Theo's Point of View
Time stopped when he heard her voice.
Six years disappeared. Every wall he'd built. Every moment he'd spent not thinking about her. Every careful decision he'd made to erase Sophie Mitchell from his mind came crashing down in one second.
"Theo?"
She said his name like a question. Like she wasn't sure he was real. Like she wasn't sure she wanted him to be real.
And Theo couldn't speak. He stood in his office with the Pacific Ocean behind him and felt something fundamental crack open inside his chest.
Sophie.
She was calling about a daughter.
A daughter he didn't know.
A daughter that had his genes and his blood and his responsibility and he hadn't even known she existed for seven years.
Seven years.
Theo listened to her explain about chest pain and a hospital and medical history and the whole time his brain was doing calculations it had never had to do before. A seven-year-old daughter meant she was born seven years ago which meant he'd left Chicago roughly eight years ago which meant he'd gotten Sophie pregnant the last time he'd seen her.
The last time he'd seen her, she'd told him she was pregnant.
He'd offered her money to make it go away.
He'd offered her money to terminate parental rights.
He'd offered her everything except what she'd actually asked for, which was him. And when she'd refused his money, he'd just disappeared. He'd gone back to Malibu and built his empire and pretended that some part of his life didn't exist.
Except it did exist.
It existed in the form of a seven-year-old girl named Lily who was in a hospital with chest pain and cardiac concerns and he knew nothing about her.
Sophie sounded calm when she told him about the medical history. Professional. Like she was calling her insurance company instead of the man who'd destroyed her. But underneath that calm voice, Theo could hear the terror. He could hear the way she was holding it together by force of will alone.
She was terrified and she was asking him for help and she was doing it like she expected him to say no.
"I need to get information from my doctor," he heard himself say.
He wasn't thinking. He was operating on pure instinct. On some part of him that had apparently been waiting six years for this moment.
"I'm calling my doctor right now. I'm sending you the information within thirty minutes. What else do you need?"
She said that was all. Just the medical history. Like that was the only reason she'd called. Like she didn't want anything else from him.
But then she said something about Lily being brave.
And something inside Theo, some part of his chest that had been dead for six years, started beating again.
"I'm coming to Chicago," he said.
He didn't plan to say it. The words just came out.
"What?"
"I'm coming to the hospital. I'm coming right now."
Sophie tried to argue with him. She said he didn't have to come. She said she just needed the medical information. She was giving him an out. A way to maintain the distance he'd worked so hard to establish.
Theo wasn't taking it.
"I'm coming," he said and he meant it in a way that went beyond the words. "I'm coming and I'm going to be there for my daughter."
My daughter.
He'd never said those words before. My daughter. It felt dangerous to say them out loud. Like once he said them, they became real in a way that made his entire life different.
He hung up and immediately called his doctor. He got the cardiac information. He got the family history. He sent it to Sophie's number with a message that just said it's all there.
Then he started moving.
He called Patricia and told her to cancel everything. The venture capital meeting. The board calls. Everything. Patricia started to argue but Theo cut her off. She'd worked for him long enough to know that when he made a decision, it was final.
He packed a bag in minutes. Grabbed his wallet. Left his office and took the elevator down without looking back at the ocean that had felt like his entire world this morning.
At the airport, he paid for a first-class ticket on a flight that left in two hours. He paid extra to upgrade. He paid for everything because money was the only language he spoke fluently and it was finally time to spend some of it on something that mattered.
On the plane, he sat in the dark cabin and did something he hadn't done in years.
He thought about Sophie.
Not the professional version of Sophie that had called him from a hospital. Not the version that sounded controlled and careful. He thought about the Sophie he'd known six years ago. The woman he'd met at a business conference where she'd been working as an event coordinator. The woman who'd smiled at him like he was interesting instead of just powerful. The woman he'd chased for three months because for the first time in his life, something felt important that wasn't about business.
He'd been so scared.
When she'd told him she was pregnant, he'd been terrified. Terrified that she'd trap him. Terrified that he'd have to feel things he'd spent his entire life avoiding. Terrified that loving someone that much would make him weak. So he'd offered her money instead. He'd offered her a way out that didn't include him.
She'd refused.
And instead of admitting he was scared, instead of figuring out how to be a father, he'd just left.
For six years, he'd convinced himself that was the right choice. That Sophie was probably happy without him. That Lily was probably better off not having a father at all. That some people weren't meant to be parents.
All of that was a lie.
The truth was he was a coward who'd been too scared to try.
The truth was he had a seven-year-old daughter who didn't know he existed.
The truth was that in one phone call, his perfectly structured empty life had collapsed and he'd finally felt something real.
The plane landed at eleven PM. Chicago was cold and dark and he'd never wanted to be somewhere more in his life.
He got a rental car and drove to Children's Hospital. The GPS got him there in thirty minutes. He walked through the emergency entrance still in his business suit, still carrying the weight of six years of absence.
The waiting room was almost empty. A few people sleeping in uncomfortable chairs. A woman at the desk looking tired.
And Sophie.
She was sitting in a chair next to a window, staring at nothing. Her hair was a mess. Her work clothes were wrinkled. She had dark circles under her eyes that made her look like she hadn't slept. She looked exhausted and broken and devastated.
She still looked beautiful.
When she looked up and saw him standing there, her face went through a series of emotions so fast he could barely track them. Shock. Anger. Fear. And underneath all of that, something that looked like relief but also looked like dread.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
Her voice was quiet. Like if she spoke too loud, everything would collapse.
Theo had no idea what to say. He had no idea how to explain that six years of running had suddenly felt like the biggest mistake of his life. He had no idea how to tell her that hearing about Lily had changed something fundamental inside him.
So he just walked toward her.
"I'm here for my daughter," he said.
And Sophie's face crumpled like someone had physically broken her.