Victor's POV
The boardroom felt both familiar and strange.
I wheeled myself to my usual spot at the head of the conference table, the space that had been left vacant for five years, waiting like a throne for a king who'd given up.
Laura had arrange the sitting position well, the angle giving me a commanding view of the entire room while allowing easy access to the presentation screen behind me.
The board members filed in at precisely two o'clock, and the welcome I received made something tight in my chest loosen lightly.
"Victor!" Robert Graf was the first to reach me, his handshake firm and warm. "It's damn good to have you back where you belong."
"Good to be back, Robert."
Dan Liberstein clapped me on the shoulder, his eyes bright. "The office hasn't been the same without you. Hell, the company hasn't been the same."
One by one, they greeted me. David Foster, Amy Russell, Samuel Sim, Sean Daniels...board members who'd known me before the accident, who remembered when I could walk into this room on my own two feet. But there was no pity in their eyes now. Only genuine pleasure at my return.
"Shall we get started?" I said once everyone had settled into their seats.
The meeting flowed smoothly. We discussed quarterly projections, upcoming launches, strategic initiatives for the next fiscal year. I'd spent the morning reviewing every document Laura had prepared, reacquainting myself with the rhythms of leadership I'd abandoned five years ago.
It felt good. Natural. Like slipping into a well-worn suit that still fit perfectly despite the years in storage.
"The stock performance since the gala has exceeded all projections," Amy said, pulling up a chart on the presentation screen. "We're up twenty-eight percent and holding steady. Investor confidence is at an all-time high."
"Because they see what we've always known," Robert added, his gaze fixed on me. "That Bricks and Brains is strongest with you at the helm, Victor. Your return isn't just symbolic, it's transformative."
The praise should have filled me with satisfaction. Instead, I felt empty, as if I were watching this moment from outside my own body.
"I appreciate the confidence," I said carefully. "But let's be clear, this company's success over the past five years is due to the excellent leadership team we have in place. I'm simply... returning to contribute where I can."
"Don't undersell yourself," Geofrey said. "The market responded to you, Victor. Your presence. Your vision. That's irreplaceable."
We continued for another hour, covering expansion plans, risk assessments, competitive analysis. By the time the meeting concluded, I was exhausted in a way I hadn't anticipated. Not physically, though my back ached from sitting in one position, but mentally. The constant vigilance required to project confidence, to prove I was still the man they remembered, had drained me more than I wanted to admit.
"Same time next week?" Robert asked as the board members gathered their materials.
"I'll be here," I confirmed.
After they left, I sat alone in the empty boardroom, staring at the city skyline visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sun was beginning to sink.
I'd done it. Returned to the office, led a board meeting, proved I was still capable of running my company.
So why did I feel so empty?
Emily's face flashed in my mind, the way she'd looked at me this morning when I'd announced I was going to the office. Surprised. Hopeful. Proud, maybe, though she'd tried to hide it.
"For pushing me. For not letting me hide."
The words I'd spoken to her in my office echoed back now, uncomfortable and exposing.
I glanced at my watch. Nearly four o'clock. I should go get Emily so we head home, review the evening's reports, maintain the productivity that had defined this unexpectedly successful day.
----
Its been over a week and the office had become my sanctuary again.
Emily had been right about that, at least. About needing to stop hiding. About facing the world instead of letting my disability define me.
I'd never told her that, of course. Acknowledging her influence felt too much like admitting weakness, like giving her power over me that I couldn't afford to relinquish. Our relationship remained cordial but distant...polite exchanges at breakfast, careful distance the rest of the day.
She seemed content with the arrangement. Or at least, she didn't push for more.
The week had settled into a comfortable routine. Mornings at the office, evenings reviewing reports in my study while Emily tended to Lily and her mother. Separate lives under the same roof, exactly as our contract stipulated.
It was functional. Efficient.Safe.
Tonight was no different. I'd returned from the office around five, taken dinner in my study, and now sat with my laptop open, reviewing the quarterly projections Laura had sent over. The numbers were good, better than good. We were positioned for significant growth in the next fiscal year.
I was so absorbed in the spreadsheet that at first, I didn't hear the sound.
Then it came again. Music. Faint but unmistakable, drifting through the hallway from somewhere deeper in the house.
My jaw clenched involuntarily.
I'd given strict instructions to the staff about noise levels in the evenings. I needed quiet to work, to think, to maintain the focus that had made me successful. The mansion was large enough that everyone should be able to exist without disturbing each other.
The music continued, growing slightly louder. Some kind of classical piece I didn't recognize, the melody warbling slightly as if the recording was old or the player malfunctioning.
Irritation flared hot in my chest. I saved my work and closed the laptop with force, then wheeled myself toward the door.
The hallway was empty, but the music was clearer now. It was coming from the gallery, the long corridor lined with paintings and antiques. I rarely went there anymore. Too many memories.
As I approached, the music grew louder, and I could hear it more clearly now. Elvis Presley. One of myself and Sharon's favorites, something we shared in common. She used to play it on the antique record player we'd found in a small shop in Paris during our honeymoon.
The record player.
My hands tightened on the wheelchair controls. Who would dare…
That record player was worth more than most people made in a year. A 1920s Victor Victrola in pristine condition, one of Sharon's most prized possessions. I'd kept it exactly as she'd left it, untouched, preserved like everything else in this house that reminded me of her.
No one was supposed to go near it.
I was almost to the gallery entrance when I heard it, a tremendous CRASH. The sound of metal hitting hardwood, the sharp crack of something breaking, the pieces scattering across the floor.
My blood turned to ice.
I pressed the wheelchair control to move faster, my heart beating hard in my chest. Please, no. Please don't let it be…
I rounded the corner into the gallery, and the scene before me made my world tilt sideways.
The record player lay on its side on the floor, the ornate horn speaker bent at an unnatural angle. The tonearm had snapped completely off, lying several feet away. And the record...Sharon's precious Elvis record...was shattered, scattered across the hardwood like fragments.
And in the middle of the destruction, bent over with her small hands reaching toward the broken pieces, was Lily.
"What the hell are you doing?"
The words came out from me before I could stop them, sharp and furious. Lily jerked upright, spinning to face me with wide, frightened eyes. The shoes fell from her hand, clattering to the floor beside the piece of the tonearm that had broken off.
"I... I was just..." Her voice was small, trembling.
"Just what?" I wheeled myself closer, my rage building with each rotation of the wheels. "Just destroying priceless antiques? Just touching things that don't belong to you?"
"I didn't mean to break it!" Tears were already forming in her eyes, her small hands twisting together in front of her. "I was trying to dance, and the arm thing was loose already, and I just…"
"I don't care what you were trying to do!" I was shouting now, the sound echoing off the gallery walls. "Do you have any idea what you've done? That record player belonged to my late wife. It's irreplaceable. And you just waltzed in here and broke it because you couldn't keep your hands to yourself!"
"I'm sorry," she sobbed, her whole body shaking. "I'm really, really sorry, Mr. Hawthorne. I was just..."
"Sorry doesn't fix it!" I snapped. "Sorry doesn't undo the damage. What were you even doing in here? This isn't your playroom. These aren't your toys. How did your mother raise you, that you think it's acceptable to touch other people's belongings without permission?"
The words were cruel, intended to hurt, and I saw them hit like a punch. Lily's face crumpled completely, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stood there, frozen in place, looking at me like I was a monster.
Maybe I was.
She let out a choked sob and turned, running from the gallery. Her footsteps echoed down the hallway, getting fainter and fainter, until I heard a door slam somewhere in the distance.
Silence fell over the gallery, broken only by the continued crackling of the Chopin recording still playing on the damaged record player.
"Mr. Hawthorne."
Jenkins's voice came from behind me, carefully neutral but with an edge I rarely heard from him. I turned to find him standing in the doorway, his expression composed but his eyes sharp with something that looked like disapproval.
"What?" I snapped.
"Sir, if I may..." He stepped into the gallery, his gaze moving from me to the record player to the spot where Lily had been standing. "The child was genuinely trying to be careful. I saw her earlier, asking one of the housekeepers about the proper way to operate antique equipment. She wasn't being careless or disrespectful."
"She broke it, Jenkins." I gestured sharply at the damaged tonearm. "Intentions don't matter when the result is destruction."
"She's a child, sir." Jenkins moved closer, and there was something in his voice now…something gentle but firm that made my chest tighten. "Children make mistakes. They're curious, they explore, and sometimes things break. It doesn't make them bad children or mean they were poorly raised."
"I didn't ask for your opinion on child-rearing."
"Perhaps not, sir. But I'm offering it anyway." He bent down and carefully picked up the broken piece of the tonearm. What you said to that little girl, however... those wounds may take much longer to heal."
Guilt twisted in my gut, sharp and unexpected. "She shouldn't have been touching it in the first place."
I know sir, but there are ways to go about things like this.
The words fell on me like ice. I stared at Jenkins, seeing the disappointment in his eyes, and something inside me cracked.
Lily's tear-stained face flashed in my mind. The way she'd stood there, trembling, trying to explain, and I'd cut her off. Shouted at her. Told her she'd been poorly raised.
Attacked her mother through her.
"She was crying, sir," Jenkins said softly. "That little girl ran past me in tears, looking for her mother, because you made her feel like she'd done something unforgivable. Over an object."
"It was Sharon's," I said, but my voice had lost its edge, coming out flat and hollow.
"I know, sir. I remember when you brought it home from Paris. Mrs. Sharon was so delighted with it." Jenkins paused, weighing his next words carefully. "But Mrs. Sharon is gone, sir. And that little girl... she's here. She's real. She's alive and sweet and trying so hard to make you happy. And you just broke her heart over a piece of wood and metal."
I had no response to that. No defense. Because he was right.
Jenkins set the broken tonearm piece gently on a side table. "If I may be excused, sir, I should check on the child. Make sure she's alright."
"Yes," I managed. "Yes, of course."
He left quietly, and I sat there alone in the gallery with the damaged record player and the ghost of a seven-year-old's sobs echoing in my ears.
What had I done?
The words I had said to her made me sick now. Lily was a good child, anyone could see that...Sweet, curious, respectful. Emily had raised her beautifully despite circumstances that would have broken most people.
And I'd used that against them both. Had weaponized Emily's parenting to hurt a seven-year-old who'd made an innocent mistake.
Over a record player.
I wheeled myself closer to the antique, examining the damage with clearer eyes. The tonearm had separated at a joint.
It wasn't irreplaceable. It wasn't destroyed.
But what I'd said to Lily...
My hands clenched on the armrests as shame flooded through me, hot and nauseating.
I'd terrified her. Had made her feel small and worthless and wrong. Had taken her natural curiosity and enthusiasm and crushed it under the weight of my anger and grief.
The same way my late father had done to me when I was young.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut.
I could still remember being eight years old, touching one of my father's expensive fountain pens without permission. The way he'd exploded, his face red with fury, his voice booming through the study as he'd berated me for my carelessness, my disrespect, my inability to understand the value of fine things.
"What's wrong with you, boy? Can't you keep your hands to yourself?"
I'd stood there crying, just like Lily had, while my father's words rained down on me like blows. And afterward, I'd been terrified of him for months. Had walked on eggshells around him, afraid of setting him off again.
Had I just done the same thing to Lily?
The thought made my stomach churn. I'd sworn I would never be like my father. Never let anger control me the way it had controlled him. Never make a child feel the way he'd made me feel.
And yet here I was, sitting in my gallery, having just reduced a seven-year-old to tears over an antique record player.
I was exactly like him.
The wheelchair suddenly felt like a cage. I wanted to stand up, to pace, to move, anything to escape the crushing weight of self-loathing settling over me. But I couldn't. I was trapped here, trapped in this chair, trapped in this house, trapped in the prison of my own making.
Emily's words from weeks ago echoed in my mind: "You're letting your disability define you. You're letting the accident win."
She'd been right about that.
And she'd be right to hate me now, for what I'd done to her daughter.
I closed my eyes, Lily's tear-stained face burned into my memory. The way she'd looked at me with such hurt and confusion, like she couldn't understand how the man who'd taken her to school, who'd smiled at her drawings, who'd seemed to care... how that man could suddenly turn into someone so cruel.
Because that's what I'd been. Cruel. Not just angry or disappointed, but actively and deliberately cruel.
Hell, I couldn't forgive myself.
I sat there in the gallery shadows and I felt the full weight of what I'd become.
A bitter, angry man hiding behind his disability and his grief. Using both as excuses to push away anyone who tried to get close. Lashing out at innocence because it reminded me of everything I'd lost.
The pattern was clear. Everyone who got close to me ended up damaged somehow.
I should apologize. I knew that. Should wheel myself to wherever Lily had run to...probably Emily's room or her own...and tell her I was sorry. That she hadn't done anything wrong. That I'd overreacted.
But the words stuck in my throat.
Because apologizing meant admitting I was wrong. Meant showing vulnerability. Meant opening myself up to the possibility of being rejected, of having Lily look at me with those hurt eyes and tell me she didn't want my apology.