[Caspian’s POV]
3:47 AM. I’ve stared at my ceiling for hours, watching shadows drift across a penthouse that feels mausoleum-empty.
I should be working. Acquisition docs, projections, fires to put out. Instead I’m researching a six-year-old girl with the same grey eyes. With the same birthmark.
I’ve pulled everything I can without raising flags. Birth records, school forms, medical notes. A child born February 2018. Nine months after graduation.
Nine months after the night I’ve tried—and failed—not to remember.
The taste of cheap champagne on her lips. The way she looked at me in the darkness of that dorm room—not with the usual combative fire, but with something rawer. Vulnerable.
Like she'd finally stopped fighting long enough to want something just for herself.
She was fierce. Fucking perfect. The way she moved on top of me, her hands braced against my chest, her breath catching when I said her name like a prayer I'd been holding for years.
Every touch felt like winning and losing simultaneously. Like finally catching something I'd been chasing and knowing I had no right to keep it.
I fled before dawn. Walked out while she was still sleeping, her silky dark hair spilled across the pillow, one hand curled near her face like a child's.
And eventually I'd left the medallion—not intentionally, just in my cowardly rush to escape before she woke and we had to acknowledge what we'd done. Before I had to see regret in her eyes, hatred.
Now I know she kept it. Carried it for seven years. And I don't know if that makes it better or infinitely worse. Winning and losing at once.
Aria. Her name is Aria.
Serena’s mind lives in her, brutal honesty and problem-solving. But the eyes, the birthmark, the smug victory smile… Those are mine.
My daughter doesn’t know I’m her father.
The thought is a weight on my chest.
Six years of missed birthdays. Of scraped knees I didn’t bandage. Of stories I didn’t read. All while I built an empire and pretended that night didn’t matter. That it won’t change anything anyway.
Why didn’t Serena tell me? She had to know after seeing those eyes, that mark. One call—’You have a daughter, asshole’—would have been enough.
Instead: radio silence.
Anger burns, and under it terror. I never planned for children. I don’t know how to be a father. Mine is a ledger—affection paid for in achievement, revoked for failure.
Is that who I’ll be? The idea makes me sick.
I need to talk to someone. But it’s nearly four a.m., and the list of people I trust with this is exactly one name long.
I text my brother. Me: Need to talk now if possible.
His response comes faster than expected.
Sebastian: It's 4 AM. This better be good. My office at 7.
* * *
The Rothwell building rises in Midtown like a monument to inherited wealth. Sebastian occupied it, stepped into the corner office our father vacated like it was always waiting for him. Which, of course, it was.
First-born golden boy, heir apparent from birth and all.
I shouldn't be bitter. It's not his fault he was born first. That he got the company and the approval and the easy path. While I had to claw my way to something that would make me matter.
But I am. I'm bitter about all of it.
He's already in his office when I arrive, coffee waiting, tie not yet straightened. Sebastian in the early morning is the closest he gets to human—less polished, more real.
"This better be worth sacrificing my morning run," he says, gesturing to the chair across from him.
I sit. Stare at my hands. Try to figure out how to say this and start. "Hypothetically—"
"Oh good, we're doing hypotheticals." His tone is dry. "Always a sign of excellent decision-making."
"Hypothetically. If someone discovered they had a child they didn't know about—"
"Is this about you or actually ‘hypothetical’?"
"Does it matter?"
Sebastian studies me with the particular intensity of someone who's known me my entire life. "If it's you, then yes. It matters a great deal."
So I told him. Not everything—not Serena's name, not the specific details that would identify her. But enough. The one-night stand seven years ago. The girl with my eyes and birthmark. The mother who never told me.
"And you're sure she's yours?" Sebastian asks when I'm done.
"Yes."
"But you haven't confirmed with the mother."
"No."
"Why not?"
Because I'm terrified? Because Serena looks at me like I'm still the enemy? And learning I'm Aria's father might make that worse?
Because I don't know how to be what they need. And confirming it makes it real in a way I can't take back.
"I don't know," I say instead.
Sebastian leans back, and I brace for judgment. For the lecture about responsibility, about consequences. Instead, he says: "You're not ready to be a father."
The words hit like a physical blow. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"I'm being honest because no one else will be." His voice is flat, matter-of-fact. "You're brilliant at business, mediocre at relationships, and you've spent your entire life proving you're worth Dad's attention. You don't know how to give someone unconditional anything because you've never received it."
"Jesus, Seb—"
"I'm not done." He holds up a hand. "The mother, whoever she is, had reasons for not telling you. Maybe they're good reasons. Maybe they're selfish reasons. But she's the one who's been there. Who raised this child for six years alone. Whatever her motivations, she did the work."
The implication stings. That I'm less important. Less essential.
An afterthought to the real parent who matters.
"So what am I supposed to do?" The question comes out raw. "Just accept that I've missed six years?"
"No. You're supposed to think before you act. You're supposed to understand that barging in with demands and anger will destroy whatever chance you have at actually knowing your daughter." He pauses. "If she's your daughter."
"She is."
"Then start by talking to the mother. Not interrogating, not accusing. Understanding why she made the choice she made. And maybe, maybe, accepting that you would have made a terrible father years ago."
The truth of it settles in my chest like a stone. He's right.
I was twenty-three, arrogant, consumed with proving myself. I would have resented the obligation, the way it complicated my trajectory. Would have tried to do the right thing and failed at it spectacularly.
But that doesn't make the loss hurt less.
"Think first, act later," Sebastian says, standing. "For once in your life, Cas, be strategic about something that matters more than winning."
I should leave. Should take his advice and go. But the words stuck in my throat force their way out. "What if I can't do it? What if I'm just... him?"
Sebastian goes very still. "You're afraid you'll make her earn your love."
Not a question. A statement.
"I'm afraid I don't know how to give it any other way." The admission tastes like failure. "Every relationship I've had has been transactional. Performance-based. What if that's all I'm capable of?"
"Then you fuck up, you apologize, and try again." Sebastian's voice softens slightly, which somehow makes it worse. "That's what being a parent is—showing up even when you're terrified you're doing it wrong."
The implication cuts deep. That maybe she looked at me, at who I was, who I am, and decided her daughter was better off without me.
"You think she was right… To keep it from me."
"I think," Sebastian says, finally standing, "that you need to earn the right to that answer. Not demand it."