Chapter 3 - "A MILLION DOLLARS A DAY COULD NOT BUY BACK A SINGLE SECOND"
Three months passed.
Harrison Freight Systems was breaking records on Wall Street, but inside the executive suite on the 50th floor, the atmosphere was toxic. Daniel Harrison had transformed from an ambitious CEO into an unhinged storm.
He slept three hours a night on the sofa in his office. He had fired three private intelligence agencies for failing to locate his wife. He had cut all personal ties with Vanessa Cole, canceling the multi-million dollar merger between their companies and devastating her family’s stock value in retaliation for her subtle sabotage.
"Daniel, you are destroying yourself," Margaret said, entering his office without knocking. She laid a folder on his mahogany desk. "Look at you. You’ve lost fifteen pounds. You haven't smiled in months."
"I don't care about the business, Mom," Daniel snapped, staring out at the Manhattan skyline. "I don't care about the stocks. She’s six months pregnant. Seven months, almost. She’s carrying my child somewhere out there, and she would rather face the world alone than let me near her."
"Because you made her feel alone when she was sitting right next to you!" Margaret snapped back, her voice echoing off the glass walls. "You treated her like an accessory, Daniel! You thought money was a substitute for presence."
Daniel slammed his fist onto the desk. "I was building an empire for us!"
"She didn't want an empire! She wanted a husband!"
Margaret stood tall, looking at her son with a mix of pity and harsh truth. "You spent seven years showing her that she was your lowest priority. Did you really think she would raise a child to watch you do the same thing to them?"
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That night, Daniel walked through the quiet rooms of his empty penthouse. He walked into the nursery—a room he had ordered interior designers to draft months ago, long before he even knew she was pregnant. It was cold, minimalist, and devoid of life.
He fell to his knees on the hardwood floor, surrounded by silence, and for the first time since he was a child, the powerful Daniel Harrison wept uncontrollably.
