Mistletoe Miracle

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Mrs. Sterling, I appreciate the confidence you have in my daughter," Calloway began, his voice tight with a restraint that bordered on brittle. "But 'keeping your grandson grounded' isn't a job description I ever wanted for her. Serenity doesn't belong in your world, and frankly, I don’t want her to."

He held her gaze, the unspoken words heavy in the air between them. He couldn't bring himself to say it plainly—that he refused to let his daughter sell her soul to some silver-spooned frat boy who collected conquests like trophies. To Calloway, Evan was nothing more than a predator hidden behind a tailored suit, a boy who treated women as disposable accessories of his affluent lifestyle.

Eleanor, however, hadn't built an empire by being oblivious. She saw the flash of disdain in Calloway’s eyes and knew exactly what he thought of her grandson’s reputation. It was no secret, after all; in their circles, Evan’s "wandering eye" was legendary. He cycled through women with the same casual indifference he showed his wardrobe, discarding them the moment they lost their crispness.

"Mr. Chase, I am under no illusions regarding Evan’s reputation," Eleanor began, her voice softening into a tone of practiced candor. "I don’t blame you for your vitriol. He hasn’t exactly spent his years cultivating a saintly image, and I realize the public eye is rarely kind to a man of his... appetites. But beneath that carefully constructed veneer, my grandson has a good heart."

"A man with a good heart doesn’t collect women like trophies to be mounted on a wall, Mrs. Sterling," Calloway countered, his voice low and serrated.

Eleanor hummed, a small, thoughtful sound that conceded the point without surrendering the argument. She knew Calloway was right; she had seen the way Evan moved through the world. To her and Leo, he was a devoted grandson and friend; to the rest of the world, people were merely disposable distractions.

"Evan has a deep well of loyalty, Mr. Chase, but he only draws from it for those he deems worthy," Eleanor continued, leaning forward. "He doesn't respect the women in his life because, frankly, they have never respected him. They don't see the man he is capable of being—they see a logo, a bank account, a headline. To them, he isn't a human being; he's a stepping stone to their own ambitions. They ask what the 'Great Evan Sterling' can do for them, never once pausing to see the person behind the name. He isn't heartless, Mr. Chase—he is guarded."

"I don’t know how things are handled in your circles, Mrs. Sterling," Calloway said, his voice dropping an octave, "but among us 'commoners,' respect isn’t a birthright. It’s earned in the trenches, not handed out with a trust fund."

He straightened his posture as best he could in the hospital bed. "Your money might buy you an audience, and it certainly buys you a following, but it doesn't guarantee you a shred of genuine respect. Most of us aren’t inclined to bow down just because someone has a prestigious last name. Respect is mutually exclusive; you have to give it to receive it. But more importantly," he added, eyes narrowing, "a man has to respect himself before he can ever expect the world to do the same. If Evan treats himself like a commodity, he can’t complain when people treat him like a paycheck."

The air in the room seemed to evaporate as Calloway’s words hung between them, blunt and unyielding, yet not rude in the slightest. Eleanor sat back, the practiced poise she had maintained for decades faltering for a flickering second.

For a moment, silence was her only response. She looked at him, not as a stubborn subordinate to be managed, but as a man who had just stripped away the Sterling gilding to reveal the rot beneath. The harshness with which he spoke wasn't cruelty; it was the cold, hard clarity of a mirror she had spent years trying to avoid.

"You speak with a heavy hand, Mr. Chase," Eleanor said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. The sharp rebuttal she usually kept chambered remained unspent. She looked down at her manicured hands, noting the slight tremor she couldn't quite suppress. "But I suppose the truth rarely comes wrapped in silk."

She looked back up, a weary honesty softening the corners of her eyes. "I have spent so much time protecting Evan from the world that I may have forgotten to protect him from his own reflection. You’re right, he views himself as a brand to be managed, not a man to be bettered. And I..." she paused, the admission tasting like ash, "I have likely been the architect of that delusion."

"Self-reflection is the key to self-healing, Mrs. Sterling," Calloway said, his voice losing its edge and replacing it with a heavy, grounding earnestness. "If you truly want your grandson to find a woman who can keep him centered, he has to first conduct himself like a man who values a person’s soul over their silhouette."

He leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees. "The 'right' woman, whoever she may be, needs a foundation to build upon. A man provides the house, the woman creates the home. How is she supposed to support a man who doesn't know where he stands as a basic human being? Can she speak to him with tenderness and care while still having the spine to hold him accountable for his choices? That's a delicate balance, Mrs. Sterling. It requires him to be a partner, not a project."

Calloway’s gaze remained fixed, as steady as a man watching a storm break over the horizon. "He needs to maintain his autonomy in the boardroom, certainly. But he also needs the humility to shed that corporate skin the second he crosses his own threshold. If he can’t leave the 'Great Evan Sterling' at the door, he’ll never have a home; he’ll just have another office. And that failure of balance will rest solely on his shoulders."

Calloway grunted, shifting his weight with a wincing expression as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His hands gripped the cold metal of the walker, knuckles white, as he hauled himself upward to get the blood flowing through his stiff limbs. Despite his physical limitations, he began to pace the confined space with a restless, prowling energy.

"At the end of the day, Mrs. Sterling, people like to say it’s a woman’s job to provide a peaceful home for a man to thrive in," he said, the rhythmic thump-slide of the walker punctuating his words. "But that’s only half the truth. It is the man’s burden to provide the security and the ironclad foundation that makes such peace possible in the first place."

He turned at the wall, his gaze locking onto hers. "It’s supposed to be a reciprocal sanctuary. But a sanctuary can't stand on hollow ground. At the rate your grandson is going, chasing every thrill and headline, he hasn't the slightest idea how to build a safe space for my daughter—or anyone else, for that matter. He’s too busy being a celebrity to learn how to be a cornerstone."

Eleanor remained motionless, Calloway’s words hitting her with the visceral force of a freight train. She had spent a lifetime navigating the boardrooms of elite society, where insults were draped in velvet and lies were polished to a high shine. But here, in this sterile room, Calloway had reached out and stripped away the Sterling veneer with a single, devastating stroke.

Without ever having met Evan, Calloway had managed to shine a blinding light onto the boy’s deepest shortcomings. It wasn't that he was being intentionally cruel or even disrespectful; he was simply being truthful. And Eleanor knew better than most that the truth is often the one reflection people spend their lives avoiding—because once you look, you can't unsee the cracks in the foundation.

Eleanor let out a long, weary sigh, the sound heavy with a realization she hadn't expected to confront. She had walked into this room as a master strategist, her mind already several moves ahead. Her entire "game plan" had been centered on tethering Serenity to Evan—a calculated move to save her grandson from himself, convinced that Serenity was the tonic his chaotic life required.

But as she watched Calloway pace, the rhythmic sound of his walker echoing in the quiet room, a cold clarity settled over her. In her desperation to find what was good for Evan, she had been willfully blind to the most glaring question of all: was Evan good for Serenity?

She had viewed the girl as a solution, a stabilizer, perhaps even a savior. Never once had she stopped to consider if she was sentencing a woman of Serenity's character to a life of hollow foundations and broken promises. For the first time, the "Sterling" name didn't feel like a prize she was offering—it felt like a burden she was asking someone else to carry.

Eleanor finally found her voice, though it lacked its usual sharp authority. “I see your point, Mr. Chase,” she admitted, the words heavy with a newfound, bitter honesty. “When you put it into that perspective, I can understand exactly why you want Serenity nowhere near Evan. I truly cannot blame you.”

She paused, her gaze dropping to the floor as if the weight of her own reflection had become too much to bear. “Evan is deeply flawed. I have spent years refusing to admit that, blinded by the bias one has for their only grandchild, the only family I have left in this world. But in my attempt to protect him, I’ve done him a great disservice. I’ve failed to show him what the true characteristics of a man actually are.”