Dayton's POV
The air in the hotel lobby was cool and smelled like expensive flowers. I was scanning the room, my mind already on the tedious summit ahead, when my eyes just… stuck. On her.
Grace.
It was like the rest of the world blurred out. She was standing by a giant marble pillar, her focus entirely on a tablet in her hands. Her hair was pulled back, sharper than she used to wear it, and it showed off the line of her neck. She was all business in a black skirt and a simple blouse, but my stupid heart started hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Five years. It had been five whole years, and all that time just crumpled up and blew away in that single second.
We had a bond once. A real, pull-you-across-a-city kind of bond. I was the one who cut it, the day I walked away. The doctors said it was a clean severance. So why did my chest feel tight and hollow, like someone had reached in and scooped out a part of me that never grew back?
I didn't decide to move. My feet just started walking, carrying me across the polished floor until I was standing right in front of her.
"Grace."
Her head came up. Her eyes, the same clear, honest eyes I remembered, met mine. There was no shock. No anger. Nothing. It was the emptiest look I'd ever gotten from anyone.
"Mr. Knight," she said. Her voice was flat. Professional. It was the tone you'd use with a stranger who'd asked for directions. "Is your suite acceptable?"
I tried to push a feeling down the ghost of our bond. It was a stupid, hopeless habit. I just sent out a silent, desperate I'm sorry. All that came back was a chilling silence. The connection was truly, completely dead.
"I... I had no idea you worked here," I stumbled. The words felt clumsy in my mouth.
A tiny, almost invisible smile touched her lips. It didn't warm her eyes at all. "I don't just work here. I run the place." And with that, she turned, her heels making a clean, sharp sound on the marble as she walked away. She didn't look back.
That whole first night of the summit was the strangest game I've ever played. It was like we were two magnets, sometimes pulling, sometimes pushing.
I'd walk into a room full of laughing, drinking people, and my eyes would find her instantly. She'd be talking to a group of older men in suits, smiling politely. The moment my gaze landed on her, it was like she felt it. She'd finish her sentence, give a slight nod, and just… disappear into the crowd. I'd go to the main bar, craving a whiskey, and I'd see her through the giant windows, standing alone on the terrace, looking out at the city lights. When I moved to join her, she'd slip back inside.
It wasn't a chase. It was a test. I was testing to see if I could find a crack, a single glimpse of the girl who used to laugh so easily. She was testing her own willpower, seeing how close she could let me get without acknowledging I existed. And she was winning. She was so good at it.
And God, she looked… incredible. Not just beautiful. She carried herself with a calm authority I'd never seen before. She'd give a quiet instruction to a staff member, and they'd jump to do it. She shook hands with people whose names were in the newspapers, and she looked like she belonged there more than they did. There was no trace of the fear I used to see in her sometimes. No hesitation. She had built a life, a good one, a strong one, entirely without me. The thought was a physical ache, a dull throb right under my breastbone.
It was almost midnight when I finally got her alone. I saw her slip through a door marked 'Private.' My heart did a stupid little flip. I counted to ten, then followed.
The service corridor was a shock after the opulence of the party. It was narrow, lit by harsh, buzzing fluorescent lights. The air smelled like cleaning supplies. The noise from the gala was just a distant murmur.
"Grace. Wait."
She stopped walking. Her back was to me, straight and unyielding. She didn't turn around. "I have nothing to say to you, Dayton."
The sound of my name on her lips, after all this time, was like a punch. "I looked for you," I blurted out. The confession felt ripped from me. "After you left the Hendersons'. I drove all over the city for weeks. I called everyone I could think of."
That made her turn. Her calm mask was gone, replaced by a flash of pure, hot anger. "Don't," she snapped. "Don't you dare stand here now and pretend you gave a damn."
"I did give a damn—" I started, but her laugh cut me off. It was a short, harsh sound.
"You told me I was a complication. You said you couldn't afford any distractions. You threw me out of your life before the sun was even up that morning. You lost the right to care a long time ago."
I swallowed, my throat dry. "I never married Lilian."
One of her eyebrows arched. It was a gesture of pure, cold dismissal. "How tragic for you."
"I caught her," I pushed on, the need for her to understand this one thing overwhelming everything else. "Two weeks before the wedding. In my own bed. With one of my father's old friends. I called off the whole damn thing."
Grace looked at me for a long, heavy moment. Her face went blank again, that perfect, impenetrable mask. "I don't care who you married, Dayton. I don't care who you didn't marry. I don't care who you share a bed with." She took a single step backward, and it felt like a mile. "We are done. We were done the morning you closed that hotel room door and left me in the hallway."
She turned. Her heels didn't click this time; the sound was muffled by the rubber matting on the floor. But each step echoed in my head. She walked away and didn't look back, and I was left standing alone under the buzzing lights, feeling more hollow than ever.
Back in my hotel suite, I poured a glass of whiskey and didn't taste it. My Assistant, Caleb, came in a little while later, his energy filling the quiet room.
"Got the quarterly reports," he said, dropping a folder on the table. He was grinning. "We closed the riverfront deal. The stock is up twenty-three percent since you took over from your father. The company is solid. Stronger than it's been in years. You did this, Dayton."
I nodded and tried to listen as he talked about land and money and alliances. But my mind was a million miles away, stuck in a sterile white corridor, watching the only woman who ever truly knew me walk away for good.
After Caleb left, I stood by the window, looking down at the city. The lights twinkled, all those little lives moving along without me. I was twenty-nine. I was the CEO. I was rich. I had everything I was supposed to want. So why did I feel so empty?
My phone vibrated on the glass tabletop. I looked over. Lilian. The screen glowed with her name. She'd been calling for months. Her messages had started sad, then turned angry, and lately, they just sounded… desperate.
I don't know why I did it. Maybe I just wanted a different kind of pain. I picked it up.
"Dayton?" Her voice was a shaky whisper. "Thank God. I'm downstairs. In the lobby. Please, you have to see me. It's important."
I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. A headache was starting to bloom behind my eyes. "Fine," I sighed, the fight gone out of me. "Five minutes. The lobby bar."
I grabbed my keycard and left the room. The hallway was quiet. The elevator descended in silence. When the doors slid open, I took a step forward.
And then a small, warm body smacked right into my legs.
I stumbled, catching myself on the wall. I looked down. A little boy stared up at me, his eyes wide and surprised. He had a mess of dark, curly hair and his cheeks were flushed. He couldn't have been more than four. In his fist, he clutched a little blue toy car.
I crouched down so we were eye to eye. "Whoa there, speed racer. You okay?"
He just stared, his lower lip trembling slightly.
"You gave me quite a scare," I said, my voice softening. "What's your name, buddy?"
He shook his head, clutching the car tighter to his chest like a shield.
"Okay, that's a secret. I can keep a secret." I pointed to the car. "That's a cool car. Is it fast?"
He looked down at the toy, then back at my face. He gave a tiny, hesitant nod.
"I bet it is. The fast ones are the best." I looked around the empty lobby. "Are you here with your mom? Or your dad?"
He shook his head again, and this time, his eyes got a little shiny. He was lost. All alone in this huge, echoing space. Seeing him there, so small and confused, pushed all my own problems aside. For that moment, it was just me and this little boy, and the simple, urgent need to help him.