Chapter 3 - The Broken Pipe & The Unexpected Visitor
“You’re mistaken,” I whispered, fighting against the crushing weight of his presence. “You’re projecting a fantasy onto a passing resemblance. I’ve worked at this firm for three years. If you truly remembered that woman, you would have recognized me on my first day.”
Adrian didn't pull back. The intensity radiating from him was scorching.
“You wore a platinum wig that night, Clara,” he countered, his voice low and lethal. “Your skin was covered in body glitter, your voice was hoarse from champagne, and you ran before the sun came up. And when you applied here, you had brown hair, thick glasses, and kept your head down so low I barely saw your eyes during department briefings.”
He tilted my chin upward with two fingers. His touch was burning hot.
“Until this afternoon,” he continued. “When your daughter dragged you into the center of my world and tore the mask off.”
“Mia is not your daughter!” I snapped, panic giving me the strength to knock his hand away and leap out of the chair. “She has a father. A man who loved me and passed away before she was born. Do you understand? You don't get to rewrite my life just because you had an unresolved one-night stand six years ago!”
Adrian slowly straightened up. His face became an unreadable mask of ice, but the tension coiled in his shoulders told me he was holding back an avalanche.
“If that is the story you wish to cling to,” he said smoothly, “we will let science settle it.”
“Science?” Cold dread flooded my veins. “Don’t you dare touch my daughter.”
“I won’t have to,” Adrian replied, stepping back toward his desk. “A simple court order will suffice. Or perhaps a polite request from my legal team. Blackwell & Reed employs four hundred attorneys, Clara. Do you really believe you can outmaneuver me?”
“You are a monster,” I hissed, clutching my purse to my chest like a shield. “You have everything. Towers, yachts, billions of dollars, the entire city bowing at your feet. And yet you want to rip apart the only thing I have left in this world?”
Something dark flickered across his face—a brief, agonizing flash of genuine pain that disappeared before I could confirm it.
“I don’t want to rip anything apart,” he said quietly. “I want the truth.”
“The truth is that I am resigning,” I spat, backing toward the double oak doors. “Effective immediately. Don't look for us, Mr. Kane. Don't send your lawyers. If you come near my child, I will drag your family name through every tabloid from New York to London.”
I didn't wait for his reply. I wrenched the doors open and fled.
***
Two hours later, I was kneeling on the waterlogged linoleum of my tiny two-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens.
A rancid gush of rusty water was spewing from beneath the kitchen sink, soaking through my work trousers and pooling across the floor. An empty plastic bucket sat beside me, already overflowing.
“Mommy, is the house going to turn into a swimming pool?” Mia asked from the safety of the battered sofa, tucking her legs beneath her.
“No, baby,” I panted, wiping sweat and dirty water from my brow with the back of my hand. My hair was wild, my mascara smeared, and my muscles trembled with sheer exhaustion. “The pipe just… has a little temper tantrum. I’m fixing it.”
I clamped the rusty pipe wrench down on the brass bolt and hauled backward with all my might.
*Crack.*
The fitting snapped entirely. A jet of icy water geysered into the air, hitting the ceiling and raining down directly onto my face.
“Dammit!” I cried out, dropping the wrench. I collapsed back onto my heels, soaking wet, shivering, and entirely defeated.
The dam broke. The terror of the afternoon, the suffocating fear of Adrian Kane, the crushing pressure of rent, medical bills, and being entirely alone in an uncaring city cascaded over me all at once. I buried my face in my wet palms and sobbed.
Mia scurried off the sofa, her little socks sliding on the wet floorboards, and threw her arms around my neck. “Don’t cry, Mommy! I’m sorry I drew the knight’s picture! I’ll throw Gerald away if it makes the water stop!”
“No, sweetheart, no,” I choked out, pulling her into a fierce, wet embrace. “Gerald is good. You’re good. Mommy is just tired. That’s all. Just tired.”
A firm, heavy knock echoed against the front door.
I froze.
It was eight-thirty at night. My landlord didn't answer emergency calls after five, and I had no friends in the building.
“Stay here,” I whispered to Mia, gently easing her back onto the sofa.
I grabbed the heavy metal wrench from the floor, crept toward the door, and peered through the peephole.
My heart nearly stopped.
Standing in the dimly lit, peeling hallway of my decaying apartment building was Adrian Kane.
He was still wearing his tailored suit, though he had discarded his overcoat over one arm. Flanking him was an older man in heavy-duty navy coveralls carrying a professional plumbing tool chest, and behind them stood two couriers holding four massive insulated bags from an ultra-exclusive Manhattan gourmet market.
I ripped the door open, brandishing the pipe wrench like a weapon. “What are you doing here? How did you find my address?”
Adrian’s eyes traveled down my drenched blouse, taking in my soaked jeans, my bare feet, and the wild desperation on my face. His expression darkened with an anger so visceral it seemed to suck the oxygen out of the hallway.
“Did you honestly believe,” Adrian said, his voice dropping to a dangerous rumble, “that I would let the mother of my child drown in a flooded apartment while I slept in a penthouse?”
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Before I could reply, he stepped past me into the apartment, completely ignoring the heavy wrench hovering inches from his chest.
***
