Chapter 10: What She Needs

Slade's POV

Cassian and Iridessa's words echoed in my head long after I stepped out of Sterling Group Headquarters.

I stopped at the bottom of the wide marble staircase and stared across the city skyline.

They were right. Every logical part of me knew they were right.

I had lost the right to demand answers. Lost the right to know where she lived. Lost the right to know who she spent her days with.

But there was one problem. I couldn't stop thinking about her, and I refuse to give up so easily.

Not when a child is involved. Not when I was losing my mind. 

I ran a hand through my hair before heading toward my car, which was outside the premises.

The ride back to my temporary home took nearly thirty minutes. Thirty miserable minutes I spent replaying every second of my conversation with Iridessa.

The worst part wasn't her anger. It wasn't even the fact that she refused to forgive me.

The worst part was that she genuinely didn't seem affected by me anymore. It was as if the woman who once loved me no longer existed.

I stopped outside a modest apartment building. It wasn't a luxurious place. Just a simple building in a quiet district.

The complete opposite of the mansion I had grown up in.

I alighted from the car and headed inside. The moment I opened the apartment door, the smell of food greeted me.

A familiar voice followed immediately.

"About time."

I looked up and found Damien Hart sitting on the couch with his feet resting on the coffee table.

Damian is my best friend. The man who had saved my family from sleeping in hotels after the foreclosure. A fact I would never forget.

He glanced up from his tablet with a smile, but frowned instantly as he saw my countenance.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked. "You look like hell."

I dropped my keys onto the table, and collapsed onto the chair opposite him.

"Thanks."

"I'm serious." He blurted with a stern face and sat up immediately. "What happened? You can talk to me, you know."

For several moments, neither of us spoke. Damien's expression slowly changed. Concern replacing the humor looks.

"Slade." He called and I exhaled heavily, and decided to tell him everything.

"I saw Iridessa."

His eyebrows rose. "Again?"

I nodded and continued. "At Sterling Group. And she practically looked through me." I bit my lips as I felt a lump in my throat.

"Ouch." Damien winced.

"She wasn't angry." I added, and his eyes bulged out in surprise.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"I mean she didn't care enough to be angry. I apologized."

Damien blinked and interrupted immediately. "You apologized?"

"Yes."

"Voluntarily?"

I glared at him, and he raised his hands instantly and apologized.

"Sorry. Continue."

I looked away and continued between gritted teeth. "It didn't matter to her at all. It was as if I was talking to a stranger."

There was a long silence when I finished speaking. Before Damian decided to speak again.

"Maybe that's because you're five years late."

My heart twisted painfully, and I quickly rubbed my temples to calm my nerves. The blunt honesty hurt. Mostly because he wasn't wrong.

Quietly, I decided to say the last thing that had been consuming my thoughts for a long time now.

"There's a child."

Damian froze and blurted in disbelief. "What?"

"There's a child," I repeated. "A little boy of about five or six years old. I can't really tell, but there's something strange about him."

I proceeded to tell him everything I knew. The photograph, the resemblance, and Iridessa's response when I asked her about it.

When I finally finished speaking, Damien sat silently for several seconds, then he sighed and blurted out.

"This is messy."

"That's one word for it." I said and he nodded his head slowly. 

Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "Actually..." He began, and I frowned, wondering what the matter was.

"What?"

Damien leaned forward and lowered his voice slightly. "A high-stakes business dinner."

I furrowed my brows in confusion, waiting for him to spill more. 

He continued. "The International Technology Alliance."

Realization suddenly dawned on me. It was one of the biggest networking events in Europe where executives, investors, and corporate leaders will attend.

The kind of event where billion-dollar deals happened over dinner.

"What about it?" I asked, clearly not understanding where this was going. 

As far as I'm concerned, I have no business with such an event anymore.

"I was invited." Damien said with a grin, interrupting my thoughts.

However, that didn't help matters either. He's working for (help me fill this gap company name) as (Damien's position) he must have been invited since he'd be attending with his boss. 

So what does that have to do with me or the conversation we were having?

Damien finally delivered the final piece. "I heard Iridessa is attending."

My pulse immediately accelerated, and I believed Damien might have noticed it.

"There it is." He said with a smile, then leaned forward again and continued.

"You should come with me."

I frowned immediately. "It seems you've forgotten something."

"What?"

"I'm no longer the CEO of Wilder Technologies. I'm not important enough to receive an invitation to an event of that magnitude. Every..."

Before I could continue, Damien cut me off immediately.

I know." He said and I gulped down and stared at him in silence.

"I know you weren't invited," he continued calmly. "But I can help you with that. You don't need to worry."

For a moment, there was silence between us. Then I finally asked the question that had been bothering me.

"Why?"

Damien blinked his eyes and blurted. "Why what?"

"Why are you trying so hard to get me there?"

He was quiet for a moment before he cleared his throat and replied. "Because I want you to present yourself to Iridessa again."

I frowned, but he continued anyway.

"I want her to see what she'd be losing if she keeps up with this cold, nonchalant attitude."

He paused for a while, allowing the words to sink into my head, before he continued again.

"I want you to remind her who you are. I want you to walk into that room looking confident and successful. I want you to charm her. Make her remember why she fell for you in the first place."

I nodded my head in understanding. But Damien wasn't done.

"Make her see the man she once loved," Damien pressed on. "Show her that you're still the same Slade Blackwood. The one who could command a room without saying much. The one women couldn't stop thinking about."

A smile suddenly appeared on his face. 

"And when she sees that, maybe she'll finally start looking at you again."

The more he spoke, the more sense it made. Maybe I had been approaching this the wrong way.

Maybe apologizing over and over wasn't enough.

Iridessa had spent five years building a life without me. Perhaps what she needed wasn't another apology.

Perhaps she needed a reminder. A reminder of the connection we once shared.