You Told Me to Abort Her, Now She Calls Your Rival Daddy

I was working past midnight at Reed Group because my five-year-old daughter's next allergy injections cost $840, and I could not afford to lose the job.

Five years earlier, Lucas Reed had handed me money and told me to end our pregnancy, never knowing I kept the baby and disappeared.

So when Lily somehow walked into his executive boardroom carrying burnt bear cookies, every instinct in me screamed to get her out.

Lucas called her a stray.

His fiancee called her a dirty little beggar.

I lowered my head, apologized, and pulled Lily against my chest before either of them could study her face too closely.

Then the elevator doors started closing, and Lily looked back.

Same pale grey-blue eyes as Lucas.

Same lifted left brow.

Lucas went silent.

I knew that look.

Suspicion.

I tightened my arms around the daughter he once paid to erase and got us out before he could ask the question I had spent five years avoiding.

***

POV: Claire

A dull, gnawing cramp tore through Claire’s stomach, forcing her to press a hand against her ribs.

She hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning. The quarterly audit for the Reed Group’s retail division was due at dawn, and three separate spreadsheets still refused to balance. Every dollar in her checking account had a name, and none of them belonged to lunch.

Lily’s next round of imported allergy injections was due on Friday.

Eight hundred and forty dollars.

Claire stared at the flickering monitor, her vision blurring behind cheap reading glasses. Even with overtime, her junior analyst salary barely covered the rent on their cramped Queens apartment and Lily’s medical treatments. If she asked for an advance, HR would flag her file. If she failed this audit, she wouldn't have a job at all.

Her phone buzzed violently against the metal desk, vibrating across the laminate finish.

Claire jumped, glancing around the quiet floor. Most of the finance department had gone home hours ago. She clicked the screen on, expecting another automated overdraft warning.

Instead, a string of frantic texts from Mrs. Gable, her elderly neighbor, filled the screen.

*Claire, pick up! Lily slipped out!*

*I was hanging the laundry in the hall. She was right there playing with her blocks, and then the front door was open.*

*The super said he saw her slip onto the Reed employee shuttle that stops near our block. He thought she was with one of the night staff. Claire, she took her little backpack. She told him she was going to the glass castle to bring Mommy a surprise!*

Claire’s heart stopped.

The glass castle. That was what she called the Reed Tower whenever Lily asked where she went every morning.

The sixty-story corporate headquarters sat in the dead center of Manhattan, surrounded by eight-lane traffic and swarming crowds.

Claire shoved her chair back so hard it slammed into the partition. She didn't bother grabbing her coat or logging out of the terminal. She sprinted toward the bank of elevators, her chest burning with pure panic.

***

The elevator opened onto the executive floor. Claire sprinted around the corner and reached the boardroom just as the heavy frosted doors clicked open. The overnight audit had temporarily left the executive elevator in service mode for finance runners, and no receptionist was at the desk to stop the small figure slipping through.

It wasn't an assistant.

A tiny girl walked into the executive suite. She couldn't have been more than five years old. She wore faded denim overalls, light-up sneakers that squeaked with every step, and a bright pink backpack shaped like a rabbit. In her small hands, she proudly cradled a clear plastic container filled with slightly burnt animal cookies.

The executives froze in terror.

Lucas stared down at the intruder, his dark brows drawing into a sharp, incredulous line. "What is this?"

Lily didn't flinch. She stopped two feet from the imposing desk, tilted her head back, and looked up at the towering man in the bespoke three-piece suit.

She wrinkled her small nose.

"You're very loud," Lily announced, her sweet, childish voice cutting through the suffocating tension of the room. "And you shouldn't shout at people. It's not polite."

The room seemed to lose all oxygen. The vice president of operations looked like he was about to pass out.

Lucas stepped forward, looking down at the child as if she were an alien species that had dropped through the ceiling. "Who let you up here?"

Lily didn't answer. She squinted, studying his sharp jawline and icy expression, before her eyes widened with sudden recognition.

"I know you," she said, pointing a sticky finger at him. "You're the vampire man from the TV."

Lucas went completely still. "Excuse me?"

"The cold-blooded vampire boss," Lily repeated innocently, puffing out her chest. "Mommy says you don't sleep because you have rocks where your heart should be. You keep her working until the stars come out, and that makes her tummy hurt. You're mean."

"Lily!"

The scream came from the doorway.

Claire burst into the boardroom, her face pale as ash, her chest heaving as she fought for breath.

Then she saw who was standing over her daughter.

Lucas Reed.

Claire’s entire body went cold. The room spun around her. For five years, she had buried the memory of that single, reckless night in a Boston hotel, a night fueled by grief, whiskey, and the desperate touch of a stranger whose full identity and power she hadn't understood until his face plastered every financial magazine in the country months later.

She had left the hotel that morning. She had never asked for a dime. For the past month, she had hidden in the lower ranks of his corporate empire just to survive, praying their paths would never cross.

And now, her daughter was standing inches from him.

"Mommy!" Lily beamed, waving the container. "Look! Mrs. Gable helped me bake the bears for you!"

Lucas turned his head. His cold, slate-grey eyes locked onto Claire.

His gaze raked over her: the faded poly-blend uniform blouse, the scuffed flat shoes, the cheap company lanyard hanging around her neck. There was zero recognition in his eyes, only disgust and lethal authority.

"You work here," Lucas said, his tone dropping below freezing.

Claire didn't hesitate. She lunged forward, sliding between Lucas and Lily, scooping the little girl into her arms and burying Lily's face into her shoulder. She kept her head down, staring fixedly at the polished floorboards.

"I am so sorry, Mr. Reed," Claire gasped, her voice trembling violently despite her desperate efforts to steady it. "I am so, so sorry."

"Is this company a daycare?" Lucas stepped closer, his imposing shadow completely engulfing her. "How did an unsupervised stray bypass security and enter the executive floor?"

"She's not a stray!" Lily muffled into Claire's shoulder, wiggling to turn around. "Mommy, tell him..."

"Hush, baby, please," Claire whispered desperately, tightening her grip until her knuckles turned white. She bowed her head deeper, hiding her profile behind a curtain of loose hair. "She's my daughter, sir. The sitter lost track of her on the street. It was a terrible mistake. It will never happen again."

"You're right," Lucas said mercilessly. "It won't. Security will escort you both off the executive floor. Report to HR first thing tomorrow."

"Wait, Lucas, darling, what is that awful smell?"

The sharp click of designer stilettos preceded Amanda Vance into the room. Lucas’s fiancée stepped through the doorway, draped in a cream cashmere coat, a diamond tennis bracelet glittering at her wrist.

Amanda glanced at Claire and Lily, her nose wrinkling in instant revulsion. She pulled a silk handkerchief from her purse, dabbing it near her nose as if the air itself had been contaminated.

"Security!" Amanda snapped toward the open corridor. "Why are these filthy lower-level people allowed in the executive suite? Get this dirty little beggar and her mother out of here right now. She’s getting crumbs on the carpet."

Claire didn't wait for the guards.

She didn't argue. She didn't fight for her job. The only instinct screaming in her mind was survival. She had to get Lily away from this building, away from Amanda, and most of all, away from Lucas.

"I'm leaving," Claire choked out. "We're leaving."

Clutching Lily against her chest, Claire turned and bolted toward the private elevator lobby.

"Mommy, my cookies!" Lily cried, looking over Claire’s shoulder as they rushed through the double doors.

As the elevator doors began to slide shut, Claire glanced back. Lily scowled over her shoulder in fierce childish defiance, raising her left eyebrow in that sharp, stubborn slant Claire knew so well.

The light caught Lily’s pale grey-blue eyes.

Lucas was staring straight at them. His breath hitched, and his jaw tightened until the muscle ticked.

"Lucas?" Amanda's sweet, practiced voice drifted toward him, her hand coming to rest on his tailored sleeve. "Darling, are you listening to me? I told the caterers to change the champagne for the gala..."

Lucas did not look away before the metal doors sealed shut.

Claire tightened her arms around Lily.

He had noticed.