CHAPTER 4

Ethan Blackwood tightened his grip on his daughter’s tiny hand, his jaw set in a firm, unyielding line. "We need to leave, Lily. The car is waiting at the front entrance, and Daddy has a conference call with the London acquisition team in twenty minutes."

Lily immediately dissolved into a display of dramatic toddler tragedy. She dropped her small body flat onto the wooden planks of the pier, her lower lip trembling violently as fat tears welled in her dark eyes. She wrapped her chubby arms around Emma’s legs, clinging to her like a barnacle to a ship's hull. "No! No car! Emma play! Want Emma!"

Ethan closed his eyes for a brief second and took a slow breath. He looked down at his daughter, completely at a loss. In the corporate office, non-compliance was met with a swift legal brief or a restructuring memo. Here, his opponent was a two-year-old in light-up sneakers who possessed a veto power he couldn't break.

Amelia watched the display, her anger at the billionaire CEO slowly giving way to reluctant sympathy. Beneath the expensive suit and icy corporate exterior, Ethan looked exhausted. It was a very specific flavor of exhaustion that Amelia recognized instantly—the raw, isolating burnout of trying to survive a toddler's emotional hurricane entirely on your own.

She'd felt it countless times since becoming Emma's mother—the nights without enough sleep, the endless decisions, the constant fear of getting something wrong.

"Look,” Amelia sighed, her stubborn posture softening despite herself. “They're not going to let this go without a fight. The covered patio is empty. I need to check the afternoon inventory anyway. Give them twenty minutes."

She gave him a pointed look. “You can even make whatever world-altering phone calls your empire requires.”

Ethan hesitated, his analytical mind visibly weighing the disruption to his schedule against the threat of a full-scale public tantrum. Finally, he offered a single, stiff nod. "Fine. Twenty minutes. But not a second longer, Lily."

The patio was cool, shaded by a thick canopy of green vines that filtered the bright afternoon sunlight. Amelia returned from the kitchen carrying a small wooden tray, setting it down on a low table. She slid a small, spill-proof cup of organic apple juice toward Lily. The toddler took it with a final, hitching sniffle, her tear-stained face instantly brightening as Emma slid into the seat next to her.

Ethan watched the exchange from his seat across the table, his arms folded, his eyes narrowed in deep calculation. "She doesn't usually take things from strangers,” he said, watching Lily drink. “Her nanny has been trying to get her to use that cup for over a month. She usually throws it at the wall.”

"It's not a secret corporate formula, Mr. Blackwood," Amelia said, pouring a cup of water for herself and leaning back against the rustic wooden chair. "You just have to ask her if she wants to do it herself, not tell her what to do. Toddlers have very big opinions and absolutely zero control over their lives. The moment you order them around, they fight back."

She paused, looking at him over the rim of her glass, letting her curiosity override her defenses for just a moment. "You're raising her completely alone?"

Ethan’s jaw tightened, a shadow passing over his sharp features as his gaze shifted out toward the glassy surface of the lake. "Yes. It's been just Lily and me for a little over a year now."

He didn't elaborate. His tone was clipped, precise, and final, making it glaringly obvious that whatever had happened to Lily's mother was locked behind a reinforced door that no stranger was permitted to open.

"And you?” Ethan turned the question back on her. His eyes briefly settled on the fraying collar of her blazer. “You're running Willow Springs alone? No business partners?”

"I inherited it two years ago when my mother passed away," Amelia said, her voice dropping into a softer, more reverent cadence. Her eyes drifted to the hand-carved wooden pillars of the patio. "She spent her entire life building this place. She wanted it to be a true sanctuary where people could leave the noise of the world behind and actually heal. I’m not letting a multi-billion-dollar corporation turn her life's work into another polished corporate wellness property who think wellness is just a quarterly marketing buzzword to look good on an investor report."

Ethan looked away, watching the two girls as they happily shared a box of crayons, their heads knocked together in deep preschool concentration. "Business isn't personal, Ms. Carter. It's structural. Sentimentality doesn't pay the utility bills or fix a failing roof. If you want to keep Willow Springs, you need to find a way to make the numbers work.”

"Everything worth doing in this life is personal, Mr. Blackwood. If you don't put your soul into what you build, you're just assembling a cage."

Suddenly, the phone in Ethan's hand vibrated. He groaned under his breath, looking at the glowing screen.

"London," he muttered, stepping away toward the edge of the patio, his voice instantly dropping back into that sharp, commanding executive tone as he began detailing a logistics problem across the Atlantic.

While his back was turned, the real trouble began. Emma leaned toward Lily and whispered something into her ear. Lily nodded enthusiastically, apparently willing to agree to anything her new friend suggested. Emma stood up, trotted into the kitchen, and returned a moment later carrying a small ceramic plate containing four pieces of the resort’s signature honey-lavender shortbread. She placed it dead center in the middle of the table, exactly between her mother’s chair and Ethan’s empty seat.

When Ethan returned five minutes later, rubbing the back of his neck, the corporate stress practically radiating off his shoulders, he stopped short.

"You have to sit back down, grumpy mister," Emma commanded, using her small hand to push against the fabric of his trousers near his knee. "Mommy made these biscuits fresh this morning. She says honey makes the mad feelings go away."

Ethan looked down at the tiny girl, completely derailed by her blunt directive. Nobody ordered him around—least of all a three-year-old wearing a dinosaur t-shirt with a juice stain on the front. Yet, unexpectedly, he pulled his trousers up slightly and sank back into the low wooden chair.

"Twenty minutes isn't up yet anyway," he murmured, his eyes tracking the delicate crumb of the shortbread. He picked up a piece, eyeing it suspiciously before taking a small bite.

He paused. It was, infuriatingly, the best thing he had ever tasted.

"Do you like Mommy's biscuits, mister?" Emma asked, leaning her chin flat on the table, her bright eyes wide with innocent mischief. "Do you think my mommy is pretty? Lily thinks she’s really pretty. I think she’s pretty too."

Ethan nearly choked on the piece of shortbread, his face turning an incredibly rare shade of dark crimson. He coughed violently, clearing his throat and grabbing his water glass while Amelia’s eyes widened in shock.

"Emma Rachel Carter!" Amelia gasped, her own cheeks instantly burning a fiery red as she practically suffocated on her own breath. "We do not ask guests things like that!"

Instead of getting angry, Amelia looked at Ethan’s shattered, utterly flustered expression—the great, untouchable CEO of Blackwood Enterprises broken by a preschooler’s breakfast interrogation—and a sudden, genuine laugh escaped her lips.

Her laughter was bright and unrestrained, cutting through the tension that had hung between them all afternoon.

Ethan stopped coughing. He lowered the glass, his dark eyes locking onto her. He looked at her for a moment longer than necessary. He noticed things he'd deliberately ignored—the warmth in her eyes, the way her curls fell around her face, and the rare softness in her expression.

As Amelia quickly stood up, her face still flushed, to take the empty juice cups back inside to escape the embarrassment, Ethan caught himself staring at the retreat of her silhouette. A cold, sudden warning bell went off in his sharp corporate mind, echoing with dangerous clarity.

This woman was going to complicate everything.