Grace & James POV
The hotel suite overlooked all of London.
Grace stood by the window when James arrived. She didn't turn around. She could feel him in the room. Could feel the weight of five years and a child between them.
"You're going to let me meet my son," James said.
It wasn't a question. It was a demand. Like he still had the right to demand things from her.
Grace turned slowly. She looked at him and let him see all of it. The anger. The heartbreak. The five years of building something alone while he built nothing at all.
"No," she said. Her voice was ice. Pure ice.
"Grace—"
"You lost that right when you signed those papers without reading them," she said. Each word was careful. Precise. Like a weapon. "You lost that right when you texted another woman while your wife left the courthouse alone. You lost that right every single day you didn't search for her. You lost it five years ago and you don't get it back."
James flinched.
"I didn't know you were pregnant," he said. Like that mattered. Like that changed anything.
"Exactly," Grace said. "You didn't care enough to know anything about me. Not where I was. Not if I was alive. Not if I was carrying your child. You just moved on. You just texted Victoria and signed deals and forgot that I ever existed."
She turned back to the window.
"Stay away from Christopher," she said quietly. "Don't contact him. Don't try to see him. Don't try to build some relationship that will only hurt him. He's happy. He's healthy. He doesn't know about you and he doesn't need to know. You can sign away your parental rights and we'll both move on."
James walked toward her.
"Grace, I understand you're angry—"
"You understand nothing," she said. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. Rage was quiet sometimes. Rage was ice cold and perfectly still. "You understand nothing about what I went through. You understand nothing about carrying a baby alone. About going to doctor's appointments alone. About birthing alone. About raising alone. You understand nothing about my son because you've never had to care about anyone but yourself."
She moved toward the door.
"We're done here," she said.
James stepped in front of her.
"I won't stop trying to know him," he said. His voice was breaking. Actually breaking. "And I won't stop trying to know you."
Grace paused at the door.
She didn't turn around.
James watched her back. Watched her hand on the doorknob. Watched the moment where she could leave and he couldn't stop her.
He'd spent five years building walls. Five years deciding that feeling nothing was better than feeling everything. Five years texting Victoria and signing papers without reading them and choosing his company over the woman who'd loved him.
And now she was standing at a door and he couldn't make her turn around.
"I'm sorry," he said. The words sounded hollow. Wrong. Too late.
Grace's shoulders tensed.
"I'm sorry for signing those papers without reading them. I'm sorry for not searching for you. I'm sorry for not knowing about Christopher. I'm sorry for every day you spent alone while I was building something that meant nothing."
"Stop," Grace whispered.
"I can't," James said. "I can't stop because the moment I saw him on that stage, the moment I saw his eyes, I understood what I'd thrown away. And I can't live with that. I can't just let you walk out of here and raise my son five thousand miles away while I pretend none of this happened."
"That's not my problem," Grace said. But her voice wasn't ice anymore. It was something else. Something like pain.
"It's the only problem that matters," James said.
Grace's hand tightened on the doorknob.
"You hurt me," she whispered. "You hurt me so badly that I spent five years building an empire just to prove I didn't need you. Just to prove I was worth something."
"You were always worth something," James said. "I was just too broken to see it."
Grace pulled the door open.
"Broken people hurt other people," she said. "And I won't let you hurt my son."
She stepped into the hallway.
James moved after her but stopped at the threshold. She was walking away. Actually walking away. And he couldn't follow her. Couldn't make her stay. Couldn't fix five years of mistakes in a conversation.
"Grace, please," he said.
She paused.
Just for a second. Just enough for him to see that she was struggling. That this was hard for her too. That maybe she hadn't completely let go.
Then she kept walking.
Grace stood in the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor.
She was shaking.
James's words were still in her ears. "I won't stop trying to know him. And I won't stop trying to know you."
She wanted to hate him. She'd spent five years hating him. Hating him had kept her strong. Hating him had driven her forward. Hating him had given her purpose.
But standing in that hotel room, watching him break, she'd felt something crack inside the armor she'd built.
The elevator doors closed.
Grace looked at her reflection in the polished metal and barely recognized herself. She looked like a woman made of stone. A woman who'd learned to survive by becoming cold.
Was that what she wanted? Was that who she wanted to be?
Her phone buzzed. A message from James.
"Please. Just let me try. I won't expect anything. I just need to try to be better."
Grace deleted it without responding.
But she didn't block his number.
And she didn't tell him no.
Not completely.
Not the way that would stop him.
James sat in the empty hotel suite.
He'd failed. Again. He'd come here hoping to convince her. Hoping to make her understand that he'd changed. That he could change.
Instead he'd watched her walk away.
But she'd paused.
For just a second, she'd paused. And in that pause, James had seen something. Some small part of her that hadn't completely shut him out. Some small part that was still fighting between the woman she'd been and the woman she'd become.
He pulled up his phone and texted his lawyer.
"I want to know my son. Whatever it takes. I want to be his father."
The response came back immediately.
"That's going to be very difficult. Ms. Pembroke has made it clear she wants no contact."
James stared at the message.
Then he texted again.
"Then I'm going to have to prove I deserve that chance."
He hung up and looked out at London spreading below him. Somewhere in this city, a woman was trying to destroy him. Somewhere in this city, she was protecting a child that was his. Somewhere in this city, there was a boy who had his eyes and his face and probably his stubbornness.
And James was going to find a way to know him.
Even if it meant losing everything else.
Even if it meant Grace never forgave him.
Even if it meant she followed through on her plan to destroy his company.
His son was worth more than everything he'd built.
He was just now figuring that out.
Too late.
But maybe not impossible.