[Serena’s POV]
The email is clinical. Professional. Exactly what our communications have been for weeks, while I and Aria moved back to our place, trying to rebuild it into the safe space it once been.
From: Caspian Rothwell
Subject: Audit Findings Discussion
Need to discuss audit findings.
Thursday, 7 PM, address attached.
I assume it's his office. Maybe a conference room. Neutral territory where we can maintain the careful distance that's kept us both functioning.
The address registers as Manhattan, Midtown. I don't look closer. Don't need to. Just another meeting in the endless series of meetings where we pretend the air between us isn't combustible.
Thursday arrives. I dress in my armor—tailored blazer, hair pulled back, the version of myself that doesn't feel anything. Maya watches me from the couch where Aria is reading beside her.
"You okay?"
"It's just work."
"Right. Work." She doesn't believe me. "You've been doing your makeup for twenty minutes."
I look down at the lipstick in my hand. Deep red. Not my usual professional shade. When did I even pick this?
"It's nothing."
"Sure." Maya's tone is too knowing. "Have fun at your work meeting."
The address leads me to a restaurant I've only read about. The kind of place where reservations require six months' notice and connections I don't have. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the city, making Manhattan look like scattered diamonds against velvet darkness.
This isn't his office.
Fury ignites in my chest. Hot and immediate. This is manipulation. A power play dressed up as sophistication. He's trying to control the narrative, force me into a setting where I'm off-balance, where the romance of the location does his emotional labor for him.
I should leave. Should turn around and walk out before anyone seats me. Text him that this is unacceptable, that we communicate professionally or not at all.
But then I see him.
He's at a table by the windows. The only table, I realize. The entire section has been reserved, closed off from other diners. Private. Intimate in a way that makes my skin feel too tight.
He stands when he sees me. The movement is automatic, instinctive. And his face—
Not smug. Not the controlled CEO mask or the debate hall arrogance. Nervous. Actually, visibly nervous in a way I've never seen him. His hand flexes at his side like he wants to reach for something but doesn't know what.
I should still leave. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, to maintain the distance that's kept me safe. But my feet carry me forward anyway. Toward him. Toward whatever trap this is.
"Serena." My name in his mouth does something to my pulse. "Thank you for coming."
"You said we were discussing the audit." My voice is cold. Controlled. Everything my racing heart isn't. "This doesn't look like a conference room."
"No." He gestures to the chair across from him. Doesn't try to touch me, doesn't move to pull it out. Just offers. "It's not."
"So this is what? Ambush by candlelight?"
Something flickers across his face. Pain, maybe. "I'm not trying to trick you."
"Then what are you trying to do?"
He's quiet for a long moment. Long enough that I become aware of my own breathing, of the way my hands have curled into fists at my sides. Of how badly I want to leave and how desperately I want to stay.
"I wanted to have one conversation where we're not in a conference room or fighting over email." His voice is rough. Unguarded in a way that sends warning signals through my nervous system. "Where we're just... two people who used to know each other. Please."
The ‘please’ breaks something in me. Some carefully maintained wall that's been holding back the truth that I'm exhausted. That having lived at Maya's apartment, having slept on an air mattress, maintaining this cold war while my daughter asks why we can't see him—it's killing me.
But admitting that feels like surrender.
"We're not just two people." I force the words past the constriction in my throat. "We're—"
"I know what we are." He's still standing. Still waiting for me to sit or leave, to make the choice he's refusing to make for me. "Parents. Former rivals. People who've hurt each other. But maybe we could also be two people having dinner. Just for an hour. No legal papers. No custody arrangements. Just... dinner."
The vulnerability in his voice is a weapon I don't know how to defend against. Because this—this rawness, this admission of want without demand—is something I've never experienced from him.
Against every instinct, every lesson learned from years of being disappointed by men, I sit.
His exhale is audible. Relief so palpable I feel it in my own chest.
He sits across from me, and suddenly the table feels too small. The space between us charged with everything we're not saying. Everything we've been carefully not saying for weeks.
A waiter appears with wine. Expensive. Red. My favorite varietal from Columbia, the one I could never afford but splurged on once after winning a major debate. How does he remember that?
"I haven't ordered yet," Caspian says, watching my face. "Thought you might want to choose."
It's such a small thing. Such a tiny concession of control. But it lodges in my chest like something sharp and warm simultaneously.
"Why?" The question escapes before I can contain it. "Why this? Why now?"
He's quiet, fingers tracing the stem of his wine glass. When he finally looks at me, there's something in his grey eyes that makes my breath catch.
"Because I'm tired of fighting you when what I want is to know you." The confession is raw. Unpolished. "I've spent weeks trying to do the right thing—give you space, respect your boundaries, communicate only when necessary. And it's destroying me."
"Caspian—"
"Let me finish. Please." He leans forward slightly. Not invading my space, just... closing distance. "I know I fucked up. The custody filing, the way I've handled this entire situation. I've been operating from fear disguised as strategy. Trying to control something I have no right to control."
My throat is too tight to speak.
"But sitting in that cold war with you, watching you pull further away, knowing my daughter is asking why she can't see me—" His voice cracks slightly. "I can't keep doing it. So I'm asking. Not demanding, not filing papers, just asking. Can we try something different? Even if it's just for tonight?"
The honesty in his words is terrifying. Because it mirrors everything I've been feeling and refusing to acknowledge. The exhaustion of maintaining walls. The loneliness of fighting alone. The way Aria's questions about him cut deeper each time because I don't have good answers anymore.
"You dropped the custody petition." I hear myself say it. Watch his face carefully for deception.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Sebastian told me something that stuck." He takes a drink, and I watch his throat work. "He said I was trying to control the situation instead of earning my place in it. That legal documents wouldn't make me Aria's father. Only showing up would. Only proving I deserve to be there."
The admission costs him. I see it in the tension around his eyes, the way his hand tightens on the glass.
"And you think dinner will prove that?"
"No." He meets my gaze directly. Unflinching. "I think dinner is me admitting I don't know what I'm doing. That I'm terrified of failing her. Of failing you. That every instinct I have says to build structure and control outcomes, but what I actually need is to be honest. With you. With myself."
The words settle between us like something fragile. Breakable. Beautiful in its vulnerability.
I should still leave. Should protect myself from the inevitable disappointment when he reverts to type. When the fear becomes too much and he runs again, the way he ran that graduation night.
But his hand is resting on the table between us. Not reaching. Not demanding. Just existing in the space we're both occupying. And I remember Sebastian's words: He's terrified of being the kind of father our dad was.
Maybe fear isn't weakness. Maybe it's proof he cares enough to be scared.
"One dinner." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "No promises beyond that."
"One dinner." He nods. Something in his expression eases. "That's all I'm asking."