“Thank you for coming,” he said, and it wasn’t polite. It was real.
I nodded, hands pressed together in my lap. “It’s o-okay.”
“I’ll get to the point,” he said.
I blinked.
Right. Of course. Businessman.
“I built something,” he said. “You know that.”
I frowned a little. “Lockhart Global.”
He watched my face when I said it.
“A shipping and logistics network,” he said. “Ports. Freight. Supply chain control on three continents. It’s… large.” He said it like that. Large. Like calling an ocean ‘a puddle’. “Worth more than I could explain to you over a single dinner.”
My brows knit. I didn’t say anything.
He drew a slow breath. His eyes flicked toward the window. “I continued building it from my own father’s wreckage,” he said. “I built it up with every hour I had. I built it with every favour, every contact, every risk. I missed dinners. I missed birthdays.I missed my own son’s firsts. And I told myself it was justified because I was building him a future.”
His jaw tightened for a second.
“And I wanted,” he said quietly, “to give Sofia a life surrounded by safety and comfort. So she’d never have to worry again.”
He exhaled, and this time it hurt to hear.
“I forgot,” he said slowly, “that she didn’t want marble and glass. She wanted me.”
Something in my throat pinched.
He didn’t look at me when he said, even softer, “By the time I realised, she was gone.”
He swallowed as if it burned. Then, finally, he looked at me again. His gaze was steady.
“I know what my son believes about me,” he said. “And I won’t insult you by pretending he’s wrong. I was not there. I was not kind. I was not a good husband, and I was worse as a father. I am not asking you to fix that.”
I blinked.
Oh.
He leaned back a fraction. The CEO crept back into his posture, not cold, just… controlled.
“But I am asking you for something,” he said.
I straightened a little.
He watched me for a moment, studying. “Joshua,” he said quietly, “is clinging to an orphanage that bears his mother’s name like it’s the only thing he’s allowed to love.”
Sofia’s orphanage.
The one he and his aunt run.
The one he fights with his dad about.
“He’s turned his grief into purpose,” John said. “And I respect that. God knows, if Sofia could see him now, she’d be proud ofhim. She’d be proud of the way he throws himself into those kids and that place. She’d be proud that he is soft with people who need softness.” His voice dropped. “He gets that from her. Not me.”
I pressed my lips together.
