Chapter 7: The Man in the Rain

**ROMAN**

He thought it would be easy.

He was Roman Cheng. Six-two, sharp jaw, the kind of face that made waitresses forget their tables. He ran a nine-figure company. Women threw themselves at him. His ex-wife had spent three years worshiping the ground he walked on — all he had to do was show up, say the right words, and she'd fold.

He was wrong.

**Day one.** He drove to her office and waited in the parking garage from eight AM to six PM. When she finally walked out — heels clicking, phone to her ear, looking like someone who ran the world because she did — he jumped out of his car and called her name.

Security had him by the arm before he got within twenty feet.

"Sir, Ms. Sun has requested that no one named Cheng approach the building."

He'd been escorted out by two men half his age, and the worst part was how polite they were about it.

**Day two.** He sent flowers. Nine hundred and ninety-nine red roses, arranged in a heart, delivered to her company's front desk. The kind of gesture that would've made the old Serena cry.

The roses came back at four PM. Every last one. Accompanied by a handwritten note from her assistant on company letterhead:

*Ms. Sun has a pollen allergy. Please cease all unsolicited deliveries.*

No emotion. No anger. Just corporate-grade rejection.

**Day three.** He called in a mutual friend — a guy named Kevin who'd been at their wedding — and asked him to set up a dinner. Casual. Old times. Just the three of them.

Kevin came back forty minutes later looking like he'd been hit by a truck.

"She said no, man. The second I mentioned your name, she cancelled. She also said — and I'm quoting here — 'Tell Mr. Cheng that if he has free time, he should spend it managing his company. Not wasting mine.'"

Roman sat in his apartment that night, holding a whiskey he hadn't drunk, and tried to understand what had happened.

Three years ago, one sentence from him had been enough to end her marriage.

Now he couldn't buy his way into the same room as her.

---

Summer came in hard that year. The kind of heat that built up all day and then broke, violently, after dark.

The storm hit at nine PM.

Roman was already there. Standing in the parking lot of Serena's building, no umbrella, no coat, suit jacket soaked through in the first three minutes. Rain hammered the asphalt so hard it bounced. Lightning split the sky in white cracks. Thunder rolled across the city like artillery.

He stood there anyway.

The security guard came out once. Twice. Three times.

"Sir, you need to leave. This storm is dangerous. Ms. Sun isn't coming down."

Roman didn't move.

He stood and stared at the top floor, where one window was still lit. She was up there. Working late, the way she did every night, building something that had nothing to do with him.

An hour passed. Two. Three.

The rain didn't let up. His body started to go numb — fingers first, then his feet, then a deep, sick chill that settled into his chest like concrete. His vision swam. The parking lot lights doubled, tripled, blurred into halos.

He was burning up. He could feel it — fever climbing, joints aching, his body trying to shut down, and some stubborn, stupid part of his brain still insisting that if he just stayed long enough, she would come.

Because that's how it used to work. He'd screw up. He'd stand there. She'd forgive him. Every time. Like clockwork.

*This time too. Right?*

His legs buckled.

He went down on his knees in six inches of rainwater. The impact jolted through his kneecaps and up his spine, but the pain was distant, muffled, like hearing a car alarm through a wall.

He tipped his head back and looked up at that window through the rain.

"Serena." His voice was gone. Shredded. Barely a whisper over the storm. "I'm sorry. Please. Just — come down. One minute. That's all I'm asking."

The rain poured over his face and he couldn't tell anymore what was rain and what wasn't.

---

**2:00 AM. Top floor.**

My assistant knocked and stepped in. She had that look — the one she got when something was happening that she didn't want to tell me about.

"Ms. Sun... he's still down there."

I didn't look up from my file. "Mm."

"He's been kneeling for almost four hours. I think he has a fever. A bad one." She paused. "Should I call an ambulance?"

I turned a page. Read a paragraph. Didn't absorb a word.

"Call one," I said.

A beat.

"And bring this down to him."

I opened my desk drawer and took out a document I'd had prepared two weeks ago. I slid it across the desk.

My assistant picked it up, read the cover page, and her eyebrows went up. But she didn't say anything. She just nodded and left.

I sat there for maybe thirty seconds.

Then I stood up, took my umbrella from the stand by the door, and went downstairs.

---

**ROMAN**

He was barely conscious when he heard it.

Heels on wet concrete. Slow, steady, unhurried. The sound cut through the rain and the thunder and the fog in his head like a knife through gauze.

*Click. Click. Click.*

He lifted his head.

Serena stood in front of him.

Black umbrella. White blouse. Dark trousers. Hair pulled back without a single strand out of place. She looked like she'd just stepped out of a board meeting, not into a hurricane.

Her expression was the one he'd come to dread more than anger — blank. Composed. The face of a woman conducting business.

Roman's heart lurched. She came. She actually came down.

"Serena—" His lips were shaking so hard he could barely form the word. "You're here. You came—"

She didn't respond.

She crouched down, slowly, until they were eye to eye. The umbrella tilted toward him for one second — he felt the rain stop hitting his head, felt the brief mercy of dry air — and then she pulled it back.

One second.

That was all he got.

She placed a document on the ground in front of his knees. The plastic cover kept the pages dry. She set it down carefully, precisely, the way you'd place a file on a conference table.

"This is a custody visitation agreement," she said.

Her voice was calm. Quiet. Every syllable perfectly clear despite the storm.

Roman looked down. The words swam, but he could read enough.

*Clause 1: Visitation shall occur once per month, not exceeding two hours per visit.*

*Clause 2: All visits shall take place at a location designated by the mother.*

*Clause 3: The father shall not contact the child independently or disclose his paternal identity.*

*Clause 4: The father shall not interfere with the mother's personal life.*

He couldn't read any further. His hands were shaking too hard.

"This?" His voice broke. "This is all that's left? Between us — this is *it*?"

Serena looked at him.

Rain streaked down her face, but she didn't blink. She didn't flinch. She was so still she could've been carved from stone.

"Roman," she said. "This is the only thing you get. As a biological father. Nothing more."

She stood up.

"Sign it or don't. That's up to you."

She turned and walked back toward the building. The black umbrella moved through the rain like a period at the end of a sentence.

Roman knelt in the water and watched her disappear through the glass doors.

The paramedics arrived ninety seconds later. They found him still kneeling, still holding the document against his chest like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

His temperature was a hundred and three point six.

Pneumonia, the ER doctor said later. Another hour in that rain and his organs would've started shutting down.

Roman didn't hear any of it.

---

He woke up in a hospital bed at noon the next day.

The agreement was on the nightstand. Wrinkled, water-stained, but intact. He'd apparently refused to let go of it, even unconscious.

He read it again. Front to back. Then again. Then again.

Once a month.

Two hours.

He couldn't even tell Nadia he was her father.

He, Roman Cheng, was going to sit across from his own daughter and introduce himself as a stranger. A guy. An *uncle*. And after two hours, he'd leave, and she'd go home and not think about him at all.

A knock at the door broke the loop.

His assistant walked in. Face tight. The expression of a man delivering news he wished he didn't have.

"Sir. The investigation into the second will — we have results."

Roman looked up.

"Lincoln Sun's second will," his assistant said, "wasn't a personal bequest to Ms. Sun."

"It was about Cheng Corp."

The room went very cold.

"Mr. Sun spent decades quietly acquiring shares in Cheng Corporation through a network of holding companies and proxy investors. Combined with the equity Ms. Sun inherited through other parts of the estate—"

He stopped. Swallowed.

"Serena Sun is Cheng Corp's single largest shareholder. Thirty-seven percent."

The agreement slipped from Roman's fingers and landed on the floor.

The room was silent.

Thirty-seven percent.

She didn't just own his heart and his daughter and his regret.

She owned his company.