Chapter 4 : Mine

"You're mine. Both of you are mine now."

Sophia's heart stopped. Her knees almost gave way as Ethan's arms caged her against the glass window fifty floors high, his blue eyes burning into hers with a possessiveness that made her entire body tremble. She had dreamed of this man for five years, hated him, loved him, cried for him, but she had never seen him look like this - like a man who had just found water after being lost in a desert for five years, like a man who was terrified that if he blinked, they would disappear again.

"I'm not yours, Ethan," she whispered, but her voice betrayed her, shaking, weak, breathless. "You lost that right five years ago when you left me alone, pregnant and crying on a bathroom floor."

"I never left you," he growled, his voice low and rough, his forehead almost touching hers. His cologne, his heat, his huge body so close after five years - it was too much. She could feel his heart beating wildly against her chest. "My mother forced me on that plane. She took my phone, she had my old number changed, she told me you took fifty thousand dollars from her to abort my child and disappear. She told me you said I was a mistake! I believed her! I hated you for three years until I realized... until I realized you would never do that. My Sophia would never do that."

Sophia stared at him, tears blurring her vision. Fifty thousand dollars? Abortion? His mother? The pieces suddenly clicked into place like a horrible puzzle. The cold woman who had called her once from a blocked number. "Is this Sophia? This is Margaret Blackwood. My son is heir to forty billion dollars. Girls like you come and go. Take this money and disappear, or I will make sure you never graduate."

She had hung up. She thought it was a prank.

"You... your mother called me," Sophia whispered, the memory flooding back like poison. "She offered me money... I thought it was a joke... I didn't take anything, Ethan! I swear on Lily's life, I didn't take a dime! I waited for you! I waited at that bus stop for three hours in the rain!"

Ethan's face twisted with pure, murderous rage, but not at her. At his mother. His fist slammed against the glass window beside her head, making her flinch, but the glass didn't break - nothing in his world ever broke except his own heart. "I WILL KILL HER," he whispered, his voice shaking with fury so deep it scared even him. "I swear to God, Sophia, I will make her pay for every tear you shed."

"Mommy? Prince is shouting," Lily's tiny voice cut through their intense moment. She was standing there, hugging her pink backpack, looking up at them with big worried blue eyes, the same eyes as Ethan's.

Instantly, like magic, Ethan's rage vanished. He dropped to his knees again, right there on the expensive carpet that cost more than Sophia's rent for a year, and opened his arms wide.

"I'm sorry, princess. I wasn't shouting at Mommy. I was... I was just happy. So happy to meet you," he said, his voice now soft as silk, tears finally escaping down his handsome, cold face - tears he hadn't shed since his father died five years ago.

Lily hesitated, looking at Sophia for permission. Sophia, crying too, nodded slightly.

Lily slowly walked into the arms of the billionaire who was her father. Ethan picked her up as if she weighed nothing, as if she was the most precious, fragile diamond in the world, holding her against his chest, his big hand cradling her tiny head with blonde curls. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled, his shoulders shaking.

Sophia watched, her hand over her mouth, tears pouring, as the coldest man in Manhattan, the Ice King who fired people for smiling wrong, broke down holding his four-year-old daughter for the first time.

"She smells like you," he whispered to Sophia over Lily's head, his voice broken. "Strawberries. You always smelled like strawberries."

For the first time in five years, Sophia let herself cry freely in front of him.

After a long minute, Ethan stood, carrying Lily in one arm like she belonged there - and God, she did belong there, she looked perfect in his arms - and with his other hand, he grabbed Sophia's hand firmly, intertwining their fingers like he used to in college.

"We're leaving," he announced.

"What? My interview—" Sophia stammered, confused.

"Fuck the interview," he said, making Lily giggle at the bad word. "Sorry, princess. You're not my assistant. You're my... you're the mother of my child. You're everything. You're hired as my fiancée. Let's go."

He didn't wait for an answer. He kicked open his office door, carrying Lily and dragging Sophia behind him, and marched straight into the main office floor where fifty employees in expensive suits were working.

The entire fiftieth floor went dead silent. You could hear a pin drop. Tiffany the receptionist dropped her coffee, spilling it all over her designer dress, her mouth open wide like a fish.

Everyone stared at their Ice King boss, who never touched anyone, who never smiled, who never brought anyone personal to the office, carrying a little blonde girl who looked exactly like him, holding hands with a girl in a cheap blazer.

"Everyone, listen up!" Ethan's voice boomed across the silent floor, deep and commanding, the voice of a billionaire king used to being obeyed without question. "This is Lily Blackwood. My daughter. My blood. If anyone looks at her wrong, touches her wrong, speaks to her wrong, you will not only be fired, you will be blacklisted from every company in New York. Do you understand me?"

Fifty heads nodded frantically, eyes wide with shock and gossip.

"And this," he pulled Sophia closer, wrapping his arm around her waist possessively, his hand on her hip, "is Sophia Miller. My future wife. The mother of my child. My queen. Anyone who disrespects her, disrespects me. Tiffany, you can pack your things. You're fired for how you spoke to my queen earlier."

Tiffany went white. "Mr. Blackwood, I— I didn't know—"

"GET OUT," he roared, making Lily jump slightly and hide her face in his neck. He instantly softened, patting her back. "Sorry, princess. Let's go home, okay? Daddy wants to take you to get the biggest ice cream castle in the world."

Sophia's head was spinning. Future wife? Home? Daddy? This was too fast, too much, too crazy. "Ethan, we can't— we have a studio— we can't just—"

"Your studio is gone," he said simply, walking into the elevator with them, pressing the private button to his penthouse on the top floor that no employee had ever seen. "You live with me now. On the 51st floor. That's an order, Miss Miller. Or should I say, Mrs. Blackwood-to-be?"

The elevator doors closed on the shocked faces of the entire office, leaving a building full of whispers and a legend that would be told for years - the day the Ice King melted for his little princess with blue eyes.

Inside the elevator, Lily looked up at Ethan and whispered with a tiny, shy smile, "Are you really my Daddy?"

Ethan looked down at her, his cold blue eyes full of a love so fierce it could burn the world down, and whispered back, "I've been your Daddy since before you were born, princess. I just didn't know where you were. But I'm never letting you go again. Never."