Chapter 8
He didn't turn around. He just stood there, a silhouette against the endless canvas of the city. The silence stretched out, thick with the weight of her question. Lily's heart pounded, a frantic drumbeat in her chest. She had pushed too far. She had gone past the boundary he had so carefully drawn and now she was standing on the other side, waiting for the fallout.
Finally, he spoke, his voice low and strained. "My father was a good man. But he was a sentimental one. He believed in handshakes and promises and debts that could never truly be repaid." He paused, and for the first time, his voice held a hint of a memory, of a life that had existed before the cold glass towers. "He died trying to honor a promise he'd made to a friend. He put everything on the line—the company, our home, everything. He trusted the wrong man."
He finally turned, his eyes fixed on hers. The coldness was gone, replaced by a deep, hollow pain. "He lost everything. His life, his legacy... I had to build it all back. Piece by painstaking piece. I had to learn that the only thing you can rely on is a contract, a spreadsheet, and a solid number. Promises are ghosts. They are lies that people tell each other to justify bad decisions."
The anger was gone, replaced by a raw, profound sadness. "Your grandfather was different," he continued, his voice a quiet admission. "He was a decent man, a man who gave my father a hand up. The only debt that mattered to my father was the one he owed to your grandfather. The one he didn't get a chance to repay."
Lily finally understood. The debt wasn't a business transaction. It was a final, desperate attempt by a dying man to honor his word, to correct a mistake he had made. Her grandfather had been a part of a memory that was pure, a time before the betrayal, the pain, and the loss. She was a living, breathing link to that past, a promise that had to be kept.
She took a step closer, the distance between them shrinking. "You don't have to be like him," she whispered. "You don't have to be afraid of promises."
His face hardened again, the wall coming back up brick by brick. "I am not afraid. I am practical. I do not let emotions cloud my judgment. That is the difference between my father and me. And that is why this company is still standing."
He walked past her, the brief moment of vulnerability over. He was a fortress again, the kind of man who couldn't afford to be soft, to feel, to trust. But as he disappeared down the hallway, Lily knew the truth. He wasn't just a businessman. He was a survivor, and his cold heart was a wound, not an armor.
She was no longer just an obligation, a debt to be repaid. She was a witness to his pain, a secret he had just shared, and a part of the past he had tried so hard to bury.