The Devil Remembers

Nora did not sleep that night.

She lay in the dark staring at the ceiling while Diana Blackwood's voice played over and over in her head like a song she could not switch off.

"Before my son gets any ideas about playing father."

She knows about Lily.

But how? Nora had been so careful. Three years of care. Different city, different name on the lease, no social media, no contact with anyone connected to the Blackwood family. She had built her new life like a fortress and somehow Diana had still found a crack.

She turned onto her side and looked at the small figure sleeping peacefully in the next bed.

Lily. Three years old. Dark hair, dark eyes, a little mouth that never stopped asking questions. The most important person in Nora's world and the most dangerous secret she carried.

Her son looked exactly like his father.

Anyone who had ever seen Ethan Blackwood would know it the moment they looked at Lily's face. Same strong jaw, same serious eyes, same way of going completely still when he was thinking. Nora had noticed it the first time Lily crossed his arms and frowned at his vegetables at dinner, and she had felt her heart crack a little at how unfair it all was.

A boy who looked like his father had never once seen his father's face.

She reached over and gently fixed the blanket around his shoulders.

"Nobody is going to take you from me," she whispered. "Nobody."

She picked up her phone and stared at Diana's number still on her screen.

She did not call back. Not tonight. Tonight she needed to think.

She arrived at the office early the next morning.

Her plan was simple. Get in before most people arrived, settle at her desk, and build a wall of work around herself so thick that nobody, including Ethan, could get close enough to disturb it.

It was a good plan.

It lasted eleven minutes.

"You're early."

She did not look up from her screen. She had heard his footsteps in the corridor and had already prepared herself.

"So are you," she said.

Ethan stopped at the edge of her desk. She could see him in her peripheral vision, tall and unhurried in another dark suit, holding two cups of coffee. He set one down beside her keyboard without asking.

She looked at it. Then at him.

"I remember how you take it," he said simply.

"I don't want your coffee Ethan."

"It's just coffee Nora."

"Nothing from you is ever just anything."

He said nothing to that. She hated that he didn't try to argue because it meant he knew she was right.

She pushed the cup aside and kept her eyes on her screen. "Is there something work related you need from me or can I continue?"

He was quiet for a moment. She could feel him looking at her the way he always used to, that steady, patient look that used to make her feel like the most seen person in the world before she understood that being seen by Ethan Blackwood came at a very high price.

"I reviewed your file," he said.

"My work file."

"Yes. Your work file." A pause. "You're good. Better than I expected."

She finally looked up at him. "Better than you expected or better than you remembered?"

Something flickered in his eyes. "Both."

"Good," she said. "Then you know I earned this position and I don't need anything from you. Not coffee. Not compliments. Not conversation." She held his gaze. "We agreed to be professional. This isn't professional. This is you finding reasons to stand at my desk at seven in the morning."

A muscle moved in his jaw.

She looked back at her screen.

After a long moment she heard him walk away.

She let out a slow breath and pressed her fingers flat against the desk to stop them shaking.

Round one. She was still standing.

By midday the office had picked up its normal rhythm and Nora had almost convinced herself the morning had not rattled her.

Then Marcus appeared at her door with a grin.

"Lunch? There's a good place two buildings down."

She genuinely liked Marcus. He was easy company and he asked nothing complicated of her. "Sure," she said.

They were halfway to the elevator when she heard her name.

"Miss Hayes."

She turned. Ethan's assistant, a sharp-faced young woman named Clara, was walking toward her with a tablet.

"Mr. Blackwood needs you in the boardroom. There's a client presentation this afternoon and he wants you added to the team."

Nora blinked. "I just started yesterday."

"Yes." Clara smiled thinly. "He's aware."

Marcus raised his eyebrows slightly. Nora could read his expression easily. In two years at this company Ethan had never pulled a new employee into a major client presentation on their second day.

Never.

"Tell him I'll be there," Nora said.

Clara nodded and walked away.

Marcus leaned slightly closer and lowered his voice. "Do you know him? From before?"

Nora kept her face perfectly still. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because in two years working here I have never seen him bring anyone coffee." He said it lightly but his eyes were watching her carefully.

Nora picked up her bag. "We should get lunch before the presentation."

She walked ahead of him toward the elevator and did not look back.

The boardroom presentation went smoothly.

Nora spoke twice when Ethan directed questions toward her and both times she answered clearly and confidently. She watched the clients respond to her well. She watched Ethan watch her respond to them.

When it was over and the clients had gone, the rest of the team filed out making small talk.

Nora was last to leave.

"Miss Hayes."

She stopped at the door.

"That was good work," Ethan said from the head of the table. The room was empty now except for the two of them.

"Thank you," she said. Professional. Distant. Perfect.

"Why didn't you tell me you had a child?"

The air left the room.

She turned around slowly. Ethan was standing still, his expression unreadable, his eyes fixed on her face with an intensity that made her chest tighten.

"My personal life is not your business," she said carefully.

"How old is he?"

Her blood went cold.

"Ethan—"

"How old is your son Nora?"

The question hung in the air between them like a lit match held over gasoline. She could see it in his face, the calculation happening behind his eyes, the math he was already doing without her permission.

She had been so careful.

She had not been careful enough.

"That," she said, her voice steady even as her heart hammered, "is none of your business."

She walked out of the boardroom before he could ask anything else.

But she already knew, with a certainty that settled in her bones like ice, that Ethan Blackwood was not going to let it go.

He never let anything go.