The past had a way of slipping through the cracks, catching Elias Blackwood when he least expected it.
It wasn't haunting him anymore. No, this was something far more dangerous.
It was hunting.
He sat in his office the next morning, his gaze lost among contracts, mergers, and a stack of proposals, but none of it mattered. None of it could distract him from the one thought that kept gnawing at him, over and over again.
The clause.
The clause Aria had never signed.
At the time, he had thought nothing of it. It had been one of those things, a formal detail meant to protect his interests, his legacy—something he thought Aria would understand. A decision rooted in business, designed to safeguard his empire from the uncertainties of family life.
The prenup he had drawn up before their marriage had one peculiar condition—no children. It was simple, clear, and unspoken: no children during the marriage, no children after. A precaution, a means of ensuring the temporary nature of their arrangement remained undisturbed.
But Aria… she never signed that page.
He remembered how her fingers had trembled when she reached that clause. She hadn't argued. She hadn't even protested. She just… left it blank.
And he had ignored it. Brushed it off as though it were nothing.
Back then, Aria had been just another formality. A woman who didn't want the complexities of a family, who would never fall in love with him or expect anything more than what was written on the dotted line. A woman who knew the rules and had agreed to them.
At least, that's what he had told himself.
Now, that unsigned clause was haunting him, like a ghost from a war he didn't even know he had lost.
Elias stood abruptly, his mind spinning in every direction but one. He paced toward the glass windows, trying to steady himself as he gazed out over the city. His phone buzzed on the desk, a reminder of the world that continued on without him, but he ignored it. The world beyond these walls felt distant, irrelevant.
Why hadn't she told him?
Why had she run?
Why had he let her go?
He didn't know how to be a father. His own father had been little more than a title—absent, distant, and more a symbol of power than a real presence in his life. Elias had been raised with success as the only language that mattered, and emotions? Emotions had always been a luxury, something for others.
But now?
Now, as he sat in his high-rise office, surrounded by everything he had built, he realized that he wanted to try.
Not out of obligation, but because when he thought of Eli—when he thought of that little boy standing behind Aria's door—he didn't see just another complication.
He saw himself.
Without the coldness. Without the walls. Without the endless pursuit of something that could never be enough.
And that terrified him more than anything else in the world.
Meanwhile, across town, in a small café nestled in a quieter part of the city, Aria sat with Nadine, her longtime friend and former roommate, nursing a cup of tea. The clink of silverware against china was the only sound that filled the space, but neither woman noticed it. The weight of the conversation loomed too large.
"You told him?" Nadine asked, her eyes widening slightly as she set down her coffee spoon.
Aria nodded, her gaze distant. "He showed up. I couldn't lie."
Nadine leaned back in her seat, stunned. "And?"
"And now he says he wants to be part of Eli's life."
Nadine's eyes widened further. She was silent for a long moment, as if weighing her words carefully before she spoke again. "Do you believe him?"
Aria stirred her tea absently, her mind turning over the same question. "I don't know," she confessed, the words tasting foreign on her tongue. "He's persuasive. Dangerous in the way he makes things sound like promises, even when they're not."
Nadine raised an eyebrow, a wry smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "You're scared you might believe him again."
Aria didn't answer. She couldn't. Because Nadine was right. She was scared—scared of the truth she hadn't yet fully admitted to herself. That somewhere deep inside, she still cared about Elias Blackwood. In some twisted way, she always had.
Back at Blackwood & Co., Elias walked into the privacy of his personal archive. The room was dimly lit, the air thick with the scent of leather-bound books and dust. He walked to a drawer marked "Blackwood Family – Private Contracts" and pulled it open. Inside, among other papers and files, was the prenup—the document that had sealed his fate, the one that Aria had left unfinished.
He flicked through the pages. Clause after clause, condition after condition—each one signed, all neatly in place. Until he came to the very last page.
There it was.
The blank space.
Aria's signature was missing.
And the absence of it… that simple omission… it changed everything.
Elias stood frozen, staring at the page. It wasn't just a legal formality. It wasn't just a missing signature. It was her silent rebellion. Her refusal to let him define their relationship in the terms of his empire. The gap, the silence, spoke volumes he had never listened to.
Maybe she had hoped he would notice. Maybe, even back then, she had been asking him to fight for her. For them.
But he hadn't. He hadn't seen it. He hadn't understood.
And now, as the weight of the revelation settled in, Elias clenched the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white.
That night, as the city outside Aria's apartment buzzed with life, she stepped onto her doorstep to find an envelope resting there, the writing unmistakable.
Elias.
She opened it slowly, her fingers trembling. The weight of the moment settled over her as she read the letter, each word like a soft, insistent echo of the past.
Aria,
Four years ago, you left without a goodbye.
Four days ago, I found you again.
And four seconds after hearing him say "Mommy," I knew the truth.
You didn't sign the clause.
I didn't notice. That's on me.
But I see it now — the gap, the silence, the message you left without speaking.
You didn't sign it because deep down, you were never a contract.
You were always more.
I'm not asking you to forgive me today.
But I'm not going anywhere, Aria.
Not this time.
— Elias
Aria sat on the floor, the letter clutched tightly in her hands, her heart torn in two.
He wasn't just coming for the child. He was coming for her.
And she wasn't sure if she was ready for that war—or that peace.