7. Elisa
ELISA
Igasp, jolting awake.
The harsh fluorescent glare of the desk lamp burns my eyes. The heavy, exhausted sleep vanishes, chased away by a sudden, unnerving tension in the room.
A heavy weight slips from my left shoulder, pooling warm against my arm. A suit jacket. The deep, familiar scent of him—wood and rain—hits me before I even look up.
Donovan stands near my drafting table.
My pulse spikes. His dark hair is damp from the rain outside, a few stray strands falling across his forehead, stripping away his usual polished boardroom exterior.
But my focus doesn't stay on him. It darts to his large hand.
His fingers grip a piece of heavy, folded cardstock.
Bright, chaotic streaks of green crayon bleed through the edges. To Mommy.
Panic seizes my chest. I cannot let him see it.
I cannot let him invade the one pure, untouched part of my life.
He has been pushing, questioning me about my family.
If he decides to investigate, if he finds an excuse to pry into my personal life, the Swanson dynasty and their corporate lawyers will find Derick. Absolute, paralyzing fear overtakes me.
The sheer terror of protecting my son propels me out of the chair. I lunge across the drafting table.
My fingers clamp down on the cardstock, tearing it from his loose grip. The sudden motion knocks a stack of printed blueprints onto the concrete floor, the pages scattering in a white wave.
I shove the drawing into the center drawer of the desk and slam the metal shut with a deafening crash.
My hands shake as I grip the corner of the desk. I lock my knees, forcing my spine straight.
"What are you doing here?" The demand is sharp, hiding the tremor in my hands.
Donovan doesn't flinch. He doesn't step back. He just stares at me.
"You can't be in here." I step around the drafting table, placing my body squarely between him and the desk. "This is a private administrative office. It is strictly off-limits to non-personnel."
He steps closer, backing me on the drafting table. The heat radiating from him bleeds through the soft gray crewneck sweater I changed into hours ago.
"You didn't answer my question this morning, Elisa." The polished restraint he wields in public is gone. "I asked you a direct question in that ballroom."
"And I ignored it." I tilt my chin up, holding my ground. I stare directly at him. "Because it is out of line. Are you looking for more line items to dispute, Donovan? Or did you just drive across a bridge in a downpour to invade my privacy?"
His mouth flattens into a hard line.
He crowds me, forcing my hips against the wood. He places a hand flat on either side of my waist, effectively caging me against the desk.
"Where is your husband, Elisa?" The demand is harsh, claiming territory he has no right to touch. "How old is the boy?"
The sheer intensity of his stare threatens to drag me under. The old memory of his hands on my waist tries to surface, but I push it down, focusing on the reality of the hospital room and the nebulizer mask on my son’s face. I will not let him back in.
"It is none of your business," I state firmly.
"You took a million dollars from my family." He leans in, his face hovering near mine. "That makes every thing you do my business."
A million dollars? This again? The accusation is so absurd, so detached from reality, that I almost laugh. He actually believes I was paid off.
"My son is my business. Not yours. Not Catherine's. Not the Swanson trust's." I push my hands flat against his chest, finding his muscles tight and unyielding. "We broke up five years ago, Donovan. Five years. I moved on. I built a life, a company, and a family that have nothing to do with you."
He stops breathing. I continue to drive the knife forward.
"Why are you so obsessed with a child that isn't yours?
You are the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar empire, yet you are standing in a humid Brooklyn warehouse at ten o'clock at night interrogating a vendor.
Is your interest because you haven't moved on?
Does it bother your massive ego that I didn't spend the last half-decade pining for a man who discarded me, a hot summer fling? "
The words hit their mark. He goes perfectly still. The anger in his eyes shuts down, walled off behind years of corporate discipline.
He pushes off the drafting table, severing the contact between us.
Donovan straightens to his full height. He smoothly unrolls his sleeves, buttoning the cuffs. The man who covered me with his jacket is entirely gone. He is the executive who tried to fire me.
"I am conducting a site audit," he says, his tone clipped and formal.
"Your phase-three invoices include a twenty-thousand-dollar allocation for imported black orchids from a private Indonesian supplier.
Before I authorize the release of those funds to your account, I require visual confirmation of the product. "
The sudden shift in topic is meant to unbalance me. I cross my arms tightly over my chest. I can play this game.
"Visual confirmation." I turn, grabbing the heavy ring of master keys from the pegboard beside the door. "Fine. Follow me. Bring your jacket."
I walk past him, the sleeve of my gray sweater brushing his shirt. I do not look back as I lead him out of the administrative wing and into the main staging area.
The warehouse is silent. The logistics crew clocked out hours ago, and Hector is nowhere to be seen. Our footsteps echo against the damp concrete.
I navigate the narrow aisles of steel racks and towering ferns, heading straight for the commercial floral coolers.
I grab the thick, industrial latch, hauling the heavy stainless-steel door open. A thick cloud of white vapor spills out. I step over the raised metal threshold.
Donovan follows me inside.
The temperature immediately drops to thirty-eight degrees.
The biting cold cuts through my sweater, banishing the humid warmth of the warehouse.
The air inside the vault is overwhelmingly fragrant—a concentrated perfume of damp earth, freshly cut stems, and the sharp bite of the rare black orchids lining the shelves.
The cooler is massive, but the sheer volume of product leaves only a narrow pathway down the center.
I stop halfway down the aisle, gesturing to a specific rack of specialized glass enclosures.
"The Paphiopedilum rothschildianum." My breath plumes into a white cloud in the freezing air. "Fifty mature plants. They require highly specific cold-stratification before they are introduced to the ambient temperature of the ballroom."
Donovan steps up behind me.
The narrow pathway forces him close. The freezing air bites relentlessly through my clothes, but my back is engulfed in the radiating heat of his body.
He doesn't look at the orchids. He stares down at the crown of my head.
"A twenty-thousand-dollar line item," he murmurs, the formal tone slipping as he looks down at me.
Outside the cooler, the muffled sound of heavy boots hits the concrete floor. A late-shift worker running a final check.
"Hey! Who left the primary open?" a voice shouts from the staging area.
Before I can push past Donovan to call out, the heavy door swings.
A loud, metallic clack echoes through the insulated walls. The exterior deadbolt slides into place.
The overhead fluorescent tubes sputter, flicker twice, and die.
Total darkness swallows the freezing vault.