Chapter 3 - The Shadows of the Past
The quiet between them felt heavier than the snow falling outside on Madison Avenue. For four years, Iris had known every expression on Dominic Vale’s face—the slight furrow of his brow when an investment fell short, the subtle tightening of his lips when he was preparing to dismantle a rival, and the rare, soft softening of his features that had once made her believe he was capable of unconditional love.
Now, his face held none of those things. It held desperation—a dark, raw desperation that Iris had never seen in him before.
“Thirty-four weeks,” Dominic repeated, his voice barely above a whisper as he closed the distance between them. He stopped just inches away, his eyes fixed on her stomach. He raised a hand, as if to touch her, to feel the kick of the child growing inside her, but Iris took a firm step back, placing the edge of the white oak crib between them.
“Don't,” she said quietly.
“Iris, you ran away,” he said, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. “You vanished in the middle of the night. You left your ring on the nightstand. I had private investigators searching for you for three months until you sent that letter through your legal counsel threatening an injunction for harassment. I thought you hated me. I thought you wanted nothing to do with my life.”
“I wanted nothing to do with your control, Dominic,” Iris corrected him, her voice unwavering. “There is a profound difference between a life and a gold-plated cage.”
“I protected you!” Dominic’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You have no idea what the world outside is like for someone in my position. The press, the competitors, the people who look for every weakness to drag you down. Everything I did—the security, the schedules, the legal boundaries—was to keep you safe!”
“No,” Iris said, looking into his eyes with a sorrow that surprised even herself. “You didn't do it to keep me safe. You did it because you couldn't stand the thought of anything in your life existing outside your command. You built a fortress, Dominic, but you forgot that a fortress is just a prison if the doors only lock from the outside.”
Dominic looked away, his jaw working as he tried to process her words. For a man who ruled corporate boardrooms with absolute authority, sitting across from a woman who no longer feared him was a terrifying experience. He took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at her again.
“Is it a girl?” he asked softly.
Iris hesitated. A part of her wanted to guard this detail, to hold it close to her heart like a shield against his power. But looking at the faint silver threads of gray at his temples, she saw a man who was, for the first time in his life, utterly defeated by his own greed.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “A girl.”
A strange, fleeting softening passed across Dominic’s features. He stared at her bump, his mouth opening as if to say something tender, something that belonged to the man she had married four years ago in a quiet ceremony in Maine before the world claimed him. But then his phone vibrated loudly in his coat pocket.
He pulled it out automatically. The screen glowed with a name: Arthur Rutherford. Celia’s father.
Dominic stared at the flashing caller ID. The real world—the world of stocks, multi-million-dollar maritime rights, and hostile corporate takeovers—was crashing back into the room. If he answered that call, he would have to lie, negotiate, plead, and bargain to save the merger that defined his company’s entire five-year expansion strategy.
Iris watched him. She saw the exact moment his instincts took over—the moment the father surrendered back to the Chief Executive Officer.
“I have to take this,” Dominic said, his eyes flicking back to Iris with a mixture of regret and cold focus.
“I know,” Iris said softly, nodding toward the phone. “You always do.”
Dominic pressed the button to reject the call and slid the phone back into his coat. “I’m not letting this go, Iris. We are going to talk about this child. I am her father, and I will have a place in her life. My legal team—”
“If your first impulse is to send lawyers, Dominic, then you have already proven why I was right to leave,” Iris interrupted cleanly. “Good afternoon, Dominic.”
May you like
She turned to Maribel, who was standing quietly nearby. “I’ll take the white oak crib. Please process the delivery address I gave you earlier.”
Without looking back at the man who had once owned her world, Iris walked toward the counter, her step light and deliberate, leaving the billionaire standing alone among the soft velvet and polished silver of Marlowe & Finch.
