Hadley’s POV
When Rowan finished briefing us on his business trip, Evangeline and I retreated to our shared workspace to tackle the remaining items on a list that seemed to reproduce when I wasn’t looking.
The afternoon evaporated in a blur of contracts, call sheets, and filing protocols that were beginning to feel less like a foreign language and more like a dialect I was starting to think in.
As we gathered our things, Rowan’s office door opened in sync with Dorian materializing in our doorway—a coordinated ambush I should have seen coming.
“Quitting time for my two favorite women!” Dorian announced, flashing his trademark grin.
“Rowan and I have reservations at Giorgio’s tonight, and I categorically refuse to dine without the most stunning company this building has to offer.”
My pulse jumped.
Giorgio’s—the upscale Italian establishment Cora and I had been obsessing over since we’d heard about their handmade gnocchi and private wine selection.
But tonight wasn’t available.
“Such a generous offer, Dorian, but we’ve already committed to other plans this evening.
Perhaps later in the week?” Evangeline deflected smoothly, reminding me with a glance that we’d planned dinner at my apartment.
I seconded with a polite smile, but something in Rowan’s demeanor shifted.
His jaw tightened.
A darkness gathered behind his eyes—storm clouds rolling across a sky that had been clear moments ago.
“Surely you could rearrange your plans to accommodate your employer?
I find it rather unprofessional to dismiss a dinner invitation so casually.”
The petulance in his tone was barely masked, and something about it—the irrationality, the thinly veiled possessiveness—made me stare.
This wasn’t a CEO issuing a directive.
This was a man who’d just learned his new fixation had somewhere better to be.
“Rowan, stop being a child.” Evangeline’s patience was impressive.
“The real discourtesy would be expecting us to abandon our commitments with zero notice.
Tomorrow works perfectly.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed.
“We’d be delighted to join you tomorrow.
Though if this is truly urgent business—”
“Forget it.” His voice went flat, the warmth from the afternoon evaporating.
“I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing your precious companions.” The emphasis landed like a slap.
“Enjoy your evening.
Be punctual tomorrow morning, Miss Vane.”
He stormed past us—footsteps sharp enough to crack marble—and jabbed the elevator button with a force the machinery didn’t deserve. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“We’re leaving!” he snapped at Dorian, who shrugged philosophically and followed.
I stood in the aftermath, bewildered.
Evangeline seemed entertained.
“Was that…
jealousy?” I ventured.
“Welcome to working for Rowan Sinclair.” She patted my arm.
“Shall we?”
My apartment was warm and fragrant when we arrived—Cora had conjured a spread of homemade Italian that would have embarrassed most restaurants: linguine with clam sauce, garlic bread with real butter, a caprese salad arranged with the precision of someone who’d watched too many cooking competitions.
Leon was on the living room floor constructing an architectural marvel with his blocks, but the moment he heard my voice, the tower was abandoned mid-arch.
“Mama!” He launched himself at me with the full-body velocity of a child who hadn’t learned that physics applied to him.
“Leon, I want you to meet my friend Evangeline from work.” I hoisted him onto my hip, and the moment Evangeline got a clear view of his face, her expression transformed.
She went still.
Her eyes widened—not with polite admiration but with recognition, sharp and unmistakable, as if she’d seen something in his features that confirmed a suspicion she hadn’t voiced.
“Hadley, your little boy is absolutely gorgeous.” Her voice was carefully steady, but I could hear the undertow.
“You weren’t exaggerating about those eyes.
They’re identical to Rowan’s shade.”
I watched her watching Leon, and a chill feathered down my spine.
The resemblance I’d been trying to file under coincidence suddenly felt less comfortable in that drawer.
The evening unfolded with a warmth that surprised me.
Evangeline and Cora connected instantly—Cora’s irreverent energy meeting Evangeline’s maternal grace in a chemistry that produced laughter in industrial quantities.
Leon was immediately smitten with his new “auntie,” dragging Evangeline around the apartment on an exhaustive tour of his toy collection, insisting she participate in a block tower that required her full architectural attention.
After Leon was settled in his room with his favorite stuffed elephant—his eyelids already heavy, his small fist curled around the ear—we reconvened in the living room with wine and the particular intimacy that only emerges when women decide to be honest with each other.
Then Evangeline’s tone shifted.
“What’s Leon’s father’s name?”
The heat started at my collarbone and climbed.
The truth—the bizarre, humiliating, impossible truth—had never gotten easier to tell.
“This is going to sound insane.” I took a breath.
“I have absolutely no idea.”
Her eyebrows rose, but she waited.
“I’d been drinking—not an excuse, just context.
He asked me to dance, and the conversation was so effortless that neither of us bothered with introductions.
It was a masquerade.
I never saw his full face.
Just those eyes—violet-blue, impossible, the kind of color you’d think someone invented—and a smile that made rational thought feel optional.”
“You’re not serious.” But her expression said she already believed me.
“A masked stranger.
This is like something from a novel.”
“It felt like one,” I admitted.
“For one night.”
“And you never found him?”
“I didn’t try.” The confession cost me more than I expected.
“By the time I knew about Leon, the night already felt like a dream.
I had no name, no face, nothing to search for except a pair of eyes and a voice I couldn’t forget.” I paused.
“And then I walked into my new boss’s office this morning, and those same eyes were looking back at me.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Evangeline set down her wine glass with exaggerated care.
Cora’s mouth had fallen open.
I waited, heart hammering, for someone to tell me I was insane.
“Hadley.” Evangeline’s voice was very quiet.
“Do you know what event you attended that night?”
“The Sinclair Masquerade Ball.”
“The Sinclair Ball.” She repeated it slowly, and the look on her face told me she was recalculating everything she thought she knew.
“Three years ago.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, something had solidified behind her expression—a decision, or the edge of one.
“There’s something you need to know about Rowan.”