Dominic #3
By six, most of Rowe Holdings has emptied out around me.
Chicago shifts into evening beyond the windows, office lights replacing the gray April sky one building at a time.
My suit jacket is off, my tie loosened, and I’ve been tracing the condensation ring my water glass left on the Northbridge proposal for twenty minutes without reading a word.
Evan appears in my doorway with his tablet tucked under one arm. “Are you still going to Smyth?”
“Yes.”
“Your car will be downstairs at six forty.”
“I know.”
“I know you know. I’m informing you because you’ve been staring out the window and then glancing at your watch every two minutes.”
I turn away from the glass. “Anything else?”
“The Weller call moved to Thursday, legal sent the revisions, and I declined next Tuesday’s board dinner. Harrison Caldwell will be there, and I recall you suggesting you’d end his bloodline if he disrespected another employee.”
I look up, the memory of that dinner sharp. Harrison’s condescension had been a liability. My response had been direct.
“He was likely too drunk to remember. Still, a wise decision. Harrison can do without my supervision for an evening.”
“Rumor has it he’s been speaking nothing but high praise of you and your employees ever since.” Evan gives me a small, knowing smile and straightens his cuff.
“I’m glad he’s learned his lesson then. Thanks Evan, I’ll just be in my office until I leave. Have a good night.”
“My work here is done. Have a good evening Mr. Rowe.” He pauses then gives me that knowing look he only ever uses when he’s about to say something he knows he shouldn’t. He starts to leave. “Oh and have a nice date tonight.”
“Evan.”
“Yes?”
He looks back at me, waiting. After a decade as my right hand, he knows when I’m holding something back.
“Nothing.”
His eyes move over my face with the same quiet efficiency he brings to everything else but he just nods, knowing everything I’m not saying.
“Right. Goodnight.”
I turn back to the windows, the image of that binder burned into my mind. Elena wants a family. It reminds me of when Cliff made the same choice, deciding his career wasn’t as important as building a life. At the time, I couldn’t understand it.
The Vale family has always been loud in a way mine never was.
Everyone talking over one another, his mother insisting on feeding people who said they weren’t hungry, Elena arguing some point at the end of the table while Cliff deliberately made it worse just to see her face get red and watch her stomp off in frustration.
I used to leave their house irritated by the noise and then walk into my own place and notice how quiet it was.
Then Cliff married Rachel. They had Sophie and Theo. Their home somehow got louder, and every time I go to New York to visit, one of the kids is climbing on him or asking Rachel for something or dragging me toward a toy I’m expected to admire.
I do admire it. More than I’ve ever admitted to Cliff or even myself.
I want children. I’ve wanted them for years.
I kept telling myself I’d think about it once the company stabilized, then once we crossed a revenue mark, then after the next acquisition.
Rowe Holdings stopped needing every waking hour from me a long time ago, but I continued giving them to it because work asks predictable things in return.
A family doesn’t.
There’s risk in wanting one. Another person can say no. They can leave. They can choose a life that has no place for you, and all the control I’ve built means exactly nothing when the decision belongs to someone else.
So I kept someday vague enough that I never had to actually face it.
Elena hasn’t. She found another way.
I can see the plan too clearly now. She’ll choose a profile, schedule an appointment, and walk into that clinic alone because she has decided alone is safer.
Then one day she’ll come into the office pregnant, and I’ll have to congratulate her as her boss while every selfish part of me wonders why she chose an anonymous man’s genetics when I’m standing right here.
The thought is possessive and unreasonable, but it’s lodged in my mind. There’s no rationalizing my way out of this.
I don’t only want a child, I want a family and someone to build that life with. I want Elena to choose me to be that for her.
The realization should be enough to make me cancel dinner. It should send me back to the three reasons I’ve used for four years and remind me that Cliff trusts me, Elena works for me, and wanting her doesn’t make acting on it acceptable.
Instead, I pick up my jacket.
I tell myself I’m taking her to dinner because it’s her birthday and our work anniversary. I’m going to ask a few careful questions because she shouldn’t have to make a decision this large without anyone knowing.
I won’t pressure her. I won’t interfere. I won’t cross a line.
The explanation sounds perfectly reasonable until I catch my reflection in the window.
I’m jealous of a man who doesn’t exist yet.
And I already know I’m not going to stand quietly by while she chooses him.