“You're burning it. You're actually burning the damn thing right now.”

Elena leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded tightly across her chest, trying so hard not to laugh that her shoulders were already shaking.

Smoke curled from the pot on the stove and Adrian stood over it with a wooden spoon in his hand like a man trying to defuse a bomb, completely unaware that whatever was happening inside that pot had already gone beyond saving.

He was twenty-four years old, his tie thrown carelessly over a chair, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows. And he obviously had no idea what he was doing.

He turned toward her with an offended look, the spoon dripping sauce onto the floor.

“It's not burning. It's glazing.”

“Pasta doesn't glaze, Adrian.”

“This pasta does.”

The confidence in his voice broke whatever little control Elena had left inside her.

She burst out laughing before she could stop it. She had to sit down because her legs felt weak from holding in the laughter for so long.

Adrian just stood there and smiled. Not because he'd won whatever ridiculous argument they were having. But because she was laughing.

He looked at her like her laughter was the whole point of the evening. And if he was honest with himself, it probably was.

Elena pressed a hand over her mouth, trying to calm herself.

“You're impossible.”

“And you're ungrateful.”

Elena laughed even harder. The smoke alarm went off two minutes later and they gave up. There would be no dinner that night, at least not the kind Adrian had planned.

So they ended up eating cereal instead, sitting cross-legged on Adrian's living-room floor with their bowls balanced between them and neither of them minded.

Outside, the city kept moving. Car horns sounded somewhere below. A distant siren rose and faded. Someone was playing music loudly from an open window.

The whole city was awake. But inside Adrian's apartment, it felt like the rest of the world had disappeared. It was just the two of them.

With Adrian beside her, Elena felt something settle quietly inside her. Something safe.

She looked at him eating the cereal as if it had been his plan all along and smiled to herself, thinking that she had never felt this safe with anyone. Maybe she had finally found somewhere she could stay.

Later, Elena walked toward the window and noticed something sitting on the sill.

A smooth gray stone, small enough to fit in her palm.

She picked it up and turned it over twice. It was nothing special. Just a little gray stone.

But she looked at it for a moment before turning toward Adrian.

She walked over and pressed it into his hand, then closed his fingers around it herself.

“For good luck,” she said.

Adrian looked down at his closed hand, then back at her.

“I don't need luck. I have you.”

Her heart stumbled. Just once. But hard enough that she felt it. Elena tried to hide what those words did to her. But she failed, so she looked down at their hands instead.

“You're going to need it anyway. Keep it in your pocket. Whenever you have an important meeting or a hard day, touch it and think of me.”

Adrian rolled his eyes, but he collected it and put it in his desk drawer at work the very next morning, and he never once thought of throwing it away.

Elena came to Adrian's office early to surprise him with coffee. She was still smiling when she reached the hallway and already imagining the look on his face when he saw her.

Just as she was about to walk in, she heard Adrian's father's voice, sharp and clipped through the half-open door, cutting through the hallway like a blade.

Her smile disappeared. Richard Kane never needed to raise his voice. He didn't need to. Every word he spoke was precise and cold, and somehow that made it worse.

Elena slowed her steps without meaning to, something in her instincts told her not to walk into whatever was happening inside.

She should turn around and give Adrian his privacy But she stopped and caught pieces of the conversation. A name she didn't recognize. Something about a merger and a suitable match.

Her fingers tightened around the coffee cup. Then Adrian spoke.

“Dad, I'm not doing this right now.” His voice was tight and defensive.

"You'll do it because I told you to. This thing you are having with that girl in the marketing department, is not serious, is it?"

Elena stopped breathing. The coffee cup suddenly felt too hot against her palm.

That girl.

She knew they were talking about her and she should have walked away right then. But she didn't.

"Don't take it seriously," Adrian said finally, his voice sharp and fast. "What we had was nothing more than a game."

Elena gasped at that moment and the coffee cup slipped out of her grip.

The sound of the cup falling down cracked through the hallway and interrupted the conversation.

Adrian turned. His eyes found hers, and for one second, something in his face broke open.

Panic.

And something worse than panic, something that looked almost like relief. As if some part of him was relieved she had finally heard the truth without forcing him to say it to her face.

Richard stood between them, perfectly composed. He looked like a man who had just won a negotiation he hadn't expected to need to fight for.

“Elena—”

Adrian called her name, but nothing came after it. No explanation. Just her name hanging there, and his mouth opening and closing with no words coming out because his father was still in the room and his pride wouldn't let him fall apart in front of her.

Elena stared at him, waiting. Just for a second maybe he would explain.

But he didn't.

Grabbing his chance, Richard moved first, he walked to the door and stood in front of Elena. He looked down at Elena like she was nothing more than an inconvenience standing between him and his son's future.

“You heard that? So don't go embarrassing yourself,” he said, his voice low and mean.

Hearing this, something in Elena went still and clear. A strange, painful clarity that seemed to arrive only because the worst thing she had feared had finally happened.

But instead of stepping back the way he expected, she stepped closer.

“Embarrassing myself?” A short, humorless laugh escaped her.

Richard's expression shifted, it clearly wasn't the reaction Richard was hoping for, because something flashed behind his eyes.

“You're the one who should be ashamed and difficult! How can you be so insecure about your own company and business, that a father and son have to team up to be on guard against an ordinary girl working in the marketing department?”

Richard’s jaw tightened so hard the muscles in his cheek twitch.

“How dare you talk to me like that?” he said, his voice sharp and cold, stripping the air right out of the room.

But Elena barely felt it. She had already been hurt and there was nothing left for him to take.

She stepped closer again, close enough that their feet were almost touching.

“Because I care about your son,” she said, her voice was calm but there was grief underneath it, deep and cutting, but she refused to let it shake her.

“And it breaks my heart to see what you've turned him into just to feed your own insecurity.”

Then her eyes moved to Adrian. He was still standing there.

“And he himself actually enjoys being your puppet, because he's too afraid to stand his ground against you.”

Adrian flinched. She saw it and somehow that hurt more.

Elena turned fully toward him. “And as for you, keep hiding behind your pathetic father and continue to be his puppet.”

Her throat burned but she swallowed it down. “But don't you dare forget how exactly you sound in this room today.”

Her voice finally cracked around the edges. “I hope it's the first thing you think of every single time you look in a mirror, trying to convince yourself you're a good man.”

The room went silent. Elena couldn't stay another second, she turned around and began to walk away.

“Elena, wait.”

Adrian's voice came behind her. For one moment, her body wanted to obey. To stop and let him explain but her heart had already heard enough.

She kept walking, her spine straight, chin up. She didn't let herself cry until she was three floors down in an empty stairwell with her back against the cold concrete wall.

Then her strength disappeared and her breath caught. She covered her mouth as the cry came out anyway.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn't stop the tears. They came hot and fast, slipping down her cheeks as she tried desperately to breathe around the pain crushing her chest.

Had any of it been real? Had she imagined every soft look? Every late-night conversation? Every time he reached for her hand without thinking?

Had she been the only one who thought they were building something?

Elena slid down the wall until she was sitting on the cold floor. She pressed both hands against her face. She wanted to hate him.

It would have been easier if she could hate him. But even now, with her heart breaking apart inside her, some stupid part of her still wanted Adrian to come through that door and kneel beside her.

She wanted him to tell her she had misunderstood and tell her that the words hadn't meant what they sounded like.

But Adrian didn't follow her. He remained in his office, frozen, staring at his father while Richard's chest heaved with silent volcanic rage.

He told himself she would call him that night and he would explain, and everything would go back to normal

But Elena didn't call that night. In fact she didn't call the next day either or the day after that. She had even blocked his number and every means to get to her.

She disappeared and Adrian had no idea where she had gone.

But three weeks later, Elena stood in a pharmacy bathroom two states away. She was alone.

The fluorescent light above her made everything look too bright, too harsh.

Her hands were shaking. She stared down at the small plastic stick in her palm.

For some seconds, she couldn't understand what she was seeing.

Two pink lines.

Elena blinked but the lines didn't disappear. Her heart began to pound.

“No.”

The word barely came out of her mouth. She looked again and her hand moved instinctively to her stomach.

Adrian's baby.

Her eyes were immediately filled with tears, suddenly the heartbreak she'd been trying to survive became something else entirely.

Something terrifying that would change everything.

She had lost Adrian. Now she was carrying a piece of him she could never simply walk away from.

Elena's POV

"Mom, look! It's got some sparkles in it!"

Leo held a rock up so close to my face that I had to lean back to actually see it. It was gray, plain, a little wet from sitting in the grass all night, and I loved it more than anything in the world because he loved it.

I turned it over in my fingers like it was made of gold. At six years old, he still believed the world was full of magic hiding in plain sight.

"That's a good one, baby. Where'd you find it?"

"By the fence. It was calling my name."

"Rocks don't talk, Leo."

"This one does."

I didn't argue with him. I zipped his backpack, smoothed down his hair, and handed him his shoes one at a time while he hopped on one foot trying to put them on himself. My hands were steady doing all of it, but my stomach had been doing slow, nervous flips since five in the morning.

Monday mornings had always made me anxious. But today, the anxiety sat heavier in my chest, pressing against my ribs every time I looked at my reflection.

Today wasn't just any Monday. Today was the first time I would attend an executive meeting since I became the senior vice president of the marketing department at Voss Global.

I stood in front of the mirror, smoothing invisible wrinkles from my charcoal-gray blazer for what had to be the tenth time. My hair was neatly pinned back, my makeup subtle and professional, and my heels clicked softly against the hardwood floor as I continued getting ready.

I looked like a woman who belonged in executive meetings.

If only I could convince my heart of that.

Six years ago I was a scared, broke, twenty-two-year-old with a positive pregnancy test and no plan, and today I worked with one of the biggest companies in the city with a title that meant something. Nobody handed me this.

I clawed my way here with a sacrifice of late night and missed birthday parties and one impossible choice at a time. Therefore I'm allowed to be proud of that, even if pride still felt like a coat that didn't quite fit right.

"You're gonna do great, Mom."

Leo said with a mouthful of cereal, so casual, like he wasn't the reason I found the strength to keep going on the days I wanted to quit.

I kissed the top of his head and told him I loved him three times before he rolled his eyes and told me to stop, which was our routine.

My phone buzzed on the counter while I packed Leo's lunch. Daniel's name lit up the screen, and I smiled before I even opened the message.

“Good morning Elena. How are you guys doing? Just wanted to check up on you guys. Please don't let Leo be late to school today just because I wasn't there to wake you up. Just kidding, See you soon.”

I typed back a quick thank you and told him we are on our way to school, my hands nervously shaking around the edges of my phone.

Daniel was my best friend and also a children's doctor who happened to be working in Leo's school. He had been a great help ever since we became neighbors seven years ago most especially during my pregnancy time. He helped in carrying heavy loads, boxes, groceries I couldn't carry on my own, and fixed Leo's bike without being asked. He once showed up with soup when I and Leo had a flu at the same time and he had never for once made either of us feel like a burden he hadn't signed up for.

I dashed out of the house with Leo after some endless minutes of preparation and drove to his school.

Getting to his school, we both walked towards Daniel's office at the main entrance.

Daniel was already crouched by the cubbies when we entered his office. He wore blue scrubs covered in a cartoon animal print. On his feet were clean black Crocs with superhero charms. His thick black hair was cut short on the sides and styled neatly on top.

He looked up and smiled the moment he saw us, standing to catch the office door before it closed

"Look at you," he said warmly, closing the door behind us with a click. "Senior VP, even the hairstyle and everything says it all."

"It's the same hair as yesterday Daniel,” I reminded him.

"It's a power hairstyle today. Don't argue with me."

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, as your lordship pleases.”

He smiled and pressed his hand briefly on my shoulder. “Are you nervous?"

"Terrified. But don't tell anyone."

"Your secret's safe with me." He replied jokingly before he knelt down to Leo's height and held out a fist for him to bump. "And you, my man. I heard there's a rock situation happening. I need details later okay?"

Leo beamed and promised him a full report. Daniel ran his hand through his hair before straightening up and looked at me with a softness in his eyes.

"You've got this, Elena. Whatever they throw at you, don't let them win okay?”

I nodded and thanked him before we both walked Leo right up to his classroom. He held the classroom door until Leo was safely inside talking to a friend.

Then escorted me back to the parking lot, unhurried, like he had nowhere better to be, even though I knew for a fact he had a lot of work to do in his office.

"Call me when you settle down at work. I can't wait to hear how everything went."

"I will. Promise."

Then I entered my car and drove to the meeting place with my knuckles a little tight on the steering wheel.

By the time I parked outside the meeting building, my palms were damp against the steering wheel.

The building stretched high into the sky, all steel and glass, reflecting the morning sunlight so brightly I had to squint.

I straightened my blazer, squared my shoulders, and walked inside like I belonged there, even though my heart was racing in my chest.

The lobby buzzed with quiet conversations and hurried footsteps.

Near the elevators stood one of our company's executives, already waiting.

"There you are," she said with a smile. "I was beginning to think you'd changed your mind."

"I considered it."

She laughed as the elevator doors slid open. We rode up together, and she started briefing me about the meeting, the quarterly targets for the project to be discussed and the company we are to partner with on the project.

By the time the elevator doors opened on the executive floor, my heart had slowed to something almost normal, and I thought, for one minute.

Maybe, I could actually do this.

We both walked toward a big double door at the end and now she was already talking about the representative of the other company.

"The representative from the other company is apparently attending in person."

"Really?"

She nodded. "He became CEO after his father's health deteriorated. Brilliant, ruthless and practically impossible to meet. He rarely attends meetings himself.”

I nodded along, only half listening because I was busy running through my own notes in my head one at a time.

"He doesn't do a lot of these meetings personally," she said, "so it's a big deal that he's here today."

"Got it,” I finally replied and forced a smile.

"No pressure." She laughed before pushing one of the heavy doors open.

"After you."

Through the frosted glass, before I even stepped inside the room, a voice cut through the low hum of conversation in the room, easy and low.

“So you mean we are to partner with Voss Global on this project?”

There was a brief pause. Then, the voice continued.

"And where the hell is their representative for this meeting?"

Every muscle in my body froze that I stopped in my tracks. The sound of that voice sent a violent chill racing down my spine.

No, it can't be.

My pulse pounded so loudly I could barely hear anything else.

I knew that voice.

Elena's POV

My whole body went still, my breath catching once again because I hadn't heard that voice for a long time and some part of me had spent every single day praying I would never again.

I pushed the door open before my legs could talk me out of it.

The room buzzed with quiet noise. Papers shuffling, low voices, someone muffling something I didn't seem to hear.

A long table stretched out ahead of me, filled with people wearing sharp suits that barely looked up as I walked in.

For one second the room simply held me the way any new face gets held, polite and brief.

Then my eyes found the head of the table, and every other sound in the room drifted away.

It was him.

Adrian Kane.

He sat there like he owned the place, his dark hair was shorter than I remembered, jaw sharper, shoulders wider under a suit that seemed sow just for him.

It seemed like softness had been stripped out of his face and left something colder behind.

My whole body went numb in a second, and immediately I forgot how to move my own legs.

“I'm sorry for the late arrival.” I finally said. “My name is Elena Hart and I'm the representative of Voss Global for this meeting.”

Everyone in the room nodded and finally my legs obeyed my bidding.

I don't remember crossing the room. I just knew I was already sitting on a chair, and someone slid a folder to me while my hands were folding themselves on the table like they don't belong to me anymore.

I kept my eyes down and my face still, on anything that wasn't the man at the end of the table.

“Breathe. You've got this,” I thought to myself.

"Let's get started," someone said, jolting me back to the present and the meeting commenced as though nothing had just changed at all.

As the meeting went on, I nodded whenever it was necessary and gave a response when questions were thrown at me.

But inside, my chest was tight and every few seconds my eyes dragged themselves back up the table, pulled by something stronger than sense.

And every single time I looked at him, he was already looking at me.

Earlier when I walked in, his face went blank with confusion, like a half-remembered song.

But the second time our eyes met, the recognition landed like a slap on his face and his jaw became tight, his gaze flat and cold.

The kind of look that dropped the temperature of the whole room.

Seeing this, I quickly looked back at the folder and didn't look up again.

I have sat through hot meetings before. I have voiced my opinion even when men twice my age underestimated me on sight.

But none of that prepared me for forty-five minutes meeting with him. So I couldn't pretend that my heart wasn't trying to climb out of my chest.

Finally the meeting ended, chairs scraped back and voices rose into chatter. I stood up quickly, the folder clutched to my chest, already looking for the fastest way to the door.

"Elena." Adrian's called out from behind. Low and flat, pitched just for me to hear under the noise of everyone leaving.

I stopped two steps from the door and turned slowly to where his voice came from.

Running would have made it strange as it felt. So I didn't even allow myself to think of it.

After turning to face him, I realized he was still seated, watching the room empty with a patience that made my skin crawl.

Finally the last person left and the door clicked shut behind me. Now it was just the two of us with a very long table between us with tension sitting heavy in the air.

"Adrian."

His name came out of my mouth more carefully than I meant it, like it was something breakable.

He stood up, buttoned his jacket, every movement controlled in a way more dangerous than shouting would have been.

"So you work for Voss Global now. What a small world."

"Well, yes I do and I didn't expect you to be here."

"Would it have mattered?"

I didn't answer, because I honestly didn't know, and because answering felt like handling him something I wasn't ready to give.

He walked around the table slowly, closing the distance one step at a time, and I made myself stay still, meeting his eyes anyway.

Up close, he looked like someone carved out of something darker and cold.

"I heard that you are married," he said, turning the word over like he was testing it. "So you disappeared because you wanted to settle yourself down."

"I don't owe you an explanation."

"No. You don't." His voice stayed calm, but something underneath it had gone jagged. "You left without saying goodbye and built a whole life somewhere and I don't even worth a phone call."

The words hit harder than I expected with a strange, twisted echo of a truth he didn't understand at all.

My face became hot, anger and grief tangling together until I couldn't tell which one was driving my next words.

"Why should I? How does that even concern you?"

“Because—" He stopped halfway, his jaw tightening like some old argument was dying behind his teeth.

"You know what? Never mind.."

"Good.” I replied immediately, my voice shook, just slightly, and I hated that he could probably notice it.

Something flickered across his face, fast and unreadable, it was gone before I could name it.

For one second he looked like he wanted to argue, but then his face closed over like a door shutting, the cold, controlled CEO settling back into place like armor.

"Well, this is a business relationship now," he said. "Let's make this work."

"Sure. Because that's exactly what I want."

"Good. We understand each other."

I turned toward the door without answering any further, relief flooding through me so fast that it nearly buckled my knees.

Before I even reached the door, my hand was already reaching for the handle.

Three more steps and I would be in the hallway, out of this room, out of the reach of those gray eyes. I had almost made it.

"One more thing.” Adrian said from behind.

I stopped with my hand on the handle, my spine straight but I didn't turn around.

He didn't move from where he was, but his voice dropped lower in a way that put every nerve in my body on alert.

"Why are you back here Elena?" he asked.

The floor tilted slightly as the question landed, and for a moment I hoped it would open and swallow me whole.

I turned back to him slowly, my hand still frozen on the handle, mouth already open to give an excuse I didn't have yet.

Behind me, he was looking at me with an expression I couldn't read, not accusation exactly, not yet.

"Tell me, why on earth did you join Voss Global?" he asked, his voice raising a little now.