Nothing Without Me

FIVE

Chapter 5

Half an hour later, Elena returned to the table to watch her daughter half asleep in the man's lap, relaxed and calm, while her daughter's chocolate thumb prints remained on his very expensive-looking suit like some botched-up painting. She immediately feared the worst. Mortified, she went to him to apologize. "I am so sorry." the man looked up, his bright green eyes staring at her like they were looking at her for the first time, framed alongside his brown curls that were long and came down up to his neck made him look like one of those white marble statues of Greek gods, his very sharp feature polished to perfection. 'Shit.' She bit the insides of her lip, mortified that here she was gawking at him. "For your jacket." She said. "I am really sorry."

Though it seemed he had no such compunction about staring at her, because his eyes remained fixed on her face, as if he was to reach straight to her soul. "Never mind that."He said, brushing off the crumbs of cake from his coat. Elena blinked, surprised, if this had been James. He would have blown a casket at the sight of one of his coats being dirtied like that by chocolate, and both she and Lila wouldn't have heard the end of it for days. And here he was acting like it didn't matter at all.

"I will pay for the dry cleaning, if you will just..." She was in no financial condition to pay for anything. She was barely keeping them afloat with a shared flat and noodles for dinner. And yet she offered, since he seemed to be a rich customer and she didn't want to lose this job, even though he was the one who had offered to take Lila while she worked. And that was yet another embarrassing thing that Elena felt ashamed to even recall. Lila had called him daddy. Asked him, in fact, if he would be her daddy.

He laughed. A rich, rough laughter that warmed something inside of her as she stared at the man in front of her. Handsome, rich, and kind. Such a rare combination. "Don't worry about the dry cleaning. "I can manage." Elena was sure he could.

Shaking herself out of her daydreaming, she stretched her arms to take Lila from him. "Thanks for taking care of her again," She muttered. And took her sleeping daughter out of his arms and carried her out towards the car.

"I can carry her to your car." He stood up as well and offered assistance. Elena, struggling with her bag in one hand and a toddler in the other, was indeed in need of help and reluctantly agreed. And instantly Alejandro Castillo swept in, taking the girl into his arms and carrying her towards the exit. Her small old Honda was in one corner of the street, almost a crossing away from the restaurant. And she truly felt bad for making him do this. "I can manage the rest of the way, if you..."

"Are you afraid I am going to run away with her?" He asked her, laughingly. "Is that why you keep asking for her back?" There was a glint in his eyes, a mischievous tilt that told her he was messing with her, and yet Elena couldn't help it, her body stiffened. Her legs shook as she heard that. The thought that someone would take her child away was enough to send her running scared.

He noticed her expression and stopped walking. "Relax. I didn't mean that like a threat....I was only joking."

Tears filled her eyes as she stared at nothing in the middle of the road. He was a stranger who was trying to be kind to her, and yet all she could think about was fear and losing Lila. Running away from James had done this to her, turning back every two steps to watch her back, afraid someone was following her had done this to her.

She was sure James had men looking for her, and she even dreaded thinking about what he would do once he found her. "I am sorry. I know you were joking. I-I am just a little paranoid." He didn't say anything at all, a solemn expression on his face as they walked together towards where her car was parked. Packing up sleepy Lila into the car seat was no easy feat, but once done, Alejandro Castillo turned back towards her. "Who is it?" he asked.

"Wh-waht?"

"Who is the person you are running for? The man who had made you paranoid? Lila's father?" The deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face told him more than words could. That he was right in his analysis, that she was running scared of an abusive ex. He looked at the child in the car again and then at the waif-like thin young woman, who had those eyes like glass lit from within, too tender for a world as unforgiving as this one. And once again, he had that sensation in his chest, that tender heartfelt protectiveness.

So, he offered what he could.

"You have my card. If you ever have any problems or need any kind of help. Call the number on my card." He nodded and turned around to leave, only to stop dead when he heard her whisper. "Bye, daddy." Sleepy minx was smiling as they drove away.

---

The penthouse was silent, save for the soft ticking of the antique clock on the far wall — a piece his grandfather had once polished with his own hands. Its rhythm was steady, predictable. Comforting.

And yet Alejandro Castillo couldn’t sleep.

He lay in the middle of the bed, one arm bent beneath his head, eyes open, watching the slow dance of headlights drifting across the ceiling. His phone was still on the nightstand, face down. A glass of scotch sat untouched beside it.

He had done everything right today — his team had crushed the meeting, sealed a record-breaking deal, and he had smiled through a dozen empty congratulations.

But all he could think about was that child.

She had appeared out of nowhere, standing at the edge of his table like she belonged there. Like he was someone familiar. Someone safe.

“Daddy?”

It wasn’t the word that unsettled him. It was the way it landed — how easily it fit. How he hadn’t corrected her right away. How, for the briefest second, it hadn’t felt absurd.

There had been no hesitation in her face. No fear. Just trust. As if her world had already decided he was part of it, and all he had to do was step in.

He let out a breath, shifted onto his side.

It was ridiculous. She didn’t know him. He didn’t know her. She’d made a mistake, like kids do.

But she had looked so sure.

And he… he hadn’t hated the way it felt.

That was the part that kept turning over in his mind — not the word, not the scene, but the way something in him had responded. Not sentimentally. Not even protectively, at first. Just… quietly. Like a door opening somewhere inside him he hadn’t realized was locked.

Then there was her mother.

Even with his eyes closed, her image hovered behind his eyelids — the loose strands of hair that refused to stay pinned, the soft curve of her mouth when she smiled at her daughter, the quiet strength in the way she held herself, even in exhaustion. She hadn’t looked at him the way women usually did. There’d been no flirtation in her eyes. No calculation. Only polite gratitude and a kind of wary warmth.

But something about her had rooted in him.

Alejandro shifted under the sheets, trying to force his thoughts elsewhere — stocks, acquisitions, the board meeting he had ignored all day. But her face returned, uninvited. And then — the memory of her voice. The low, slightly husky tone when she said, “She gets confused sometimes.”

It was nothing. Ordinary.

And yet…

He let out a slow breath. His body betrayed him before his mind could catch up — a subtle, familiar ache stirring low in his belly, spreading as he imagined the softness of her skin beneath his hands, the warmth of her breath against his throat. It was absurd, wrong even. She was a waitress. A stranger. A woman whose life he had stumbled into by sheer accident.

Still, his body reacted with a certainty his thoughts lacked. And it annoyed him.

He turned onto his side, frustrated, willing the sensation away. It’s not about her, he told himself. It’s been a while. That’s all. Forcing himself to close his eyes and go to sleep.