Chapter 3 - THE UNBROKEN GAZEJulian Vance didn't look at the toddlers by the picnic tables. He didn't look at the rowdy boys playing soccer. His eyes bypassed the entire yard and zeroed straight in on the little girl in the duct-taped wheelchair.
For a long moment, the billionaire and the six-year-old orphan stared at each other across fifty yards of patchy grass.
Lily didn't look down. She didn't shrink back or hide Mr. Bear behind her dress. She held his gaze with an intensity that made the billionaire’s breath catch in his throat. There was no pity in her eyes, no desperate plea for adoption. Just a quiet, unyielding dignity that reminded Julian of someone he had lost a lifetime ago.
“Mr. Vance?” Henderson prompted nervously, trying to block his line of sight. “If you’d like to step inside my office, we can review the financial statements and the tax write-offs for your foundation—”
“Move, Henderson,” Julian commanded softly, his eyes never leaving Lily.
Julian began walking across the grass. His guards moved with him, but he waved them off with a flick of his wrist. As he drew closer, the children grew quiet. The adults froze. Even the wind seemed to die down.
He stopped two feet away from Lily’s wheelchair. Up close, he looked even taller, imposing as a granite cliff.
“Your chair is broken,” Julian stated bluntly, pointing down at the gray duct tape on the cushion.
“It’s not broken,” Lily replied evenly. “It’s just patched.”
A rare, microscopic twitch of a smile touched the corner of Julian’s lips. “There is a distinct difference between patched and broken, little one. And right now, you are sitting in a machine that insults your worth.”
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“Worth costs money,” Lily said, echoing a phrase she had overheard a staff member say the week before. “And nobody wants to spend money on a discount kid.”
Julian flinched as if he had been struck. The air around him dropped ten degrees.
