“Diwa.” Her voice was quiet. Her hand came to rest against his forearm. “We’ve had a lot of differences, the two of us. We’ve always butted heads.”
He looked at her hand on his arm. Her fingers were slim, her nails neat. These hands had gotten him through a lot over the years.
“Lakan and Mutya were always straightforward to deal with. They’re smart.Verysmart, like you. But they stay within the box. They were always straightforward. Always did well in school because they knew how to take a test. They follow the line.” Her thumb pressed once against his wrist. “You never did. The number of times I was called to your school because you corrected a teacher or argued a point.” She shook her head. “Every single time, I’d sit in that office thinking,he’s right, but I can’t tell them that.”
Diwa’s throat closed.
“And I am so glad, Diwa.” Her voice cracked on his name, and she didn’t try to control it. “So glad that you’re a man who sees what he wants, and goes for it. Because if you weren’t, I don’t think I’d ever have seen you this happy.” She took in a deep breath, like she was holding back tears. “Seeing you on that stage with Colin, singing that terrible song — it made me so happy.”
He put his arm around his mother as she tucked herself against his side. Colin’s voice found him then.You’ve got two billion fucking dollars, Diwa. Who says you can’t do anything?
He’d been carrying the germ of an idea since that night. But he’d been so focused on giving his omega the best possible version of this trip that he hadn’t let himself sit in the discomfort of that reality. That he was still a very rich man even though he’d been cut off from what he saw as his source of power.
“Mama.” His voice came out rougher than he’d intended. “My life is good. It’s as close to perfect as I think I can possiblyget it. But I need to do something about Orthos. The workers. The fucking awful settlement. I need your help.”
Maria Lucia lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him.
“I wrote what I did,” she said, “because I wanted you to hear it from me before others who cared less about you started asking the hard questions.” Her voice was steady. “I thought if the message came from your mother, in a form you could sit with and re-read, you’d have time to think about it properly. On your own terms. But I was too late. The journalists got there first, and by then the essay looked like a pile-on instead of a warning.”
Diwa nodded. “I think I always knew that.” He couldn’t have said it six months ago, but Colin had cured him of the need to always dress things up. “But I needed to be angry at someone other than myself while I figured out what to do. And you were right there, Mama. You’d put your name on it. It was easier to be angry with you than to really think about how I’d built something that hurt people.”
Maria Lucia’s eyes were bright. She didn’t reach for him or try to soothe his pain, she just let his admission of fault sit there out in the open between them.
“What do you need,anak?”
Diwa turned his palm up on the armrest between them, and his mother’s hand settled into it, her fingers fitting against his the way they’d done when he was still small enough to need to be led across a road.
“I want to pay them directly. Every worker on the Manila and Lagos teams. Not fifty thousand through a gagging clause. They need to get what they’re actually owed. Retroactive hazard pay, the mental health fund, all of it. Out of my own equity.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Colin told me I don’t need a board seat to do the right thing. I just need to stop feeling sorry for myself long enough to pick up the phone, and he’s not wrong.”
“No, he’s not,” Maria Lucia agreed.
“But I don’t know how to structure it all. I don’t know about the legal implications, the tax implications across four jurisdictions, the mechanisms for reaching workers who’ve already signed NDAs under the board’s settlement. I don’t know any of that, Mama. What I know is RLHF and how to make a room full of venture capitalists feel clever for giving me their money.”
“I’ll make some calls,” his mother said. “I know people at ILO Geneva. And there’s a labour rights clinic at UP Law that’s been doing cross-border worker compensation cases for the last decade. We’ll need Ezra, too. He’s still inside Orthos, yes?”
Diwa nodded.
“Good.” She squeezed his hand. “We’ll figure it out.”
They talked well into the night, until the hotel lobby below them emptied, Maria Lucia’s pen moving across the back of a drinks menu as she sketched out the architecture of what Diwa’s money could do when it was pointed at the right thing.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Diwaleft the Greenhills house at eight in the morning and came back at six. Colin knew the pattern by now. Two days of it, and the rhythm of his alpha at work had established itself: the early alarm, the shower running while Colin was still half-asleep, then the kiss pressed to the top of his head that Diwa thought was too soft to wake him.
The meetings involved a lot of tastefully suited men and women who arrived in chauffeured cars. Colin watched them from the veranda the first morning, their pressed linens and silk blouses immaculate, not a bead of sweat among them, and felt personally victimised by the climate all over again.
He knew what the meetings were about. Diwa hadn’t given him a briefing, but Colin had ears and a functioning brain. His alpha was making amends. The kind that cost money and required careful business manoeuvring.
In the meantime, the de la Vegas kept Colin occupied, whisking him away to sights close to Manila. No one mentionedOrthos. They just kept him company, folding him into family gatherings without ceremony.
Diwa came through the bedroom door at half six on the second evening looking like someone had run him through a wringer and ironed him flat afterwards. His shirt was still tucked in but his eyes were glazed over.
Colin pulled Diwa’s shirt over his head. His alpha’s skin was warm and faintly damp. He led Diwa back onto the bed. Diwa went, his hands finding Colin’s hips out of habit as Colin straddled his lap, settling his weight across Diwa’s thighs. Colin could feel him hardening already, his cock thickening against Colin’s arse through the thin cotton of Diwa’s trousers, and Colin rolled his hips once, slow, pressing down into it.
Diwa’s hands tightened. “Colin —”
“Shh.” Colin tugged his alpha’s trousers open one-handed, his mouth working at the nape of Diwa’s neck, and took him in hand properly. “Let me.”
