The elevator ride to the 14th floor felt like an eternity. When the doors opened, Ethan moved quickly through the hallway, scanning for empty rooms. Most of the offices were occupied, filled with employees preparing for the review session. But near the end of the corridor, he found a small conference room with the lights off. The door was unlocked.
He stepped inside, set the bag down on a chair, and lifted Lily out carefully. She blinked at him, still drowsy from the medicine, and he arranged a makeshift bed for her using his jacket and the cushions from the chairs. He knelt beside her and pressed his lips to her forehead. Still warm, but not as hot as before.
The medicine was working. He just needed a few hours. a few hours to get through the meeting, to do his job, to prove he was reliable. Then he could take her home and no one would ever know. Ethan whispered that he would be right back, that she needed to be quiet and sleep, that daddy loved her more than anything in the world.
Lily’s eyes fluttered closed, and he backed out of the room, leaving the door slightly a jar so he could hear if she cried. He checked his watch. 8:47. The meeting started in 13 minutes. He straightened his tie, took a deep breath, and walked toward the main conference hall. He did not know it yet, but he had just stepped into the life of Victoria Hail.
And nothing would ever be the same again. The meeting room was already filled with anxious employees when Ethan arrived. He found a seat near the back, keeping his phone on silent but checking it every few seconds for any sound from the baby monitor app he had installed. The room hummed with nervous energy.
Everyone knew what was at stake. The Meridian Project was the company’s biggest initiative of the year, and Victoria Hail had made it clear that failure was not an option. At exactly 9:00, the door at the front of the room opened, and Victoria walked in. The room fell silent immediately. She wore a charcoal blazer over a black dress, her dark hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail.
Her eyes swept across the room like a general surveying her troops, cold and assessing. She did not smile. She did not greet anyone. She simply took her place at the head of the table and began speaking. Ethan tried to focus on her words, but his mind kept drifting to Lily. Was she still asleep? Was the fever getting worse? He glanced at his phone again. Nothing.
The meeting dragged on. Charts and projections and deadlines blurring together until they lost all meaning. He just needed to get through this. Just a few more hours. Then, 45 minutes into the meeting, his phone lit up. A notification from the baby monitor app. Sound detected in conference room B. His blood turned to ice.
Lily was crying. Ethan stood up so fast that his chair scraped against the floor. Several heads turned in his direction, including Victoria Hails. Her eyes locked onto him, sharp and questioning, but he did not stop to explain. He muttered an apology and walked out of the conference room as quickly as he could without breaking into a run.
The moment the door closed behind him, he sprinted down the hallway toward conference room B. The crying grew louder as he approached. His heart hammered against his ribs. Each beat a reminder of how badly he had miscalculated. He should have known the medicine would wear off. He should have found another way.
But there was no time for regret now. He pushed open the door, ready to scoop Lily into his arms and disappear before anyone else heard her. But he was too late. Someone had already found her. Victoria Hail stood in the center of the room, her back to the door, holding Lily against her chest.
The baby had stopped crying. Ethan froze in the doorway, unable to move, unable to breathe. This was it. His career was over. His life was over. Everything he had worked to protect was about to collapse. Victoria turned slowly to face him. He expected fury. He expected the cold, cutting words that had destroyed careers and ended partnerships.
But what he saw on her face was something else entirely. Her expression was soft, almost fragile, as if she were holding something precious and breakable. Her eyes glistened with a moisture he had never imagined seeing from a woman like her. She looked at Ethan, then back at Lily, then at Ethan again.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet, stripped of its usual authority. She asked if this was his daughter. Ethan nodded, his throat too tight to form words. Victoria studied Lily’s face for a long moment, her fingers gently brushing the baby’s cheek. Then she asked how old the child was. “8 months,” Ethan managed to say.
Victoria closed her eyes briefly as if the answer had confirmed something painful she already suspected. She told him to close the door. Ethan obeyed, his hands trembling as he pulled it shut. He waited for the lecture, the termination, the security escort out of the building. But Victoria did not call for security.
