Semua Bab The Billionaire Who Regretted Letting Me Go : Bab 41 - Bab 50

Alexander had faced down boardrooms full of men who wanted him ruined. He had negotiated deals worth more than some countries’ GDP without breaking a sweat.None of it prepared him for a five-year-old’s shoelaces.“You’re doing it wrong.” Ethan crouched on the hallway floor, watching with the particular judgment only small children could muster. “Mommy does the bunny ears.”“The bunny ears.” Alexander turned the lace over in his hands like a foreign object that should have come with a manual. “Right. Show me.”Ethan sighed—an exaggerated, put-upon sound he had clearly learned from someone—and knelt to do it himself, his small fingers quick and sure where Alexander’s had fumbled.“See? Easy.”“Easy,” Alexander repeated, and something in his chest twisted, sharp and unexpected.Because it hadn’t been easy.Too many mornings like this had passed without him while he was in some glass tower three time zones away, signing documents that felt urgent then and now felt like nothing at all.Fr

The law offices of Reyes & Carmichael possessed the kind of hushed, expensive quiet that usually made Alexander feel powerful. Today, it just felt like a countdown.“The hearing is in nine days.” Marcus slid a folder across the conference table, his expression carefully neutral. “The judge assigned is Judge Eleanor Whitfield. She’s thorough, she’s skeptical of money solving problems, and she won’t be impressed by your net worth. If anything, she’ll hold it against you.”“Good,” Alexander said, and meant it. “I don’t want to win this with money. I want to win it by being his father.”Marcus’s eyebrows lifted slightly, as if he hadn’t expected that answer from a man whose name was on three buildings downtown. “Then you’d better start acting like one before the hearing, not during it. Whitfield will have an evaluator in the home. Unannounced visits, interviews—the works. She’ll know in four seconds if you’re performing for an audience.”“I’m not performing.” Alexander’s voice was quiet,

He was already seated when Alexander walked in—one ankle crossed over his knee, looking as if he had arrived early specifically to claim the advantage of being comfortable. Adrian Blackwell did not rise to shake hands. He simply looked up, letting a slow, assessing smile spread across his face—the kind of smile that had undoubtedly unsettled a hundred negotiating tables before this one.“Mr. Cole.” His voice was smooth, faintly amused. “I expected you to send a lawyer. I’m almost flattered you came yourself.”“Where is Halloway?” Alexander did not sit. He stood at the head of the conference table with his arms crossed, radiating a tense stillness. It was the stillness of a man who had already decided how this encounter would end and was simply waiting for the other person to catch up.“Marcus is occupied elsewhere. I’m handling this matter personally.” Adrian’s smile did not waver. “Think of me as a consolidation of interests. Marcus had the grudge. I have the resources to make it int

Alexander didn't sleep. He sat at his kitchen table until two in the morning with Adrian's message glowing on his phone, reading it until the words stopped making sense. Ask her what the doctors told her. Ask her what she's never told you. By the time the sun came up, he had imagined a dozen worst-case scenarios, none of which he had any right to believe, yet all of which he couldn't stop turning over.Around four, he caught himself rehearsing what he would say to her, the way he used to practice for hostile takeovers. He hated that the comparison even occurred to him. Before any of this, he had never rehearsed a conversation with Sophia; he had just talked to her. Lying there in the dark, he missed that version of them with an ache that resembled grief—grief for an ease he hadn't known to value until it was gone.He showed up at her door at eight, earlier than he had ever come uninvited. She opened it already half-braced, as if she had felt the question coming before he even asked it

Sophia didn't answer Adrian right away. She sat with the phone pressed to her ear, his offer hanging in the living room like smoke. Alexander’s hand tightened around hers—silent, steady, braced for whatever she might say next."I need to think," she told Adrian, and hung up before he could fill the silence.The apartment felt abruptly hollow. Alexander watched her lower the phone onto the coffee table. She was moving with extreme caution, as if one wrong gesture might undo the fragile composure keeping her upright."You're not actually considering it," he said. He hated how much it sounded like a question when he wanted it to be a certainty."I'm considering everything, Alexander. That's what being responsible for a child means." Sophia pressed her palms against her eyes, exhaustion bleeding into her posture. "He's offering an end to this. No hearing, no investigators, no Halloway, no more sleepless nights wondering if a judge will decide I'm unfit. You don't know what it's like to ca