Chapter 3 : My Daughter ?

At that exact moment, the office door burst open with a loud BANG that made both of them jump, shattering the tense, intimate silence.

Sophia gasped and jumped back from Ethan like she had been burned, her heart in her throat.

"Mr. Blackwood! I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry!" Mrs. Jenkins from the daycare downstairs stood panting at the door, her face red as a tomato, holding a crying, wiggling Lily who had snot and tears all over her little face, her pink backpack dragging on the floor. The old woman looked like she had run a marathon up fifty floors. "She slipped away from me! I turned for one second to sign the register and she said she knew her mommy was here and she just ran into the elevator before I could stop her! These modern elevators are too fast! I'm so sorry, Mr. Blackwood! I'll take her out right now!"

Lily's eyes, full of big fat tears that made her blue eyes even bigger, found Sophia first, then landed on Ethan.

And Ethan's entire body went rigid. Like someone had shot him straight through his heart with a bullet.

He stared at the little girl in the cream sweater with the little bunny on it, with blonde curls bouncing everywhere, a tiny button nose red from crying, and the exact same piercing ice-blue eyes as his own. Not similar. EXACT. The same shape, the same stormy blue color, the same long eyelashes, the same little crease between her eyebrows when she was upset that he saw in the mirror every morning when he shaved.

His brain, the billionaire brain that could calculate million-dollar deals in seconds, stopped working completely.

The silence in the office was deafening. You could hear a pin drop on the thick carpet. You could hear Sophia's heart hammering like a drum.

Mrs. Jenkins felt the strange tension and started backing away slowly towards the door, sensing she had interrupted something huge. "I... I will just... I will be downstairs..."

"Leave her," Ethan commanded, his voice hoarse, not loud but with such authority that Mrs. Jenkins froze and then scurried out, closing the door softly behind her. CLICK.

Now it was just the three of them.

Slowly, as if in a dream, as if his legs were not his own, Ethan crouched down to Lily's level, his cold, billionaire CEO mask shattering completely into a thousand pieces on his expensive floor. His large, expensive hand with the $50,000 watch trembled slightly as he reached out but didn't touch her.

"What's your name, little one?" he whispered, his voice broken, completely unlike the cruel, cold man from a second ago. His voice was shaking. Ethan Blackwood never shook.

Lily sniffled loudly, wiping her nose with her sleeve the way Sophia always told her not to, and stared at the giant handsome man in the scary suit. She wasn't scared though. She felt safe somehow.

"Lily," she whispered in her tiny voice. "Lily Miller. Are you the prince? Mommy said prince lives here. You look like prince but you are sad."

Ethan closed his eyes for a second, as if in physical pain, as if someone had stabbed him. Lily Miller. Miller. Sophia Miller.

When he opened them, they were filled with a storm of emotions so powerful it made Sophia take a step back in fear - shock, disbelief, raw pain, guilt, and a fierce, primal, possessive rage that was terrifying and beautiful at the same time.

He stood up slowly, very slowly, his 6'3 frame unfolding like a predator rising. He looked at Lily for one more long second, memorizing every inch of her face, then he looked up at Sophia.

And in that moment, recognition hit him like a freight train going 200 miles per hour. Like lightning struck him.

The girl from the dorm room. The girl with the laugh like sunshine who made his dark world bright. Sophia. His Sophia. The only woman he ever loved, the woman whose virginity he took so tenderly under fairy lights, the woman he cried for every night for a year after he was forced to leave. The woman his mother told him was a gold-digger who would ruin him.

His Sophia was standing in his office in a cheap blazer, looking terrified, looking like she had been through hell. And she had his child.

His child. His daughter. Four years old. Blonde curls. Blue eyes. Which meant... she got pregnant right after he left. That night. That rainy night.

His eyes turned dark, dangerous, possessive, his jaw clenching so tight a muscle ticked violently, as they locked onto Sophia with an intensity that made her legs give way and she had to hold the chair.

"You," he said, standing up fully and taking a step toward her, then another, backing her against the cold glass window. His voice was low and lethal, a whisper that was more terrifying than a shout. He trapped her with his arms on either side of her head. "You kept my child from me? My daughter? For FOUR YEARS? You let me believe... You let me..."

"I... I..." Sophia couldn't breathe. He was so close, his cologne overwhelming her, his blue eyes burning into hers. Lily was watching them with big confused eyes.

"Mommy? Why is prince angry?" Lily asked in a small voice, tugging Sophia's skirt.

Ethan's gaze snapped down to Lily, and instantly his face softened, the rage melting into something heartbreakingly tender. He crouched down again and this time, gently, so gently, wiped Lily's tears with his thumb.

"I'm not angry at you, princess," he whispered to Lily, his voice full of tears he would never shed. "Never at you. You are... you are so beautiful. Just like your Mommy."

He looked up at Sophia, and tears were actually shining in his cruel blue eyes now. "How could you? Sophia, how could you keep her from me? I have a daughter. I HAVE A DAUGHTER and no one told me."

Sophia finally found her voice, tears streaming down her own face now. "You left me! You blocked me! You disappeared! I tried to find you! I went to your dorm! They said you were an heir, you went back to your real life! What was I supposed to do?"

Ethan stood up, his hand running through his perfect hair, messing it up, showing the first crack in his perfect armor in five years. He laughed, but it was a broken, painful laugh.

"My real life? My real life was you! My mother... my mother told me if I didn't leave you, she would destroy you! She said you were after my money! She took my phone! She..."

He stopped, looking at Lily again, at Sophia, at the little family he never knew he had, standing in his cold, empty office that had never felt less like home and more like a prison.

"What's her birthday?" he asked suddenly, his voice rough.

"March... March 15th. She just turned four last month," Sophia whispered.

Ethan did the math in his head instantly. March 15th. Four years old. Five years ago...

He closed his eyes. "Our night. The night before I left. That was..."

Sophia nodded, crying silently.

Ethan opened his eyes, and they were no longer cold. They were blazing with a fierce, possessive love and determination that made Sophia shiver.

"You're not leaving this building," he said, his voice low, final, like a king giving a decree that could not be disobeyed. "Neither of you. Ever again. You're mine. Both of you are mine now."