The contracted wife who left first

Elias sat in his office, the skyline stretching endlessly behind him.

He hadn't moved in nearly twenty minutes.

The contract lay on the desk in front of him, untouched since Madeline dropped it off along with a folded drawing she'd found on the boardroom floor.

He hadn't expected to open the envelope and see that.

A child's drawing.

Simple. Unfinished. Innocent.

A woman labelled Mommy. A boy with a wild smile. A sun too bright. The kind of picture most people would glance at, smile, and move on.

But not Elias.

Not when the boy had his eyes.

He knew those eyes.

Knew the exact shade of green—deep, mossy, rare. The same shade he saw every morning in the mirror and had once watched in Aria's face when she traced his cheek in the dark and said, "You don't even realize how much of yourself you keep locked away."

He had looked at that picture for a long time.

And now, he couldn't stop thinking.

The boy looked about four.

Which would mean—

Three years ago.

The timing matched.

He exhaled slowly, leaning back in his chair, gaze hardening.

Aria Collins.

She had walked out of his life with nothing but a sharp goodbye and a torn contract—divorcing him as if it hadn't cost her everything. He hadn't stopped her. He couldn't. Back then, he thought letting her go was mercy. He couldn't be what she wanted. Couldn't give her the emotional openness she deserved.

But if she had been pregnant...

If she had carried his child and never told him...

Something inside him cracked.

Not rage.

Not yet.

Just silence.

The kind of silence that had built empires.

The kind that watched, waited, and moved only when ready.

He rose from his chair and walked to the tall windows. The city sprawled below, busy and detached. The world still moved even when his didn't.

He had questions now.

Questions that no business merger could answer.

He tapped a number on his phone. Madeline picked up on the first ring.

"Yes, Mr. Blackwood?"

"Find out where Aria Collins is staying. Discreetly."

A pause. Then, "Yes, sir."

"Don't let it trace back to us."

"Understood."

He hung up and stared at the phone in his hand for a second longer than necessary.

He didn't know what he was going to do with the information. Confront her? Demand a paternity test? Invite her for coffee and pretend not to know?

None of it fit.

He wasn't a man who chased. Not anymore.

But he also wasn't a man who let what was his disappear without reason.

He returned to his desk and opened the folder Aria had handed him.

Her notes were meticulous.

Precise.

Professional.

But even in the clean lines and structured annotations, he could see her. The way her mind worked. The way she cared—quietly, with restraint, but deeply.

She had always been that way.

When they were married, she would make tea she didn't drink just because he liked the smell. She bought books she never read just to place them on the shelves in his office. She never demanded attention, never pried into his past, never tried to fix him.

She just stayed.

Until she didn't.

He had been cold, yes.

But she had shut the door.

Now, it was open again.

And he didn't know what scared him more—the idea of her having his child and not telling him…

Or the possibility that she had every reason not to.

His office door opened without a knock. Only one person dared that.

"Madeline," he said without turning.

She stepped in, hesitated, and then said, "Are you okay?"

He turned slightly, lifting a brow. "Since when do you ask me that?"

She sighed. "Since I found you staring at a child's drawing for twenty minutes."

He didn't answer.

She took a few cautious steps forward, her heels soft against the marble. "It's his, isn't it?"

His jaw tensed. "I don't know."

"Elias…"

"I said I don't know."

Madeline crossed her arms. "You do know. You just don't want to say it out loud."

He shot her a sharp look. "And what would saying it change?"

"It would make it real."

He let out a quiet breath and finally said, "It already is."

Madeline softened. "You want to talk to her?"

"She won't tell me what I want to know."

"You haven't asked."

"She didn't tell me she was pregnant, Madeline. She didn't tell me I had a son."

His voice was low, edged with disbelief more than anger.

"I know," Madeline said gently. "But you weren't exactly… someone easy to tell things to back then."

He blinked.

"Maybe she thought you wouldn't want it. Or wouldn't care."

"I would have cared," he said, barely audible.

Madeline nodded. "I know. But did she know that?"

Silence filled the space again. Then Elias spoke, voice distant. "He looks just like me."

Madeline smiled faintly. "That's not a bad thing."

"It is if he's spent his whole life thinking he doesn't have a father."

"You can change that."

"How?"

"By showing up."

He didn't answer. But his eyes were no longer hard.

They were… uncertain.

Later that evening, Elias found himself in the private gym inside the Blackwood Tower. He rarely used it, but tonight, the pent-up questions pulsing through his body needed somewhere to go.

He hit the bag again and again.

Not with anger.

With control.

He'd learned long ago that power wasn't in emotion—it was in restraint.

Still, his thoughts spiraled.

He remembered the last time he saw Aria before the divorce.

She'd stood in the rain, suitcase by her side, eyes hollow.

"I'm not walking away to hurt you," she had said. "I'm walking away because I'm tired of hurting myself."

He hadn't replied.

He'd let her go.

Maybe he had convinced himself that if she ever needed him, she'd come back.

She had.

But not for him.

She'd come for business.

And now, she'd brought secrets with her.

He stopped hitting the bag, breath steady, chest rising and falling.

There were too many unknowns.

He wasn't a man who acted on feelings.

He was a strategist.

He would approach this the way he did everything else.

Deliberately.

Patiently.

But he would know the truth.

Not just about the boy.

But about why Aria had chosen silence over everything they once shared.

And if that boy was his son…

He wouldn't let him grow up thinking his father was just a man in a drawing with matching eyes and no name.