(Ethan's POV)
I noticed the child before I allowed myself to wonder why.
That should have been my first warning.
The afternoon unfolded the way most did—meetings stacked, signatures exchanged, silence filling the spaces where decisions pretended to be dialogue.
Control disguised itself as progress. I had built a life where nothing unexpected could touch me, where order was protection.
Until the message arrived.
Mrs. Patel had an emergency. I need to pick Lucas up from school. I'll review the documents tonight.
Lucas.
I read the name again. This time it carried weight, a pulse of something uninvited. I sat back in my chair, eyes fixed on the screen long after the words stopped moving. It wasn't just a name anymore. It had presence. Shape.
I could have ignored it. Should have. But distance—the tool I relied on most—suddenly felt like avoidance.
Before I could think my way out of it, I was already typing.
I'm nearby. I can drive you.
The reply took too long to come.
That won't be necessary.
It should have ended there. But restraint felt like surrender, and I'd never been good at that.
It's raining. Let me help.
Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then returned.
Fine. Just the drive.
And that's how I ended up outside an elementary school I had never been to, engine idling, rain streaking down the windshield in soft, diagonal lines. The building was small—faded brick, painted doors, the sound of laughter spilling through the storm. Children ran in uneven bursts, their coats too big, their joy uncontained.
Amelia stood near the awning, her coat pulled tight, hair damp at the ends. She moved like someone pretending she wasn't cold. When she spotted the car, she hesitated only a second before walking toward it.
She opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, rain clinging to her skin.
"This doesn't change anything," she said.
"I didn't say it would."
Her voice had that same precision it always had—controlled, but never small.
The drive started quiet. Wipers kept time against the windshield, steady as a metronome. Outside, the city blurred. Inside, the air was tight, almost fragile.
"You didn't have to come," she said finally.
"You said you needed a ride."
"I said I'd handle it."
"Sometimes people can help, Amelia."
She gave a soft, humorless laugh. "Sometimes people can't."
The silence that followed didn't feel empty. It felt like memory rearranging itself between us.
We stopped at a side street near the school entrance. She unbuckled quickly.
"I'll be a minute."
I nodded, eyes forward. Rain slid down the windshield in crooked trails.
Then I saw him.
He appeared beside her in the doorway, his small hand curled around hers. His posture was easy, his steps unhurried. Dark hair. Steady eyes. A calm that didn't belong to his age.
He looked up at her and said something I couldn't hear, and she smiled—real, unguarded, the kind I hadn't seen in years.
Something inside my chest shifted.
When they reached the car, I turned my head. He stopped first, watching me with open curiosity.
Not shy, not cautious—just seeing. And in that single moment, recognition slid under my skin before reason caught up.
"This is Lucas," Amelia said. Her voice was soft but deliberate. "Lucas, this is… Ethan."
Not Mr. Blackwood. Not the armor of titles. Just my name.
"Hi," he said, clear and steady.
"Hello," I managed, aware of how tightly I was gripping the steering wheel.
He climbed into the back seat and buckled himself without being told. Amelia settled beside me, her reflection flickering in the glass.
"You work with my mom," Lucas said.
"Yes."
"She says you're difficult."
I almost laughed. The sound came out more like an exhale. Amelia turned, mortified.
"Lucas."
"What?" he said, perfectly serious. "You do."
She closed her eyes for a second. "We don't say everything out loud."
He thought about that. "You should. It's faster."
For the first time that day, she smiled—quick, reluctant, beautiful in its imperfection. Then it was gone.
The drive back was short, but time behaved strangely. Lucas filled the space with questions. He wanted to know if I liked dogs, if I'd ever been in a helicopter, if I thought the city smelled different after rain. I answered what I could.
He didn't ask about his father. That absence was louder than any question.
When we pulled up in front of her building, Amelia unbuckled but didn't move.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"Of course."
Lucas leaned forward between the seats, his face bright with curiosity. "Will you come again?"
The question landed harder than it should have. Amelia stiffened.
"Lucas—"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe."
He smiled like that was enough.
They got out. She turned back once, rain gathering in her hair, her expression unreadable. Something passed between us that wasn't forgiveness and wasn't anger either—something closer to recognition of a wound neither of us knew how to close.
Then she was gone.
I didn't drive home.
The city felt too loud to return to, too quiet to escape. So I went back to the office instead, where the walls understood silence. The tower was nearly empty by then. I sat in the dark, the rain a soft percussion against the glass.
The boy's face replayed without mercy—the tilt of his head, the unflinching way he had looked at me. The way his hand fit into hers as though it had always been there.
I opened the company's personnel file again.
Cross, Amelia.
Incomplete. Family status omitted.
A knock broke the quiet.
My assistant stepped in, careful not to meet my eyes. "The background verification came through," she said.
"And?"
"No listed spouse. No co-parent. Sole guardianship."
"Thank you," I said, voice steady enough to fool her.
When she left, I stared at the closed door until the room blurred.
If the child was mine, Amelia hadn't just left me—she had rebuilt a life without me, piece by piece, in the shadow of what I had chosen to protect instead of her.
Control couldn't change that. Neither could money.
The truth sat there, quiet and absolute.
For the first time in years, distance didn't feel like safety. It felt like punishment.
And the more I tried to convince myself this was about logic or verification or due diligence, the clearer it became:
It wasn't.
I wanted answers, yes—but not to the questions I could ask in a boardroom.
I wanted to know how she'd survived me. I wanted to know why looking at that boy made my hands shake.
And most of all, I wanted to know what I had lost without even realizing it.
Outside, the storm deepened. The city lights bled through the rain, blurred and relentless. I sat there until night had swallowed every reflection from the glass.
For the first time in my life, control didn't feel like strength.
It felt negotiable.