It was very difficult going through the Sterling serminar without crumbling. It was an achievement and it felt good. Cameron walked back to his dorm, the cold winter air brushing past his face.
As he turned the corner, going to his dorm building, he spotted a car, sleek, black and so out of place among the other cars in the entrance. His steps faltered. It wasn't the same car that had taken him to Blackwood, but it screamed the same language… quiet, expensive power.
The rear window slid down.
It wasn't Aaron Blackwood. Not a stern looking man in a suit.
Anastasia Sterling. It was the superstar.
She was wearing a stunning, tailored wool coat with oversized sunglasses hiding her famous face partially. But he couldn't mistake that face, that aura for someone else. It's really her and she was looking right at him.
Cameron froze, his heart seizing. This wasn't a TV screen nor a faraway stage. This was twenty feet away.
She pushed the sunglasses up on her head. Her eyes, a vibrant hazel even in the dull light, were not cold like Alexander's. They were sharp, intelligent, and blazing with an emotion he couldn't name…not anger, but a fierce, searching intensity. She didn't smile.
"You," she said, her voice carrying clearly in the quiet space between them.
Cameron couldn't move. He couldn't speak. The world narrowed to her gaze.
"Get in the car." She didn't ask. It was a command from someone used to being obeyed.
Panic surged, white and hot. This was it. The "hostile act" Blackwood warned about. He was being taken.
But then he saw her hand, gripping the edge of the window. Her knuckles were white. And her eyes… up close, they weren't just intense. They were sad and haunted. They held the same desperate, aching question he saw in the mirror every night.
He didn't know what made him do it. Maybe it was the familiar desperation he saw in her eyes. Maybe it was the memory of her tear on TV. He shook his head, a tiny, frantic motion.
Her expression didn't change, but something flickered in her eyes…surprise, maybe. No one told Anastasia Sterling 'no'.
"Please," she said, and the word seemed to crackle in the air, foreign and raw on her lips. "Five minutes. I just want to talk."
It was the "please" that moved him. It was the sight of a behemoth pleading. He found his legs moving even when his instinct screamed for him to run. He walked to the car, opened the door, and slid into the plush interior beside her, shutting the door.
The car drove off, away from the area.
The interior smelled of her perfume…something citrusy and expensive and beneath it, the faint, clean scent of racing fuel. She studied him openly, her gaze assessing.
"You're the boy from the park," she stated.
"And you're Anastasia Sterling." His voice was a dry rasp.
She smiled faintly, then it was gone in an instant. "Anna. Just call me Anna." She paused. "My brother saw you at his lecture. He said you didn't look away."
Cameron said nothing, clutching his backpack on his lap like a shield.
"Why were you at my commercial shoot?" she asked, her tone sounding more direct, almost investigative.
"I was running. I didn't know you'd be there." The truth was his only defense.
"And the summit? You had a media pass. You're a freshman."
"I'm doing a case study on Sterling Global. My professor assigned it." Another truth.
The fierce intensity softened a little, replaced by a deep curiosity as she watched him. "You look… tired, Cameron Reed."
He was shocked hearing his name from her mouth. "School," he mumbled.
"Exams," she repeated. She was silent for a long moment, looking out the window as they drove past the campus street. "Do you have family, Cameron?"
The question was a knife to heart. He looked down at his hands. "I live with my parents. And a sister."
"Are they good to you?" The question was so blunt it was startling.
The lies he'd prepared for the world got stuck in his throat. He couldn't lie to this woman who was looking at him as if he held a secret to a universe-ending riddle. "They're… fine."
Anna Sterling turned back to him. Her eyes were suddenly filled with unshed tears, but her voice was firm. "Fine isn't good enough."
The air left the car. Cameron stared at her, stunned.
"My family," she said, each word deliberate, "lost someone. A long time ago. A baby boy." She didn't break eye contact. "We've spent every day since looking for him. It's the first thing we think about in the morning. The last thing at night. It's the reason I race cars too fast and my brother builds empires and my other brother fixes children's brains. We're all trying to… fill a hole. Or find the piece that fits."
Cameron's breath hitched. He felt exposed. She was describing his own hollow core, but from the other side.
"Why are you telling me this?" he whispered.
"Because when I saw you in the park, I felt like I'd been kicked in the chest. And my brother, who doesn't feel anything, noticed you in a crowd of a thousand people." She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a fierce, urgent whisper. "I don't believe in coincidences, Cameron. And my family… we can't afford to. So I need you to tell me. Are you just a tired kid with bad luck and a curious gaze? Or are you…" She trailed off, the question too immense, too terrifying to voice.
Or are you ours?
The words hung in the air, unspoken but deafening.
Cameron felt the truth, the whole truth of his rebirth, his search, his dying question, clawing at the back of his teeth. He wanted to tell her. Wanted to say "I think I might be".
But he saw the power around her. The town car, the certainty, the sheer force of her presence. If he said yes, his life would end. Cameron Reed would be swallowed whole by the Sterling hurricane. He would never have a chance to just be, to figure out who he was on his own terms. He'd be a missing prince that has been found, a problem solved, a wound bandaged. He'd belong to them, completely and instantly. The thought was as terrifying as it was tempting.
He also remembered Blackwood's warning. They will interpret any probe as a hostile act. What would they do if they thought he was a fraud? If he claimed to be their lost son and a DNA test proved otherwise? The wrath of a grieving, powerful family… He couldn't risk it. Not yet. Not without proof.
"I'm just a student," he said, forcing the words past the lump in his throat, meeting her desperate gaze with one he hoped looked convincingly confused. "I don't know what you want from me."
The hope in her eyes dimmed, replaced by sadness. She searched his face for another long moment, looking for a crack in his facade, for a flicker of recognition. She found only fear and confusion.
She leaned back, the moment broken. "Of course," she said, her voice regaining its polished distance, though the ache still lingered beneath. "My apologies. I have a… vivid imagination. Grief does that."
The car had circled back and now pulled to a smooth stop right outside his dorm. The driver got out and opened Cameron's door.
Cameron scrambled out, desperate for the open air.
Anna slid her sunglasses back on, her face becoming an unreadable, beautiful mask. "Thank you for your time, Cameron. Good luck with your… exams."
He stood, watching as the black car drove off. He felt terribly ill. He had just looked into the heart of the storm, felt its desperate pull, and lied to its face.
He'd seen a sister, drowning in hope.
He stumbled into his dorm, up to his room, and locked the door. He sank to the floor, his back against it, trembling.
It wasn't fear of being consumed anymore.
It was the terrifying, soul-crushing weight of knowing he might hold the cure to a family's eighteen-year pain, and he was too scared and too broken to hand it over.