CHAPTER THREE
1038 Words
Liam’s POV
“You alright, Liam?” Martin, my CFO, was staring at me. I realized I was still standing, staring at the empty chair where she’d been sitting.
“Fine,” I said, my voice rough. I cleared my throat and sat. “She’s counter-offering. Forty percent. That’s highway robbery.”
“She’s Helena Vandermeer’s proxy,” Martin said, stating the obvious. “It’s what she does. But we don’t have a choice. The board is panicking. If we don’t secure something solid by Friday, the stock will tank.”
“She knows that,” I muttered. “She’s playing for time. And for blood.”
The memory of her — my Rosa — walking out with that cold, composed mask… it was a different person entirely. The woman I remembered would have cried in the car, called me, begged for an explanation. This woman had offered me a deal and a deadline. She’d looked at me like I was a mildly annoying business obstacle.
“She said ‘surprisingly well,’” I repeated quietly to myself.
“What?” Martin asked.
“Nothing.” I stood, pacing to the window she’d stood at. The city sprawled below, cold and indifferent. “Get me everything on Vandermeer’s recent acquisitions. Their playbook. Their weak spots. And find out who their other executives are. She’s not the only one.”
“Liam, be careful. Pissing off Helena Vandermeer is a career-ending move.”
“I’m not pissing her off. I’m negotiating with her.” But the words felt hollow. This was personal. It had to be. Why else would she be the one across the table?
My phone buzzed. A text from my mother.
Mother: How did it go? Did you see her?
I deleted it without replying. She’d been ecstatic when she learned the Vandermeer name was attached to the potential investor. “A fresh start, Liam! No more Carter family baggage!” She didn’t remember Rosa. Or she pretended not to.
The next twenty-four hours were a blur of spreadsheets and simmering frustration. My team came back with nothing. Vandermeer Holdings was a fortress. Their deals were clean, their reputation pristine. There was no scandal to leverage, no hidden debt to exploit. They were perfect.
And she was their perfect weapon.
At 9 PM, alone in my hotel suite, I poured a whiskey. The ice clinked too loudly in the silent room. I kept seeing her eyes.
The same eyes, but the light in them was different. Colder. Sharper. The girl who used to blush when I brought her ice cream was gone. In her place was a CEO who’d looked at me like we were never married.
I pulled up the old, encrypted folder on my laptop. Pictures. Our wedding. Her, laughing, covered in flour in our first kitchen. Her, seven years in, looking tired, holding a negative pregnancy test she thought I couldn’t see. I’d seen it. I’d seen the despair. And I’d used it. I’d let my mother’s whispers and Eunice’s… availability… become an excuse. A coward’s way out.
“You wanted an heir,” I said to the empty room, to her ghost on the screen. “You got three.”
The thought landed like a physical blow.
I was the failure. A spectacular, gutless one.
The next morning, the terms were non-negotiable. We signed. Forty percent. Board seats. I initialed each page with a hand that didn’t shake. I’d gotten better at hiding things.
The final meeting was a formality. A signing ceremony in a bland conference room. She wasn’t there. A senior VP handled it.
“Ms. Vandermeer sends her regards,” the VP said, smiling a plastic smile. “She’s tied up with a school event. Her son’s football match.”
Her son.
The words hit me squarely in the chest. Rosa had a son. She had a whole life. A family. Without me. Probably with some other man — maybe through IVF — who got to be a father to her child.
I left the building and didn’t go to my next meeting. I wanted to head back home and bathe in ice water, but instead I ended up driving to an elementary school I suspected she was at.
“Just drive,” I told the driver.
We parked two blocks away. I got out and walked, my suit suddenly feeling like a costume. The school’s gates were open, the sound of kids shouting and whistles blowing spilling onto the sidewalk. A Monday morning. Football practice.
I leaned against a tree across the street, a ghost observing a life I’d been banished from. I scanned the field, the clusters of kids in colored jerseys. I was looking for… what? A woman who looked like Rosa? A boy with her eyes?
Then I saw him.
Number 12. A wiry kid with fierce concentration, his dark hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. He was fast, dodging a tackle with a move that was pure instinct. He laughed, a bright, sharp sound that carried across the field.
And my breath stopped.
It was the laugh. The exact same laugh. A little higher, younger, but the same cadence. The same way his nose scrunched when he smiled.
No.
It couldn’t be. This kid looked five. And he had… my hair. My exact shade of brown, messy and sticking up. And when he turned, shouting encouragement to a teammate, I saw the profile.
My jaw. My mother’s jaw, actually. The same stubborn set of it.
The world narrowed to that patch of green grass. The whistle blew. Practice ended. Kids started streaming off the field, tired and chattering.
And then I saw her.
Rosa.
She was standing at the edge of the field, not in a suit but in jeans and a simple sweater, a huge, unguarded smile on her face. She was holding a water bottle and a towel. She was here. For him.
She pushed through the group of kids, her eyes scanning, searching. They landed on the boy, Number 12, and they lit up with a warmth I’d never seen directed at anyone but m
e years ago. A warmth I’d destroyed.
She called out, “Mikey! Over here!”
Mikey.
- Writer
