Adira blinked, her hand frozen just short of his. She didn’t speak right away, her expression unreadable—shocked, maybe, but not cold. Just processing.
Ethan, though, leaned forward slightly. His expression didn’t change much—but the temperature in the room did.
“A single mother?” he said slowly, voice tight, measured. “With two children?”
Robert nodded once.
There was a pause. Then his father exhaled sharply, and sat back in his chair. The disappointment didn’t come with raised voices—it came in the heavy silence, in the hard set of his jaw.
“Robert,” he said, “you know what that means. You’d be stepping into a life that’s already built. That woman has a past, responsibilities. Children who aren’t yours.”
His tone was controlled, but the disapproval in it was unmistakable.
“You’re
