"How are you holding up?" Daniel asked, his voice easy over the line, the same warm rhythm it always carried.
"Fine." Adrian's fingers tightened around the phone; his eyes fixed on the two photographs still sitting side by side on his desk. "Busy week."
"Aren't they all." Daniel let out a short laugh. "Listen, I wanted to talk about Ava, actually."
Adrian's jaw shifted slightly. "What about her?"
"She seems happier than I've seen her in years. Really settling in over there. Becoming her own person, finally, instead of just my daughter." Pride warmed every word. "You've always been like a second father to her, you know."
Adrian went completely still, phone pressed hard against his ear, his eyes closing briefly.
The words landed somewhere he wasn't prepared for, striking harder than Daniel could have intended.
"She looks up to you," Daniel continued, unaware of the silence stretching on the other end of the line. "Always has. I trust you more than almost anyone else on this earth, Adrian. I mean that. I know you'll guide her the right way. Someone experienced, someone who actually cares about her future instead of just her résumé."
Adrian's grip on the phone tightened further, his knuckles whitening around the edges of it. His free hand pressed flat against his desk, steadying himself against something he couldn't quite name.
Daniel wasn't accusing him of anything.
He was doing the opposite. He was placing his complete, unguarded trust directly into Adrian's hands, and somehow that made everything worse.
"You haven't noticed anything strange about her, have you?" Daniel asked, a slight shift in his tone.
Adrian's heart skipped, his head tilting slightly, eyes narrowing at the phone as though Daniel could somehow see through it. "What do you mean?"
Daniel laughed, easy and unbothered. "Nothing serious. She's always been stubborn about hiding her feelings, that's all. Gets it from her mother. I just want to make sure work isn't overwhelming her. That she's actually taking care of herself."
Adrian let out a slow breath, some of the tension easing from his shoulders. "I'll look out for her."
"Good man." Daniel's voice softened, warm and grateful. "I appreciate you, Adrian. More than you know."
They said their goodbyes a few minutes later, and Adrian set the phone down slowly on the desk, staring at it for a long moment.
I'll look out for her.
Not I'll pursue her. Not I'll tell her how I feel.
Just protect her. That was the line. That had always been the line, whether he'd let himself fully see it before or not.
Ava arrived at Blackwood the next morning in unusually good spirits, her steps quick and light across the marble floor. She spotted Adrian near the front desk and felt her whole face brighten instinctively, already turning to walk toward him.
Then he looked at her.
Something shifted behind his eyes, subtle, but there. His shoulders squared slightly. His chin lifted a fraction, the posture of a man bracing himself.
Daniel's words echoed somewhere in the back of his mind. Victoria's revelation. The photograph of a small boy who might share his blood. All of it pressing down at once, and Ava standing there in front of him with absolutely no idea how complicated his life had become in the space of a single week.
She smiled at him, warm and open.
He gave her a nod. Professional. Brief.
Nothing more.
Ava's smile faltered slightly, confusion flickering across her face before she caught herself and smoothed it away.
She spent the rest of the morning replaying the moment over and over in her head, unable to let it go.
Did I do something wrong? Did I say something at the gala I shouldn't have?
She tried to focus on her work, eyes fixed on her monitor, fingers moving mechanically across the keyboard. But every time she heard footsteps approaching from down the hall, her head turned automatically, her whole body going alert before she could stop it.
Her fingers tightened around her pen until her knuckles ached slightly. She forced herself to look back down at the screen, breathing out slowly through her nose.
"He's your boss," she whispered under her breath, quiet enough that no one else could hear. "That's it. That's all this is."
She repeated it a few more times over the course of the morning, like a small, private prayer she was trying very hard to believe.
"Coffee?" Ethan asked, appearing at her desk a little before noon, already holding her jacket out toward her.
"I have work."
"You have a face like you're solving a murder mystery. Come on." He gave her a small, encouraging tilt of his head toward the door. "Ten minutes."
She let him pull her up, grateful, in the end, for the distraction.
The café inside the hotel was warm and quiet, mid-morning light slanting through the windows. Ethan launched into a story about a guest who'd insisted on renaming the hotel cat, gesturing wide enough with his hands that he nearly knocked over the sugar dispenser, and Ava found herself laughing before she fully realized she'd let her guard down.
For a few minutes, she genuinely forgot about the strange, flat nod in the lobby that morning.
Then Adrian walked past the café windows and saw them.
He slowed, just slightly, watching Ava's head tip back as she laughed at something, her whole posture relaxed and easy in a way it hadn't been around him all morning.
He expected the familiar tightening in his chest, the jealousy he'd grown almost used to over the last several weeks.
Instead, something else moved through him. Something quieter.
Relief.
If she likes him, Adrian thought, watching them a moment longer than he should have, maybe that's better. Maybe someone her own age, without any of this weight attached, is exactly what she needs.
He hated the thought the second it fully formed. But he made himself keep walking anyway, jaw set, telling himself firmly that it was the right one.
He locked his office door that afternoon and poured himself a drink he didn't touch, standing at the window with the glass held loosely in one hand.
His reflection stared back at him in the darkening glass, tired lines etched deeper than he remembered them being a month ago.
He thought about Ava. About the flat, professional nod he'd given her that morning, and the way her smile had faltered afterward.
He thought about Daniel. A second father to her. The trust in his voice, complete and unguarded.
He thought about the little boy in Victoria's photograph, dark eyes that mirrored his own staring up at him from a face he'd never touched.
His life, he realized, setting the untouched glass down slowly on the windowsill, had become a collection of responsibilities he couldn't seem to run from no matter how much distance he tried to put between himself and any of it.
"This has to stop," he said quietly, to his own reflection, to the empty room.
He wasn't entirely sure anymore whether he meant Ava.
Or himself.
His phone buzzed against the desk.
The test is tomorrow.
He stared at the screen for a long moment, thumb hovering over it without responding.
A second message followed.
Whatever the result is, we need to talk about Daniel.
His eyes narrowed, head tilting slightly as he read it again, something cold moving low through his stomach.
His fingers moved fast over the screen. What does Daniel have to do with this?
The reply didn't come immediately. He watched the screen, waiting, his jaw tight.
Finally: Everything.
He set the phone down slowly, staring at the single word for a long time before he made himself look away.
Ava finished her work a little after six, gathering her things slowly, her mind still tangled somewhere between confusion and quiet, stubborn hope.
She reached the elevator bank just as Adrian stepped out of his office, and for a moment, neither of them moved.
His eyes found hers across the hallway. Something passed behind them apology, maybe, or something closer to longing, gone too quickly for her to be sure she'd actually seen it.
She wanted to say something. Ask him what had changed, why the morning had felt so different, why his eyes seemed to be carrying something heavy he wasn't letting her see.
She didn't.
He stepped aside instead, letting her into the elevator first, his hand resting briefly against the open door.
She pressed the button for the lobby. The doors began sliding shut.
Just before they closed completely, his voice reached her through the narrowing gap.
"Goodnight, Ava."
Her chest tightened, unexpected warmth spreading through her at something so simple.
"Goodnight," she said, the word slipping out soft and a little unsteady.
The doors closed.
Adrian remained standing in the hallway, watching the numbers above the elevator climb slowly toward the lobby.
His phone buzzed again in his pocket. He pulled it out, glancing at the screen.
Victoria.
He looked at the message. Then back up at the closed elevator doors, still glowing faintly with the last number before it disappeared from view entirely.
Two worlds, pulling at him from opposite directions. Two sets of responsibilities he couldn't seem to untangle from each other no matter how hard he tried.
And one woman, standing somewhere between both of them, that he had absolutely no right to want.
Adrian had spent his entire life believing that every problem could be solved if he simply kept enough distance between himself and the things he truly wanted.
For the first time, standing alone in that quiet hallway, he was beginning to fear that distance might no longer be enough.