LOVE BEYOND THORNS: THE BILLIONAIRE INVESTOR

The next day

Isabella Hart reached the gates of Rosewood International School at 7:55, lungs burning, her uniform clinging damp to her back. She allowed herself one breath of relief before pushing through.

Her stepmother had seen to it that there was no ride to school that morning no explanation given, none needed. Isabella had simply found the usual arrangement gone and the clock already moving against her, so she had walked the whole distance at a near-run, books clutched to her chest like something she couldn’t afford to drop. The assembly started at eight. Every student was expected seated before then. She had almost not made it.

The moment she stepped through the gates, she felt it a wrongness in the quiet. The corridors, normally a clutter of slamming lockers and raised voices, stood empty. Every student in the school had already funneled into the auditorium, their chatter rising from behind its doors in one continuous hum. Isabella cut through the back hallway instead of crossing the open courtyard, keeping her head down, avoiding the kind of attention that found her too easily on a good day.

She caught fragments of conversation as she moved through the crowd gathering near the entrance.

“The internet says he’s worth billions.”

“I heard he owns companies in three countries.”

“My cousin works for Kingsley Holdings.”

“They say he’s ridiculously handsome.”

A cluster of girls dissolved into giggles. Isabella rolled her eyes and kept walking, scanning the packed rows for somewhere, anywhere to sit.

She didn’t see Chloe until it was too late.

“Move.”

The voice cut through a half-second before the impact did. A shoulder slammed into hers, hard enough to send her books scattering across the floor. A ripple of laughter followed.

Isabella looked up. Of course it was Chloe her stepsister, flanked by the usual cluster of friends, her hair and uniform arranged with the kind of precision that took effort to look effortless. Even surrounded by hundreds of other students, Chloe still found room to make herself the center of Isabella’s morning.

“Oh.” Chloe glanced down at the scattered books with theatrical disinterest. “My mistake.”

The apology held all the sincerity of a slammed door.

“You should watch where you’re going, Isabella,” one friend offered, smirking.

“Maybe she was daydreaming about the billionaire,” another added, and the group dissolved into laughter again.

Isabella said nothing. She knelt and gathered her books one by one, refusing to give them the reaction they were fishing for and refusing was its own kind of victory, even if it never felt like one in the moment. Her silence only seemed to sharpen Chloe’s irritation.

“Let’s go sit over there,” Chloe announced, flipping her hair as she swept past. “I heard he’ll be sitting with the board members.” Her voice dropped into something dreamy. “Imagine becoming Mrs. Kingsley.”

The girls squealed in unison and drifted off, leaving Isabella alone with her books and the bruise already forming on her shoulder.

“Over here!”

The voice cut through the noise like a hand reaching out. Emma Reed was waving from two rows back, having claimed an empty seat beside her against considerable odds.

“You didn’t come on time,” Emma said as Isabella dropped into the seat, breathless with gratitude. “I had to fight off three different people trying to take this.”

“Something came up,” Isabella said.

Emma sighed the particular sigh of someone who had heard that excuse many times before and had long since stopped believing it. She studied Isabella for a moment, then let it go, turning her attention back to the stage instead of pressing further.

It was only then that Isabella took in the full scale of the room. The auditorium, built to hold over two thousand students, was filled to its last seat. Teachers paced nervously along the aisles. Even the principal, usually a picture of composed authority, looked strung tight with nerves.

“You’re awfully quiet today,” Emma said, nudging her arm.

“I’m thinking.”

“About the billionaire?”

“No.”

Emma arched an eyebrow. “Liar.”

Before Isabella could answer, the lights dimmed and the room dropped into silence.

The principal stepped up to the podium. “Good morning, students. As many of you know, Rosewood International School has recently undergone major restructuring.” A ripple of murmurs spread through the crowd before he raised a hand for quiet. “We are honored to welcome the man responsible for securing the future of this institution. As of yesterday, Kingsley Holdings became the largest shareholder in Rosewood International School.”

Applause broke out before he had even finished the sentence.

“Please welcome Mr. Adrian Kingsley.”

The doors behind the stage opened, and the room fell utterly silent.

He walked out alone. Black suit, broad shoulders, a stride that seemed to claim the floor beneath it without effort. Gasps rippled through the auditorium a few girls visibly swayed in their seats. The photographs online, it turned out, had told only half the truth. In person he looked sharper. Younger. More dangerous, somehow, standing in a school auditorium than he had any right to be.

Isabella’s breath caught in her throat.

It was him. The man from the cemetery.

She sat frozen, unable to look away, a strange and unfamiliar feeling threading through her chest as if she had known him before yesterday, before any of this, in some life she couldn’t quite remember. He reached the podium, took the microphone, and began to speak, his voice low and certain, drawing audible sighs from the rows around her. When he finished from now on, I am the owner and primary investor of this school the entire auditorium rose to its feet in applause.

For one heartbeat, across the distance of the stage, his eyes found hers.

Neither of them looked away.

Then her phone buzzed in her lap, sharp and sudden, breaking the moment in two.

An unknown number.

If you want answers about your father, meet me behind the library after school.

Isabella stared at the screen, reading the words again, and then again, as if repetition might change their meaning. Her pulse climbed into her throat.

Who would know to send this?

And how did anyone still know her father “ Daniel Hart”?