STILL WITH YOU (CONTRACTED TO THE CEO)

The Architecture of Loss

Six months had transformed Blackwood Manor from a vibrant family estate into a silent, meticulously curated museum. The ghosts of the past were no longer felt in the messy playrooms or the lingering scent of Layla’s jasmine perfume; they were felt in the cold, antiseptic perfection that had replaced them. Jace had scrubbed the house of chaos, but in doing so, he had scrubbed it of life.

Jace Dominic Fidel lived like a phantom in his own hallways. He had returned to the helm of Fidel Global with a ferocity that bordered on pathological, burying himself in global acquisitions and back-to-back board meetings to drown out the echoing silence of his heart. He stayed at his office until the cleaning crews arrived, returning home only when the darkness of the manor matched the darkness in his mind.

He was thinner, the sharp, aristocratic planes of his face now skeletal and harsh. His eyes were permanently rimmed with the grey exhaustion of a man who had forgotten how to sleep without the aid of a heavy pour of scotch.

Down the hall, in a room that felt far too large for a six-year-old, Jamal was retreating into a world where no one could follow. The bright, boisterous boy who had once filled the house with laughter was gone. In his place was a child who spoke in whispers and flinched at the sound of a raised voice.

He didn't play with his Legos anymore. He spent hours sitting by the window, staring out at the long, winding driveway, waiting for a car that would never come.

The most agonizing part of the tragedy was the widening rift between father and son. Jace couldn't look at Jamal without seeing Layla’s eyes, her smile, the very shape of her face reflected back at him in a smaller, more fragile form. Every time Jamal cried, it was a serrated blade across Jace’s raw nerves. He loved the boy with a desperate, terrifying intensity, but he was drowning in his own grief, and he had no idea how to reach out a hand without dragging them both under.

He had tried. He had sat on the edge of Jamal’s bed in the beginning, but the silence between them was a physical wall. Jace didn't know how to explain a world that made no sense, so he simply stopped trying. He provided the best therapists, the best schools, and the best nannies,everything except the one thing Jamal actually needed: himself.

Hazel Tiana Smith was the only person who still moved through the manor like she belonged there.

She had stayed. While Samara and Scott visited when their schedules allowed, and Lady Evelyn managed the family’s public image with iron-clad poise, Hazel was the one on the ground. She had taken a leave of absence from her own life, letting her South Kensington apartment gather dust. She couldn't leave them. Every time she looked at Jace’s hollowed-out expression or Jamal’s slumped shoulders, she felt a pull of loyalty that was stronger than her own need for peace.

She became the bridge. She carried messages between Jace and the pediatrician. She handled the household staff. She was the buffer between Jace’s growing, jagged irritability and Jamal’s fragile sensitivity.

It was a Tuesday evening,a Tuesday that felt like every other agonizing day of the last half-year. Jace had returned home earlier than usual, his jaw tight with the stress of a failed merger. He walked into the kitchen to find Hazel sitting at the table, a coloring book open between her and Jamal.

The scene was peaceful, domestic—and it sent a jolt of irrational, burning fury through Jace. It felt like a mockery of what he had lost.

"He should be in bed," Jace said, his voice a low, dangerous rasp that cut through the quiet.

Jamal flinched, his crayon snapping in his small hand. He didn't look up, his shoulders hunching toward his ears.

"He had a hard day at school, Jace," Hazel said calmly, though her eyes were sharp and warning. "We’re just winding down."

"I pay for a staff to handle 'winding down,'" Jace snapped, walking toward the liquor cabinet without shedding his overcoat. "You shouldn't be here every night, Hazel. You have your own life. You’re indulging him. He’s becoming soft, retreating into this... this silence."

Hazel stood up, her chair scraping harshly against the floor. She stepped toward him, keeping her voice low so Jamal wouldn't hear the edge in it. "He isn't becoming soft, Jace. He’s becoming lonely. He’s grieving the only mother he ever knew, and his father is acting like a cold-blooded stranger who happens to pay the mortgage."

Jace spun around, a glass of scotch clutched in his hand. "Don't you dare tell me how to parent my son."

"Then parent him!" Hazel hissed, her eyes shimmering with six months of repressed frustration. "Look at him, Jace! He hasn't looked you in the eye in weeks because he’s terrified of you. He thinks you hate him because he reminds you of her."

"That’s enough," Jace growled, his face inches from hers, his breath smelling of smoke and fatigue.

"It’s not enough," Hazel countered, her voice trembling. "I can’t with how you treat him anymore, he is your son”

Jamal was standing there, his face streaked with silent tears, his small hands curled into fists at his sides. "Stop it," he whispered. "Don't fight. Please... don't send aunty Tiana away."

The sight of his son's terror broke through the ice of Jace’s anger, leaving behind nothing but a cold, aching shame. He reached out a hand, a reflexive gesture of comfort, but Jamal stepped back, retreating instinctively behind Hazel’s legs.

The rejection was visceral. Jace looked at Hazel,at the way she instinctively shielded the boy, the way she was now the sun in Jamal’s darkened world and he felt a terrifying realization wash over him.

He was losing his son. And the only person holding the remnants of his life together was the woman he was trying so hard to push away.

"I'm going to my study," Jace said, his voice hollow and flat. He didn't look back as he walked out, the heavy click of the door sounding like a final sentence.

As the door shut, Hazel knelt and pulled Jamal into a tight hug. Over the boy's shoulder, she looked at the empty doorway. She knew she couldn't keep doing this. The bridge was starting to crumble, and if she didn't find a way to fix the foundation soon, the Fidel family would drift so far apart they would never find their way back.