isolated behind his foundation’s wall."
I froze. "What are you talking about? Harold blocked you?"
"Harold Prescott didn't marry you out of love, Anastasia," Owen said, walking slowly toward his mahogany desk. He picked up a thick, leather-bound dossier and held it out to me. "He married you because he discovered who your biological father was long before you ever did."
My throat went dry. "My father was Arthur Robbins. He was a high school history teacher."
"Arthur Robbins was the man who adopted you when you were three days old," Owen corrected gently. "Your biological father was Julian Vance."
The room seemed to tilt beneath my feet. Julian Vance was a legendary figure in international banking—the founder of Sterling & Vance, one of the most powerful private investment entities in the Western hemisphere, who had passed away three years ago in Switzerland.
"That’s impossible," I whispered, shaking my head. "That's completely absurd."
"Julian Vance had a child out of wedlock in 1988," Owen explained, opening the dossier to show a yellowed, official birth certificate bearing the name Anastasia Vance, along with modern DNA match results signed by a top forensic lab in Zurich. "When the child's mother died shortly after childbirth, Julian—facing a massive power struggle within his board—secretly placed you with his most trusted childhood friend: Arthur Robbins."
Owen stepped closer, looking at me with absolute seriousness. "Julian spent thirty years trying to protect you from the vipers inside his own family and firm. Before he died, he left fifty percent of Sterling & Vance’s controlling shares in a private, locked trust. The sole beneficiary was his legitimate child: Anastasia Robbins."
I sank into one of the heavy leather armchairs, my mind spinning into chaos. "Fifty percent... that’s..."
"Worth roughly four point eight billion dollars," Owen said flatly.
I sat in complete shock, the weight of the number suffocating me. "If this is true... how does Harold fit into this?"
Owen’s jaw tightened, his expression hardening into pure steel. "Harold Prescott’s primary holding company was deeply in debt eleven years ago. He was on the verge of bankruptcy when his legal team accidentally uncovered a sealed court petition regarding the Vance estate trusts. Harold realized that if he married you, gained your trust, and kept you entirely unaware of your legal identity, he could eventually maneuver himself into managing your assets once the trust hit its maturity date."
He pulled out another document—a contract signed six months ago.
"Harold has spent the last year secretly filing paperwork in a foreign court to have you declared legally incompetent due to 'emotional distress,' citing your quiet, subservient role in his life. Once approved, he would have gained full power of attorney over your name, allowing him to claim Julian Vance’s billions without you ever knowing."
A cold, bitter anger began to bloom in the pit of my stomach, burning away the confusion.
The endless nights working for his charity. The humiliation on stage. The auction joke. It wasn't just arrogance—it was a deliberate, calculated campaign to break my self-worth, to make sure I never questioned him, never looked into my own past, and always felt entirely dependent on his charity.
"He tried to sell me for five hundred dollars," I murmured, my voice trembling with a terrifying blend of rage and betrayal. "While trying to steal billions."
"Harold Prescott thinks he owns you," Owen said, his voice quiet but intense. "He thinks you are a quiet, compliant woman who will return to his estate today and beg for forgiveness."
Owen placed a thin silver pen on the desk beside the dossier.
"I spent seven years working as Julian Vance’s senior counsel. My sole instruction from him before he died was to find his daughter and hand her the keys to his empire. The board of Sterling & Vance is meeting in Geneva in two weeks to elect a new Chairman. If you sign these trust activation papers right now, you become the largest single shareholder in the company."
He looked at me intently.
"You can walk out of here, accept Harold’s settlement, and live a quiet life. Or you can take what is yours and burn his world to the ground."
I looked down at the pen. Then I looked out the window at the city skyline.
For eleven years, I had built Harold Prescott’s legacy from the shadows while he treated me like a line item on a ledger. I had let him make me invisible.
I reached out, picked up the silver pen, and signed my name on the dotted line.
May you like
Not Anastasia Prescott.
Anastasia Robbins Vance.
