Grey eyes

Adrian's POV

The door of the SUV shut with a muted thud behind me.

Outside, the afternoon traffic crawled past Kingston Holdings, but inside the vehicle was the opposite.

Ethan glanced down at the folder resting on his lap before looking back at me through the rearview mirror.

"I've gone through everything we could find on Olivia Carter." He handed the folder to me.

I opened it without a word. Inside were copies of public records, employment history, bank summaries my legal team had obtained through private investigators, rental agreements, and every address she had lived at over the past seven years.

"No marriage certificate," Ethan continued. "No divorce records, no engagement announcement, no joint property ownership."

I turned to another page, still listening to him.

"There are no photographs linking her to a long-term partner either. We checked social media, old university contacts, neighbors, former coworkers... everyone described her the same way."

I looked up. "'The same way?'"

"'Quiet, private, always with her daughter.'"

“Mhmm.” I flipped to another page.

"She had lived in the same apartment for almost four years. School fees have always been paid on time, the rent has never been overdue, they've been no unusual deposits into her account and no financial support from anyone that we could trace."

I closed the file halfway. "So someone fathered her child..." I paused, trying to make sense out of everything. "...and disappeared."

Ethan hesitated. "That's what doesn't make sense, sir." He leaned forward. "We looked for child support payments, shared bank accounts, emergency contacts, insurance beneficiaries... even hospital records connected to the birth."

I lifted an eyebrow. "Nothing?"

"Nothing…There isn't a single man whose name keeps appearing in her records. It's as though she raised Lily completely on her own."

Silence settled between us. I looked down at the report again. Pages of facts, dates, ddresses, employment, everything was there. Everything...except the one person I wanted.

I shut the folder. "Keep digging."

Ethan gave a small shake of his head. "Sir... we've exhausted almost every legal avenue available to us. Unless someone deliberately erased his tracks, there shouldn't be this little information."

"Then someone did."

He held my gaze through the mirror for a brief moment before giving a quiet nod. "I'll expand the investigation."

Movement beyond the tinted window caught my attention….Olivia. She had just stepped out of the building, her phone pressed against her ear. She stopped so abruptly that a man behind her nearly walked into her.

Even from where I sat, I saw the color drain from her face.

My fingers tightened around the folder.

A second later, she ended the call, shoved the phone into her bag with trembling hands, and hurried toward the street.

She didn't go back inside or try notify anyone at the reception.

She raised her arm at the first taxi she saw.

She climbed inside, the moment the cab pulled over and before the door had fully closed, it merged into traffic.

Ethan followed my line of sight. "What's she doing? She isn't supposed to leave this early."

I didn't answer. In the two weeks she'd been back at Kingston Holdings, Olivia hadn't left her desk early once. She followed every instruction to the letter. Even when she hated me, she never let it interfere with her work.

She would never walk away in the middle of the day.....unless whatever was waiting for her mattered more than losing this job.

Ethan glanced back at me. "Should I call HR and ask where she's going?"

My eyes remained on the yellow taxi disappearing into the afternoon traffic. "No." I paused. "Follow her."

“Sir, what about your meeting?”

“Just call, tell them something came up and I'll be rescheduling it to tomorrow.”

Ethan eased the SUV into traffic, keeping two cars between us and the yellow taxi ahead.

The taxi stayed on the main road before turning into a quieter neighborhood lined with maple trees and small family homes. 

A few minutes later, it slowed in front of a 

brick building surrounded by a black iron fence. A blue sign stood beside the entrance. “Maplewood Elementary School.”

Ethan glanced at it before looking at me through the mirror. "I guess she's picking up her daughter."

Olivia pushed open the taxi door before it had fully stopped, handing the driver a few bills, then hurried through the school gates without looking back. The gates swung shut behind her.

Ethan parked across the street beneath the shade of an old oak tree, switching off the engine.

Children's laughter drifted from the playground inside the school grounds. Parents stood chatting near the entrance while teachers walked students toward the gate one class at a time.

My fingers rested against the closed file on my lap, but my attention never left the school entrance.

A few minutes passed then the doors opened, revealing Olivia.

She was carrying a little girl against her shoulder, one arm supporting her as she hurried down the steps. The child's face was hidden, buried against Olivia's neck, only a curtain of soft brown curls visible from where we sat.

I watched without thinking much of it. Just another mother taking her daughter home.

Then the little girl shifted, her head slowly lifting.

Everything inside me went still…Gray eyes. It wasn't just similar. They were the exact shade that had stared back at me in every mirror for thirty years.

Even the slight crease between her brows looked pfamiliar.

My breathing slowed. The sounds outside…the traffic, the children laughing, a school bus pulling away, all faded into nothing…There was only that little face.

Ethan leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the child. For the first time since he'd started working for me, uncertainty crept into his voice. "...Sir."

A long silence stretched between us before he spoke again, quieter this time. "Am I imagining it...or does she look exactly like you?"

My hand tightened slowly against the file until the edges bent beneath my fingers.

No. This couldn't be...

...could it?