(Ethan's POV)
The lie arrived before she did.
It wasn't written or spoken, just felt—a subtle tightening beneath my ribs that whispered I still believed I had control over this. I told myself the meeting would be ordinary, another negotiation with a predictable end. That was the lie.
Amelia Cross had never been predictable. She was a variable that refused to stay in the equation.
The car idled in the underground garage. Concrete walls pressed close, amplifying the low hum of the engine until it sounded like a warning.
I turned the key too sharply. The engine cut out, the silence sudden and absolute. My reflection in the dark windshield looked unfamiliar—tired maybe, or just unguarded.
I stepped out and crossed to the elevator. My shoes hit the floor with a rhythm that was steadier than I felt.
When the doors opened, she was already inside.
For one irrational second, I almost let them close again. Distance had always been my cleanest defense. But instinct overruled reason. My hand shot forward, catching the doors just before they sealed.
The moment they slid apart, the air changed.
She was standing near the panel, hair loose, coat half-buttoned, posture composed but alert. The light above her caught on the fine edges of her face—the same face that had once been the most familiar thing in my world. She looked at me without hesitation.
"Good evening," she said.
Her voice hadn't changed. Calm, even, precise.
"Amelia."
Her name left my mouth heavier than I
expected.
The doors closed and the elevator began to rise. I focused on the numbers above the panel, grounding myself in the movement, not the memory.
"You didn't need to corner me," she said quietly. "The contract stood on its own."
"I don't corner," I said. "I clarify."
She gave a short, quiet laugh. "You still think control and clarity are the same thing."
The elevator kept climbing. The silence between us did too.
"You left," I said finally. It came out sharper than I intended.
"You didn't ask why," she replied.
The words landed clean and hard.
I studied her profile—steady chin, eyes fixed straight ahead. There was no apology there. No hesitation.
"I built something after you," I said. "Something that doesn't fracture when people walk away."
She turned slightly toward me. "And I built a life. One that didn't need your permission."
That was always our difference. I built walls. She learned how to live outside them.
The elevator slowed. The chime broke the air.
She stepped out first. I followed.
The corridor stretched in a line of dim light and glass. The city beyond the windows shimmered, endless and distant. She stopped near the turn, half-shadowed.
"If you think being near me gives you leverage," she said, "you're mistaken."
"Then why sign?"
Her jaw tightened. "Because leaving would have cost more."
"And staying?"
Her pause was almost imperceptible. "That cost is still unfolding."
She turned to go, but my hand moved before thought could catch up. I caught her wrist.
The reaction was immediate. Her breath hitched; mine did too. For a second, we weren't eight years apart. We were right back in that small apartment, her suitcase by the door, silence like a blade between us.
"Don't," she said softly.
"There's a child," I said. The words slipped out, quiet but absolute. "One who looks at me like I'm unfinished business."
Her pulse jumped under my fingers.
"You're imagining coincidence," she said, voice tight. "Stop trying to claim what you let go."
Let go.
"I didn't leave," I said.
"You let me," she snapped.
That was the truth I'd refused to look at for years.
We stood there too close, the air caught between us, the smell of her perfume barely there but enough to pull memory straight into the present.
"You don't get to rewrite the past," she said.
"Neither do you."
Her eyes flicked down—just once—to my mouth. The movement was small, almost nothing, but it sent a tremor through everything holding me upright.
She stepped back. "I need the Kingston files by tonight."
"You'll have them."
She nodded, straightened her coat, and walked away without looking back.
The sound of her footsteps faded, but the echo didn't.
I stayed there longer than I should have, the imprint of her wrist still warm against my hand. Control had always meant predictability. This wasn't that. This was movement I hadn't calculated for.
Hours later, the building had emptied. My office was lit only by the city below, windows framing the sharp geometry of night. The Kingston files sat unopened on my desk. I hadn't moved them. Couldn't.
The city felt alive beneath the glass, restless, uncontained. It reminded me too much of her.
A knock at the door broke the silence. My assistant stepped in, tablet in hand.
"There's an issue," she said.
I glanced up. "With what?"
"Ms. Cross requested temporary credentials for system access. Security flagged an inconsistency in her application."
"What kind of inconsistency?"
"Incomplete records," she said carefully. "Family status section. It's blank."
I stared at her. "Blank?"
She nodded. "Normally that's a mandatory field. She bypassed it somehow."
I dismissed her with a quiet thanks I didn't mean. The door closed behind her, and the
silence felt heavier this time.
I Ieaned back in my chair, the leather creaking softly beneath me. The skyline outside was cold and perfect.
My reflection hovered in the glass—clean suit, sharp lines, eyes that still couldn't disguise what they were avoiding.
Amelia's words kept looping, uninvited but relentless.
Stop trying to claim what you relinquished.
The truth was, I hadn't relinquished anything. I'd ignored it until it adapted without me.
If the boy was mine, that meant every decision I'd made for the sake of control had been nothing more than fear dressed up as discipline. And if he wasn't… why did every instinct in me refuse to believe that?
The file on my desk was just numbers and architecture. Measurable things. But my focus kept drifting back to her voice, the way she'd said Don't like it wasn't a warning, but a plea.
I stood and crossed to the window. Toronto spread below me in calculated order—traffic lines, blocks of light, a city that mirrored my own obsession with control.
Somewhere inside that order, Amelia existed again. Not a memory. Not a loss. A living contradiction that refused to stay where I'd placed her.
I should have left it there. I should have treated her like any other problem—contain, adjust, proceed.
Instead, I found myself opening the internal database, typing her name into the personnel search bar.
The file came up half-filled, edges incomplete, as if she'd redacted parts of herself before letting the system register her.
There was a child listed under emergency contacts. No name. No age. Just an initial.
I closed the laptop and exhaled through my teeth. The sound felt too loud in the quiet room.
This wasn't a professional conflict anymore.
It was a reckoning.
Two lives built on survival had collided again, and neither of us knew how to keep standing without the walls we'd built.
Somewhere in that collision, there was truth.
It wasn't buried. It was waiting.
And for the first time in years, I wasn't sure I wanted to control the outcome.