Page 56 of Adonis: The Cost of a Billionaire's Heart
That was the fifty-thousand-dollar question. Could I forgive the coldness of the jet? The dismissal? The way he made me feel like nothing more than a business transaction gone wrong? The way he allowed me to feel like a liar when he had secrets he’d kept too?
But then I remembered other things too. The way he looked at me when I blabbed on and on about Mase. How he held me like I was a precious jewel. The medical bills that were stamped “paid in full.” The vulnerability it must have cost him to come to my apartment despite the lingering paparazzi outside.
I picked up the contract again and finally opened it. Inside was a single page—not the dense legalese of our previous agreement, but a simple statement written in his strong handwriting:
I promise to love you both, protect you both, and choose you both every day for as long as you’ll have me. No conditions. No expiration date. Just us.
It was signed with his name. No corporate logo. No notary seal. Just his scribbled signature, bold and permanent.
My hands shook as I set it down. It was everything I’d ever wanted and everything that terrified me too.
“What does it say, Mommy?” Mason inquired, crawling into my lap, looking at the paper with curiosity.
I sighed. “It’s way past your bedtime, kiddo. I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“Tell me now.”
“If I tell you, will you go brush your teeth?”
He nodded eagerly. “Mm-hmm.”
“Okay. It says he wants to be part of our family.”
Mason’s eyes widened. “Like a daddy?”
The question hit me like a physical blow. We’d never talked about his father. He’d never known what it was like to have a father figure. The last thing I wanted was for him to get wind of the Jadarius drama before I had a chance to sort out my feelings about it.
“Maybe. Someday. If that’s what we all want,” I answered.
He squirmed off my lap and ran to the bathroom to hold up his end of our deal. I heard him running the water and the whirring of his electric toothbrush before he returned with the LEGO rocket kit that arrived earlier.
“Can we build it together? All of us?” Mason requested.
It was such a simple, yet enormous question.
I looked at him, the beautiful, brilliant little human who deserved everything I couldn’t give him alone, then at the contract that promised what I’d stopped believing was possible.
“Do you like Mr. H?” I asked him softly.
He nodded without hesitation. “He’s nice with a cool house. And sad. And he brought me a rocket.”
I chuckled—such simple criteria for acceptance from a four-year-old. I wished I could trust so easily. But maybe—just maybe—I could learn to.
I stood up, smoothing my wrinkled T-shirt, running fingers through my tangled hair. It’d been over an hour. There was a high chance he was probably gone.No CEO waits this long on a dirty hallway floor.
But when I opened the door, he was there, sitting against the wall, tie loosened, expensive suit wrinkled, eyes closed. He looked exhausted. Human. Real. He jolted awake at the sound of the door and scrambled to his feet. His eyes found mine, filled with a hope so fragile it broke my heart.
“Hi,” I said softly.
“Hi,” he replied, voice rough from sleep and waiting.
Mason peeked out from behind me with his rocket kit clutched to his chest.
“Thank you for my present,” he acknowledged shyly.
The surprise and warmth that flooded his face were answer enough. “You’re welcome,” he replied, crouching down to Mason’s level. “I thought maybe we could build it together sometime.”
My son looked up at me, questioning. Waiting.
