Chapter 5
Just last month, it passed the client's initial review.
The client said, "This is the best proposal we've seen all year."
Five months of hard work.
All because I brought my kid to work today.
All because they said I was "unstable."
And just like that, all my hard work was passed off to someone else.
I flipped my phone over, screen down, onto the table.
Charles rolled over in his hospital bed, and the IV tube swayed.
I reached out to steady it.
Then I picked up my phone and texted Victoria back.
[I'm not sending over the Riverside files. That project is my work.]
Then I sent another text.
[If Maisie wants it, she can make her own.]
Five minutes later, Victoria replied.
[Sophia, you'd better think this through. In your current position, it's not smart to piss anyone else off.]
I didn't reply.
My phone buzzed again.
It was an unknown number.
I answered.
"Hi Sophia, this is Chloe Johnson, Ethan's assistant."
"What do you want?" I asked.
"Ethan asked me to tell you something..."
"So he's alive?"
Silence stretched across the line.
"Sophia, Ethan hasn't disappeared. He's just been extremely busy lately. He wanted me to let you know he knows about the kid, and he'll make arrangements."
"He asked you to call me?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't he call me himself?"
There was another pause.
"He's not free right now."
I gripped my phone so tight my knuckles went white.
Too busy.
Forty days without answering a single call, his son had a 104-degree fever. And he was "too busy."
His wife gets publicly humiliated at his company, and he's still "too busy."
He can't even bother to call himself, and just sends his assistant to say, "He'll make arrangements."
"Please tell Ethan Miller," I said, making sure every word was clear.
"I don't need any arrangements."
"I need him, in person, at the hospital."
"Before today is over."
I hung up.
Charles's IV was slowly dripping.
It was already dark outside.
Ethan didn't come.
By ten o'clock, Charles's fever had dropped to 100.4°F. He was a bit more awake, curled up in my arms, wanting some water.
I fed him half a cup of warm water. When he finished, he looked up at me.
"Mommy, where's Daddy?"
I froze.
Charles hardly ever asked about his dad.
To him, "Dad" was almost like a stranger, just a word, not a real person.
"Daddy's away on business," I told him.
I gave him the same answer as always.
Charles didn't say anything else.
He leaned into me and whispered, "Mommy, every other kid at preschool gets picked up by their dad.
"Except me."
I held him, staying silent.
I heard footsteps in the hallway.
They weren't the soft-soled shoes of a nurse. These were leather shoes.
For a second, I thought it was Ethan.
The door opened.
But it wasn't him.
It was a woman.
She looked about twenty-six or twenty-seven, tall and statuesque in a beige coat. In her hand was a gift bag stuffed with a few boxes of imported snacks and a plush toy.
She stood in the doorway, glanced at Charles in the hospital bed, and then looked at me.
She smiled.
"You must be Sophia Lane, right?"
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Josie Stone," she said as she walked in, setting the gift bag on the nightstand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Ethan asked me to come check on your child. He couldn't get away tonight."
He sent her instead.
He didn't come himself.
He didn't bother coming himself, and just sent this woman in his place.
I didn't move from my spot by the bed.
"He sent you?" I asked, my voice flat.
"Yep," she said easily, grabbing a chair and sitting down, her gaze landing on Charles. "He's adorable. Looks just like Ethan."
The way she said "Ethan" rolled off her tongue—way too natural, way too familiar.
No business partner would ever call him that.
I looked at her.
"So, what exactly are you to him?" I asked.
Josie tilted her head.
"Didn't he tell you?"
She smiled, calm and deliberate.
"We were college classmates, and... Let's just say we're more than casual friends."
She said "casual friends" so quietly, like she wanted me to hear every word.
It was so intentional, I couldn't miss it.
I stood up.
"Take your gift back," I said.
"My son's illness isn't your concern."
Josie looked a bit surprised, and then smiled again.