Chapter 3 - The Architecture of Deception
Sloan didn't flinch away from him. Instead, she lifted her chin, the defiance in her eyes burning hot enough to singed steel.
“You want to know how?” she whispered fiercely, careful not to wake Willa, who was beginning to stir in her bassinet. “It wasn't hard, Vincent. You were in London closing the Sterling acquisition during my first trimester. You were in Dubai negotiating port rights during my second. And by the third trimester, our lawyers were communicating exclusively through encrypted emails because you couldn't bear to be in the same room as me.”
Vincent felt a hard knot form in his throat. Every word she spoke was an indisputable, razor-sharp truth.
“You could have called,” he repeated, though the argument sounded weaker even to his own ears.
“I didn't want your pity, and I certainly didn't want your obligation,” Sloan spat back, her hands curling into tight fists over the blanket. “Do you remember the night you told me you wanted a divorce, Vincent? It was our seventh anniversary. You sat right there in that leather chair, poured yourself a fingers-width of Macallan, and told me that our marriage had become an impediment to your global expansion. You said we had grown into strangers living in the same corporate portfolio.”
Vincent closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. The memory hit him like a physical blow. He had been cold, calculated, and utterly ruthless.
“And three weeks later,” Sloan continued, her voice dropping to a harsh, trembling whisper, “I found out I was pregnant. I stood in the bathroom of this apartment, looking at a positive test, realizing that the man who had sworn to build a life with me had already packed his bags and moved into a Midtown hotel because our lives didn't fit neatly into his spreadsheets.”
“So you decided to cut me out entirely?” Vincent demanded, a dark surge of anger rising beneath his ribs. “You decided that my child didn't deserve a father just because you and I failed?”
“Your child deserves a father who is actually present, Vincent! Not a ghost who sends wire transfers from Tokyo and drops in between board meetings!” Sloan’s voice finally broke, the icy facade cracking to reveal the raw, bleeding pain underneath. “I wasn't going to trap you with a baby. I wasn't going to let you look at my child with that cold, evaluating gaze you reserve for failing business ventures. I protected her from you.”
Before Vincent could answer, a sharp, piercing cry cut through the room.
Willa woke up, her tiny face scrunching into a furious red mask as she let out a wail of absolute hunger.
Sloan immediately moved, scooping the infant up against her chest, patting her back with practiced, desperate rhythm. But Willa wouldn't quiet down; the frantic energy in the room seemed to feed the baby's distress.
Vincent watched, paralyzed for a split second, before his instincts—forged in a very different kind of chaos—finally kicked in.
“Give her to me,” he said.
Sloan looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “You don't even know how to hold her—”
“Give her to me, Sloan.”
There was an absolute, commanding authority in his tone that brooked no argument. Hesitantly, reluctantly, Sloan transferred the squirming, crying infant into his arms.
Vincent froze.
Willa felt impossibly fragile against his chest, no heavier than a stack of files, radiating a fragile, desperate heat. He shifted his large hands awkwardly beneath her back and head, terrified he would drop her, break her, or do something wrong.
Willa shrieked, her tiny fists punching the air.
“Shh,” Vincent muttered, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling baritone that he hadn't used since he was a frightened boy growing up in an industrial town in Ohio. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, little one.”
May you like
Miraculously, the crying stuttered, then stopped.
Willa quieted against his chest, her dark, nearly black eyes blinking open to stare directly up into his face.
