The Aspen war room had never felt so small.
It was technically a large conference room, walls covered in floor-to-ceiling whiteboards and pinned-up renderings. A scale model of the resort sat on a central table, tiny trees dotting a miniature slope. Post-it notes bloomed on every vertical surface.
On Friday at 3:55 p.m., it was blessedly empty.
Charlotte stood at the end of the table, palms pressed flat on the cool wood, and tried to breathe.
She’d spent the morning in back-to-back meetings. Construction. Marketing. HR. Everyone with opinions. Everyone looking to her now as the woman who’d “pulled off Steele.”
The phrase made her stomach twist.
At 2:30, she’d texted Mila.
> Charlie: I might be late tonight. Don’t wait dinner.
> Mila: Big meeting?
> Charlie: The biggest.
> Mila: Want me to light a candle in church?
> Charlie: Yes please. Light three.
Now, as the minute hand on the wall clock crawled toward four, she wondered if three would be enough.
The door opened.
He stepped in.
He shut it behind him.
For a heartbeat, they simply looked at each other.
He’d dressed down, relatively speaking. Dark trousers. Open collar. No tie. The first two buttons of his shirt undone, a hint of chest visible.
His eyes were very, very awake.
“Ms. Reid,” he said.
“Mr. Steele,” she replied.
The formal address felt almost…comical given what they were about to discuss.
“Thank you for…making time,” he said.
“As if I had a choice,” she muttered.
His mouth quirked.
“You always have a choice,” he said. “You just don’t always like the options.”
“Story of my life,” she said.
He moved closer, stopping on the other side of the model.
For a moment, they both looked down.
Tiny buildings. Tiny trees. Tiny humans in bright coats.
“It’s beautiful,” he said quietly.
Her throat tightened.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You did this,” he added.
“Not alone,” she said automatically.
He shook his head.
“You’re always deflecting,” he said. “Own it.”
She lifted her gaze.
“Could say the same to you,” she said. “You built an empire and call yourself a ‘consultant.’”
His smile faded.
“Empire,” he repeated. “It sounds…bigger than it feels.”
They stood in silence for a breath.
Then he said, very softly, “We’re out of time.”
She nodded.
“I know,” she said.
He took a slow breath.
“Is he mine?” he asked.
No preamble.
No pretense.
Just…straight to the wound.
Her hand grabbed the back of a chair.
“Yes,” she said.
The word hung in the air, humming.
He closed his eyes.
For a second, his face went utterly still.
Then he opened them again.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
“Milo,” she said. “Milo James Reid.”
His brow furrowed.
“James,” he repeated. “After…James Whitman?”
“You’re not funny,” she said hoarsely.
Something like hurt flickered in his eyes.
“After who?” he asked.
“After my grandfather,” she said. “My mother’s father. He…was kind.”
He nodded, biting down on something invisible.
“Okay,” he said. “How old is he?”
“Three,” she whispered. “He turned three in April.”
He counted, lips moving.
“Conception would have been…” He looked up. “London.”
“Yes,” she said. “London.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
The million-dollar question.
She laughed once, a small, jagged sound.
“Where would you like me to start?” she asked. “With the burner number you left me? The fake last name? The part where I puked in a Heathrow bathroom and then got on a plane home to a mother who thought my greatest failing was liking carbs?”
His jaw clenched.
“You could have called the hotel,” he said. “Asked for me.”
“I did,” she said, and watched surprise flash across his face. “Two weeks later. When the second test came back positive and the doctor said, ‘You have decisions to make.’ I called the Park Regent. Asked for you at the bar. They said you’d checked out. ‘Mr. Daniels is no longer a guest.’”
His shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Daniels,” he said. “Right. That was…not my finest moment.”
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Rage and grief and three years of exhaustion surged up.
“Are you?” she demanded. “Because from where I’m standing, you got what you wanted. Clean. Anonymous. No strings. You walked away. I’m the one who…” Her voice broke. “I’m the one who had to sit in a fluorescent-lit clinic while a doctor explained my ‘options’ like I was ordering off a menu. I’m the one who had to tell my mother. Who had to listen to her say ‘get rid of it’ like he was some stain on a dress.”
He flinched.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “If I had—”
“What?” she snapped. “What would you have done? Come riding in on a white Tesla and said, ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll fix everything’? Signed a check? Demanded a paternity test before the stick was even dry?”
His eyes flashed.
“You think that’s who I am?” he asked, voice low.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said. “I knew you for one night. You knew *me* for one night. Then we went back to our separate lies.”
Silence crackled.
He braced his hands on the table, head dipping for a moment.
“You’re right,” he said finally. “We lied. We hid. We walked away. Both of us. But now…we’re here.”
He lifted his head.
“Why *now*?” he asked. “Why tell me now?”
“Because you forced my hand,” she said. “Because you showed up in my office with a term sheet and those eyes and suddenly my son…” Her voice shook. “My son…wasn’t hypothetical. He was…in the room. Through you.”
His throat worked.
“I didn’t know,” he said again.
“I know,” she said. “Intellectually, I *know.* Emotionally…” She laughed bitterly. “Emotionally, I want to blame you for everything. For the nausea. For the stretch marks. For the way my life broke and reassembled around a person I hadn’t planned on. But that’s not…fair. I chose him. You didn’t.”
He swallowed.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“For what?” she asked, thrown.
“For choosing him,” he said simply.
Tears pricked her eyes.
She looked away.
“I thought about…not,” she admitted. “For about…five minutes. After the third doctor told me all the ways my career would suffer. How the press would spin it. How my ‘value’ would plummet as a single mother. I thought, maybe I should just…undo this. Pretend London was a dream.”
Her hand slid unconsciously to her stomach, flat now under the fabric of her blouse.
“Then I heard his heartbeat,” she whispered. “And I couldn’t. I couldn’t…unknow him. Not after that. So I told my mother. And she…” Her jaw tightened. “She offered me money. Options. Silence. When I refused, she…contained it. Cleaned it up. Shipped me off to a ‘wellness retreat’ in upstate New York for the last trimester so the tabloids would write about my ‘nervous exhaustion’ instead of my swollen ankles.”
He stared at her, something like horror in his eyes.
“She hid you,” he said.
“She hid *us,*” she corrected. “To protect the brand. Not me. Not him. The *brand.*”
His hands curled into fists.
“If I had known,” he said slowly, “I would have…helped. I don’t know how, exactly. But I wouldn’t have left you alone with that.”
She forced a shaky laugh.
“That’s very noble,” she said. “Two years too late.”
He took it.
He deserved it.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s too late to fix…that. But not this.”
He pointed in the general direction of her apartment.
Her heart slammed.
“I don’t want to…take him from you,” he said quickly. “Or blow up his life. He’s…happy, right?”
“Yes,” she said fiercely. “He’s the happiest kid I know. He has…Lina. My uncle. Friends. He…laughs. All the time.”
“Good,” he said, exhaling. “That’s…good.”
He stared down at the model again, eyes unfocused.
“How did you…?” He struggled for a second. “Was it…hard?” he asked finally. “Being…pregnant. Then…after.”
“Yes,” she said honestly. “And no. And…yes.”
He waited.
“I was sick for six months,” she said. “I threw up in hotel bathrooms on three continents while closing deals because I refused to let anyone see me as…weak. My feet swelled. My back hurt. I cried in a linen closet in Paris because I couldn’t zip my dress and my mother said it was a ‘blessing in disguise’ because that dress was ‘trying too hard’ anyway.”
His jaw flexed.
“Then he was born,” she continued softly. “And I bled. And my body didn’t feel like mine. And he cried and cried and cried and I thought, ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake, I’m not built for this.’”
She blinked, tears spilling now.
“Then one night, around three a.m., he stopped crying,” she said. “Just…stopped. He looked at me. Right at me. Like I was…all he could see. And I thought, ‘Oh. There you are.’ And suddenly nothing made sense and everything did.”
He swallowed hard.
“I missed…that,” he said hoarsely.
“Yes,” she said. “You did.”
They let that sit between them.
After a long moment, he said, “Can I…see him?”
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
“Not now,” she said quickly. “He’s at home. With Lina. And even if he were here, I’m not…I’m not introducing him to a…strange man in a glass box with a miniature mountain as backdrop.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him.
“Strange,” he repeated.
“I meant—” She rubbed her forehead. “He doesn’t know you. Dropping you into his world like, ‘Surprise, here’s your father’… That would be…cruel.”
“Eventually,” he said. “You’ll tell him.”
“Yes,” she said. “When he’s older. When he can…understand. A little. When I’ve…figured out how to say ‘I lied’ in a way that doesn’t shatter the way he looks at me.”
“You lied to protect him,” he said.
“And me,” she said. “And you. Don’t absolve me. It was selfish too. I liked our…bubble. Our little world. Just us. No Bennetts. No Reids. No Steeles. Just…Milo and Mom.”
“And Lina,” he said.
“And Lina,” she agreed, lips quirking.
He exhaled.
“I want to be in his life,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t know how to…do it. But I know I can’t go back to…not knowing.”
Fear flared.
“So you want…what?” she asked. “Weekends? Holidays? Fifty-fifty? Do we alternate birthday years like divorced people we never actually got married to?”
He smiled, bleak.
“Slow down,” he said. “I’m still stuck on Father’s Day.”
The joke landed like a stone.
Her eyes burned.
“I’m not asking you to…give me half,” he said. “Not now. Not yet. He doesn’t know me. That has to be…built. Carefully. On his schedule. On *your* schedule.”
She stared at him.
“You’re being…very reasonable,” she said suspiciously.
“I have a lawyer,” he said. “She told me not to come in guns blazing.”
“You called your lawyer,” she said, both impressed and irritated.
“I call my lawyer when I sneeze,” he said. “This seemed…bigger.”
She huffed a laugh despite herself.
“She said…” He hesitated. “She said I should…listen. First. Then decide.”
“And what do you…decide?” she asked.
“That I want to know him,” he said simply. “Not as a footnote. Or a scandal. As…a person. A little person who puts Legos up his nose.”
She blinked.
“How did you—”
He smiled faintly. “Mila texted you from the ER, remember? During the board preview. You said ‘he’s fine.’ Your mother’s face turned into a weather event.”
She let out a choked sound.
“I did that,” she said.
“You did,” he said. “I noticed.”
Of course he had.
“So…” He spread his hands. “How do we do this?”
“There’s no manual,” she said. “Believe me, I’ve Googled.”
“We start…small,” he suggested. “You. Me. Lawyers. We map out…options.”
“You want to bring lawyers into this already?” she asked, flinching.
“I want to protect all three of us,” he said. “Including you. If something happens to me… He should be…taken care of. On paper. Not just because I promised in a room once.”
The practicalness of it made her chest ache.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “We…talk to someone. Neutral. Not your corporate counsel. Not my mother’s army. Someone who does…families.”
He nodded.
“I know a couple,” he said. “Discreet. Brutally honest. You’ll like them.”
“How do you know I’ll like them?” she asked.
“You like people who call you on your bullshit,” he said. “You get twitchy when everyone in the room agrees with you.”
She studied him.
“You see too much,” she murmured.
“So do you,” he said.
She wrapped her arms around herself.
“Not before Aspen closes,” she said. “I can’t… I can’t juggle a custody consultation and a hotel opening and my mother all at once. I’ll break.”
He nodded.
“Deal,” he said. “We finalize the partnership. We get your baby in the mountains on its feet.”
He glanced at the model.
“Then we talk about our other baby,” he added.
Her heart did something inconvenient at *our.*
“He is not a project,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “He’s…more important than any project I’ve ever touched.”
Her breath hitched.
“Don’t…say things like that,” she whispered.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because you’re…very good at sounding sincere,” she said. “And I’m very…tired.”
He studied her face.
“Tired how?” he asked.
“Tired of holding this alone,” she said. “Tired of feeling like any move I make is…wrong. Tired of loving him so much my chest hurts and being…terrified of anything that might hurt him.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“I won’t hurt him,” he said at last. “If I can help it.”
“And me?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He flinched.
“I already did,” he said. “Once. In London. I won’t…again. Not if I can help that either.”
“If,” she repeated.
“I can’t control everything,” he said. “You know that. We both…live in worlds full of variables. But I can control…this. Us. How I…show up. Or don’t.”
She swallowed.
“You talk like a man who’s used to getting what he wants,” she said. “What if what you want and what I want don’t…match?”
“Then we negotiate,” he said wryly. “Like we always do.”
“And if we can’t…find a middle?” she pressed.
“Then we’ll fight,” he said simply. “And then we’ll…compromise. Because neither of us is walking away from him.”
Warmth and dread warred in her chest.
“You’re…very sure,” she said.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” he said.
She believed him.
Which was…terrifying.
She exhaled, long and shaky.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
They stood there, breathing the same air, the model of Aspen between them like a small, fragile future.
After a while, she said, “What…did you imagine? Before this. If you ever…thought about kids.”
He laughed, a harsh sound.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I told myself I didn’t want them. That it was…better. Safer. Cleaner. No one else to…fail.”
She winced.
“Maya disagrees,” she said.
“Violently,” he agreed. “She told me I already raised one kid. That I did…fine.”
“You did more than fine,” she said softly.
He looked at her sharply.
“You know… about her,” he said.
“Enough,” she said. “I know you…stepped in where your father didn’t. That you worked while your friends went to parties. That you…kept her safe.”
He looked away, jaw tight.
“Did I?” he murmured. “Sometimes I wonder.”
“She adores you,” Charlotte said. “She’d burn the world down for you.”
“And for you,” he said.
She blinked.
He shrugged.
“She likes you,” he said. “Annoyingly.”
“You told her about me,” she realized.
“Of course,” he said. “She’d kill me if I didn’t.”
“What did you say?” she asked, faintly horrified.
“That you’re…complicated,” he said. “Stubborn. Smarter than most of the people in your boardroom. And that you make terrible choices about who to sleep with.”
She choked.
“That’s rich,” she said. “Coming from you.”
He smiled, small.
“She asked me,” he went on, “what I would do if you didn’t want me in his life. I said… I didn’t know. I still don’t. But I’m…hoping we don’t have to find out.”
“We won’t,” she said before she’d fully decided to.
His eyes widened.
“You’re…okay with this,” he said slowly. “With me…being there.”
“Yes,” she said.
And she was.
Somewhere under the fear and the history and the noise, a small, quiet part of her had always known this day would come. That sooner or later, Milo would need more than her carefully curated version of reality. That eventually, she’d have to let someone else in.
She hadn’t expected it to be this man. Not again.
But here they were.
“I can’t promise…smooth,” she said. “Or easy. My mother is going to…have opinions. Our PR team will have…nightmares. Your board…might too.”
“Let them,” he said. “They don’t get a vote.”
“Everything is a vote,” she said. “In our world.”
“Not this,” he said firmly. “This is…ours.”
Her chest tightened.
“You keep saying that,” she said.
“Because it’s true,” he replied. “London. Him. This…mess. It started with us. Not contracts. Not NDAs. Us.”
She swallowed.
“And how does…that…end?” she asked quietly.
His gaze softened.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m…willing to find out.”
The air between them thickened.
For a moment, the war room wasn’t a conference space. It was a memory.
A London hotel room. Rain on the windows. His hands on her hips.
He stepped toward her.
She didn’t move away.
He lifted a hand, slow, giving her time to stop him.
She didn’t.
His fingers brushed her cheek, thumb catching a tear she hadn’t realized had escaped.
“You okay?” he asked, voice low.
“No,” she said honestly. “But…better than I was.”
He smiled, brittle but real.
“Progress,” he murmured.
“Don’t kiss me,” she blurted.
He froze.
“I wasn’t going to,” he said.
“You were,” she countered.
He sighed.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I was.”
“Don’t,” she repeated. “Not…now.”
“Because?” he asked.
“Because I don’t trust…what I feel around you,” she said. “Because you’re very good at making me forget things. Like…logic. And consequences. And my own name.”
“That’s not a bug,” he said softly. “That’s a feature.”
She glared through her tears.
“I’m serious,” she said. “We’re not…doing that. Not while we’re negotiating his place in our lives. And Aspen. And…everything.”
He nodded, jaw tight.
“Okay,” he said. “No kissing. For now.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” she said, exasperated. “It’s a boundary.”
“Boundaries can be…revisited,” he said.
She rolled her eyes.
“You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?” she said.
“Rarely,” he said.
Despite herself, a laugh snuck out.
He smiled.
“Thank you,” he said again, more seriously this time. “For telling me. Even if…you wanted to throw something at me while you did.”
“I still do,” she admitted.
“I deserve it,” he said. “We can add ‘pelt Dominic with stress balls’ to our co-parenting plan.”
She snorted.
“I have a meeting in ten,” she said. “Construction. They want to swap the tile again.”
“Monsters,” he said gravely.
“You have…?” she prompted.
“A call with Gillian,” he said. “To tell her I didn’t blow it.”
“You didn’t,” she said.
“Yet,” he replied.
She shook her head.
They moved toward the door together.
He paused with his hand on the handle.
“One more thing,” he said.
She braced.
“Yes?”
“I’d like to…help,” he said. “With him. Financially. Emotionally. Logistically. I know you’ve done this on your own so far. I’m not…trying to take credit retroactively. But I have…resources. If you need…a school. A doctor. A…trust.”
“Don’t,” she said sharply. “Don’t say ‘trust’ like he’s a…line item.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” she said, softening. “It’s just… He doesn’t need your money. Not right now. He needs…stability. Routine. Dinosaurs. We can talk…funds…later. When it’s not about…making up for lost time.”
He nodded, chastened.
“Stability first,” he said. “Dinosaurs second.”
“And don’t…buy him the world,” she added. “To make yourself feel better.”
He lifted a brow.
“Can I buy him…a car?” he asked. “A small one. With pedals.”
She groaned.
“God help me,” she muttered.
He smiled.
“Later,” he said. “One step at a time.”
He opened the door.
Voices from the corridor drifted in. The thunk of the copy machine. Someone laughing near the coffee station.
Reality rushed back.
“Dom,” she said.
He turned at the nickname.
“Yeah?”
“If you…care about him half as much as you say you do,” she said, “we might actually…figure this out.”
“I do,” he said. “And we will.”
She nodded.
“Go,” she said. “Before someone sees you and starts a Reddit thread.”
He slipped out.
She stayed a moment longer, hands on the table, heart pounding.
Then she picked up a marker and, on the whiteboard beside the model where she’d once drawn guest flow arrows and occupancy projections, she wrote, in small letters at the bottom corner:
*Milo.*
She circled it.
Then, beneath it, she wrote:
*Dom.*
Hesitated.
Crossed it out.
Wrote:
*Dad?*
Then she put the marker down, wiped her eyes, and went to yell at a contractor about grout.
***