CHAPTER 3
1652 Words
(Seraphina's POV)
“Get her on the phone Now,” I said, my voice shaking.
The assistant nodded and hurried out. I turned to Kael, who was watching me with narrowed eyes, clearly trying to read what I was hiding.
“Who is Noah,” he asked.
“None of your business,” I snapped, even though my hands were trembling.
He did not push further, but I could feel his gaze on me, studying, measuring, the way he probably studied every business deal before deciding how to win it. I hated how exposed it made me feel, standing in his office with my whole world c***king open in front of a man I barely trusted.
The phone on his desk rang and he answered it on speaker before I could stop him.
“This is Kael Voss.”
“Oh.” A pause on the other end. “I was told to ask for Seraphina Cole.”
“I am here” I said quickly, stepping closer to the phone. “Who is this”?
“My name is Carla. I run the daycare Noah attends in Maine.” Her voice was rushed, worried. “He fell during outdoor play today. He is okay, just a sprained wrist, but he kept asking for you and I could not reach your old number.”
Relief crashed into me so hard my knees nearly buckled. I gripped the edge of the desk to steady myself, my throat tight, my eyes burning with tears I refused to let fall in front of Kael.
“Is he with you now,” I asked.
“Yes, he is fine, I promise. Just scared and asking for his mom.”
“Tell him I am coming,” I said. “Tell him Mommy is coming.”
I hung up and turned to grab my bag, but Kael’s hand caught my wrist before I could move. His grip was not rough, but it was firm, like he could not let me leave without an answer first.
“Mom,” he repeated slowly, like he was testing the weight of the word. “You have a son.”
I pulled my wrist free, my skin still warm where his fingers had been. “I have to go.”
“Seraphina.” His voice was low now, controlled, but something underneath it had c***ked open.
“How old is he?”
I should have lied. I should have made something up right there on the spot, some excuse, some distraction to throw him off the trail before he could do the math himself. But the question caught me off guard, raw and sudden, and the truth slipped out before I could stop it.
“Four,” I said.
I watched the math happen behind his eyes. Watched his face go pale, then unreadable, then something I had never seen on him before. Three years since the gala. Nine months after that. Four years old now. The numbers landed on his face one at a time, like dominoes falling in slow motion.
“Four,” he repeated, almost to himself.
“I have to go,” I said again, my voice breaking. “My son needs me.”
“Seraphina, wait.” His voice cracked through the air, sharper now, more desperate than I had ever heard from him. “If this is true, I deserve to know everything. Right now.”
“You deserve nothing from me,” I said, my hands trembling as I gathered my bag. “You lost that right the day you destroyed my father’s company and turned my world into rubble.”
“That is not fair.”
“None of this is fair,” I shot back, my voice rising despite myself. “None of it was ever fair, Kael. Not what happened to my father, not what happened to me, and definitely not what happened to my son.”
He stepped closer, blocking my path to the door, his tall frame suddenly making the office feel much smaller than it had a moment ago.
“You do not get to walk away from this conversation,” he said. “Not when it concerns my own blood.”
“Watch me,” I said, pushing past his shoulder toward the door.
“Seraphina.” His voice stopped me at the threshold, quieter now, almost unsteady. “Does the boy look like me?”
My hand froze on the door handle. I did not turn around. I could not make myself turn around and answer that question honestly, not when the truth was sitting right there in Noah’s grey eyes every single morning when he woke me up for breakfast.
“I have to go,” I said again, and this time I did not wait for his response.
I walked out of that office as fast as my legs could carry me, my heart pounding so loud I could hear it in my ears, leaving him standing there with a question I had refused to answer. Behind me, I heard him say something low and urgent to his assistant, his voice tight with command, but I did not stop to listen.
Whatever he was planning, I had four hours of driving ahead of me and a son waiting with a sprained wrist and a question of his own that I was even less prepared to answer.
I did not know it yet, standing in that elevator with my hands still shaking, but Kael Voss was already making a phone call that would put a car outside my house before the night was over.
My phone buzzed once before the elevator doors even closed, a text from a number I did not recognize.
Drive safe. We are not finished, Seraphina.
I stared at the screen, my stomach twisting into a knot. He had my number now too. I had not given it to him, not once, not in any conversation we had today.
Somehow, in less than an hour, Kael Voss had already found a way into every corner of my carefully guarded life, and I had no idea how far he was willing to go, to claim what he now believed was his.
- Writer
