Semua Bab The Billionaire Who Regretted Letting Me Go : Bab 1 - Bab 10

“Sophia?” The word hit her like a hand closing around her throat. For one heartbeat—two—the ballroom ceased to exist. The string quartet, the heavy crystal chandeliers, the Hamptons housewife waiting for an answer about square footage—all of it faded into a distant blur. There was only his voice, rough and fractured at the edges, saying her name as if he weren't sure he was allowed to breathe it aloud. She forced her lungs to expand. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It was a rhythm she had perfected in a hundred cutthroat boardrooms when a client tried to push her into a corner. Three seconds to anchor her posture. Three seconds to choose between a plastic smile or a sharp exit. She turned to face him fully, her expression a mask of cool professionalism. “Alexander,” she said. Her voice was flat, measured, and empty of the history tearing through her veins. A name, nothing more. It cost her more than she would ever admit to another living soul. ◆ ◆ ◆ Five years of c

Alexander didn’t move.The photograph rested in his palm, its edges slightly bent from the pressure of his grip.Sophia. And the boy.The child’s smile refused to leave his mind, and worse, it refused to feel like a coincidence. His jaw tightened as a cold, unsettling certainty settled under his ribs.“That’s impossible,” he muttered into the empty office.But even as the denial left him, the image remained burned into his mind. The eyes—that was what lingered. They were too familiar, too precise, like looking into a mirror he no longer trusted.He set the photograph down slowly, as though distance alone could correct the rhythm of his chest. It didn’t.◆ ◆ ◆Sophia stood at the front of the glass-walled conference room, her posture flawless and her voice a calm, controlled anchor. Every seat was filled with executives and investors, their collective attention fixed entirely on her. She didn’t shift under the weight of their scrutiny. She commanded it.“This concept isn’t just about l

Sophia didn’t wait for the receptionist to finish her sentence. The moment the line went dead, she was already moving.Her fingers trembled as she snatched her bag from the desk. Her keys slipped once, clattering against the floor, before she scooped them up and bolted. The elevator ride down from the executive suite of Knight Holdings felt agonizingly slow—each floor dragging as if the building itself were trying to delay her.Her mind raced, trapped in a loop of panic.Incident. That was the only word the school administrator had used. No context. No reassurance. Just that single, hollow word echoing like a death knell in her chest.By the time she burst through the glass lobby doors and onto the street, her pulse was entirely out of control. Striding to the curb, she flagged down a passing taxi and threw herself into the backseat before the vehicle had even come to a complete halt.“St. Jude’s Academy. Now,” she told the driver, her voice sharper and more desperate than she intende

Alexander Knight did not usually attend charity events. He donated to them, approved their budgets, and signed off on foundations or expansions, but he rarely showed up in person.Yet here he was.Standing in the landscaped courtyard of St. Jude’s Academy, he watched a neatly organized cluster of children rehearse for a fundraising program he had only half-agreed to sponsor. He told himself it was obligation, public image, and brand alignment—all the usual corporate excuses. But none of them explained why his attention refused to stay on the stage.Something about the atmosphere felt off. Not wrong, exactly, but unfamiliar in a way that made him hyper-alert.Alexander adjusted his cufflink and scanned the crowd, his expression controlled as always.“Mr. Knight,” the school director said beside him, practically glowing with gratitude. “We’re honored you accepted our invitation. The children have been looking forward to meeting you.”“Of course,” Alexander replied evenly.Looking forwar

Alexander Knight didn’t sleep.It wasn’t unusual for him to work late, but it was rare for his mind to remain completely trapped by a puzzle long after the files were closed.The image kept returning. Not a contract, not a hostile negotiation, but a child.Ethan Hart.Alexander stood at his floor-to-ceiling office window, the Manhattan skyline stretching beneath him in fractured lines of neon light. Below, the traffic moved like a distant, irrelevant current. Millions of people lived their lives completely unaware of how sharply a single, unexpected moment could shatter an ordered world.He exhaled slowly, adjusting his cufflink out of habit.The encounter should not have stayed with him. That was the only rational conclusion. Yet it lingered.The boy’s flat, deliberate voice surfaced in his mind again, uninvited: “I observe.”Alexander’s jaw tightened. It wasn’t fear that unsettled him, nor was it simple curiosity anymore. It was the frustrating reality that he could not categorize w