Chapter 3 - The Ghost at the Door
The rain started around midnight, tapping a restless rhythm against the glass of my Brooklyn bedroom window.
I had finally gotten Noah, Ivy, and Owen to sleep after hours of reading fairy tales and answering endless questions about why a strange man in the park had looked at us with tears in his eyes.
I sat at the small wooden kitchen table, a mug of cold chamomile tea between my hands, staring at the darkened living room. My chest ached. Seeing Sebastian had torn open a scar I had spent years cauterizing. He looked older, sharper, and dangerously magnetic—even wrapped in the suffocating shadow of his wealth and his new fiancée’s diamond ring.
“My grandfather knew,” he had said.
The implication hung in the air like poison. If Arthur Vale had intercepted my letters, if he had lied to Sebastian... it meant Sebastian hadn't abandoned me willingly.
No, I told myself fiercely, shaking my head as hot tears pricked my eyes. Don't do this, Maya. Don't make excuses for him. He walked away. He signed the papers.
A soft knock at the door broke the quiet of the night.
I froze.
At 1:00 AM, nobody knocked on an apartment door in Park Slope unless it was an emergency. My heart hammered against my ribs. I stood up slowly, tiptoed across the living room, and peered through the peephole.
The hallway light illuminated a broad shoulder in a dark, rain-soaked overcoat.
Sebastian.
He stood alone in the dim corridor, his head bowed, staring at the floorboards. He didn't knock again. He simply waited, breathing heavily, looking like a man standing before an executioner.
My breath caught. Panic flared in my chest.
Go away, I prayed silently. Please, just go back to Manhattan. Go back to your high-rise, your empire, and your fiancée.
Another soft knock.
“Maya,” his voice came through the wood, rough, broken, and barely audible. “I know you’re awake. Please... just open the door.”
I reached out, my fingers hovering over the deadbolt. Every instinct screamed at me to keep it locked. Sebastian Vale represented a world that had tried to crush me once before; bringing him back into our lives invited a war I wasn't equipped to fight.
Yet, as I looked toward the small bedroom where my three children were sleeping peacefully, I realized the war had already found us.
I unlocked the deadbolt with a sharp click and pulled the door open six inches.
Sebastian looked dreadful. Water dripped from his dark hair, clinging to his forehead. His tie was gone, his collar open, and his eyes—those striking, devastating gray eyes—were red-rimmed and filled with a raw, agonizing desperation I had never seen on him before.
“You shouldn't be here, Sebastian,” I said, my voice ice-cold.
“May I come in?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly. “Just for five minutes. Please, Maya. I didn't know.”
“You didn't know what?” I challenged bitterly, clutching the door edge. “That you have kids? That your grandfather is a monster? Or are you just upset that your perfectly curated life got interrupted by a ghost?”
“All of it,” he whispered, taking a half-step forward, though he respected the barrier of the door. “When I left you four years ago... I thought you hated me. I thought you took the payout because you couldn't stand the pressure of my world. Gregory told me you signed away all rights to contact. I believed him because I was arrogant, angry, and young.”
“And now?”
“Now I know the truth,” he said, looking past me into the quiet apartment, searching for any trace of the children he had missed out on for four years. “My grandfather lied to both of us. He built a wall between us, Maya. But I swear to God, I am going to tear it down brick by brick.”
“It’s too late, Sebastian,” I whispered, tears finally spilling over my lashes. “You have a fiancée. You have a dynasty. And I have three children who need stability, not a billionaire playing daddy when it suits his conscience.”
Before he could answer, a small rustle came from the hallway behind me.
Owen stood in his dinosaur pajamas, rubbing his sleepy eyes with his knuckles. He looked up at me, then peered past my shoulder at the tall stranger standing in the doorway.
“Mommy?” Owen mumbled sleepily. “Who is that?”
Sebastian stopped breathing.
His gaze dropped to the little boy, locked onto Owen’s face, tracing the identical shape of his jaw, the slope of his nose, and the unmistakable, piercing gray eyes that looked back at him.
Without asking permission, Sebastian slowly knelt down on the hallway rug, bringing himself to Owen’s eye level.
“Hi, buddy,” Sebastian whispered, his voice cracking with emotion. “I’m a friend of your mom’s.”
Owen tilted his head, studying Sebastian with the innocent curiosity of a four-year-old. Then, reaching out with a tiny hand, Owen touched the wet lapel of Sebastian’s coat.
“You’re all wet,” Owen observed. “Did you fall in the rain?”
May you like
A broken, wet laugh escaped Sebastian’s throat, and a single tear slipped down his cheek, cutting a clean path through the rain on his face.
“Yeah, buddy,” Sebastian whispered, gently wrapping his large hand around Owen’s tiny fingers. “I got caught in the storm. But I think... I think I finally found where I’m supposed to be.”
