"Mommy!"

A little boy's laughter echoed through the fashion studio.

Evelyn looked up just in time to see him sprinting straight toward her, his tiny backpack bouncing against his shoulders.

"Leon," she laughed, setting down the sketch she'd been working on. "Slow down."

"But I have news!"

He threw himself into her arms with all the excitement a six-year-old could possibly have.

Evelyn caught him effortlessly. "What happened?"

"My teacher said my drawing was the best in class!"

"Really?"

He nodded so hard his hair flopped into his eyes.

"And she put it on the wall!"

Evelyn smiled. To the world, Leon was the son of a powerful designer.

But to Evelyn, he was her everything.

Her reason to survive those six painful years.

Her reason to keep moving forward.

She smiled, "Well... I guess I'll have to hire you as LUXE's newest designer."

Leon gasped dramatically.

"I get paid?" Evelyn looked at her boy, he was five years old and already had a personality. He had her eyes too.

She laughed.

"We'll discuss your salary."

The entire studio burst into laughter and Leon grinned proudly as though he'd already signed the contract.

Zara, her personal assistant and bestfriend, appeared in the doorway holding two copies of the magazine. She was grinning in the wide, slightly smug way of someone who was really impressed.

"Have you seen this?" Zara said.

"I was there for the photo shoot, Zara." Evelyn laughed and rolled her eyes.

"That"s not the point. The point is that it's on every newsstand in Europe and women are posting photos of it and tagging us and we have had over four hundred new inquiries in the inbox since midnight." She placed both copies on the table. "So I need you to at least pretend to be excited, Eve."

Evelyn looked at the cover for a moment. At her own face looking back at her; calm, poise and unafraid.

Even though she tried not to, but she immediately remenbered a different face, then, standing outside a hotel parking lot crying.

The memory stung her immediately.

"I'm excited," she said, as she walked to her working desk. "But let's focus on the spring line because we're three weeks behind."

Zara shook her head but she was still smiling.

"Oh, I almost forgot. AS Tech called again," Zara said.

Evelyn did not look up from her laptop. "Oh, have they agreed to our terms?."

"They want a face-to-face. The acquisitions team is serious about the partnership, apparently the CEO is personally involved now."

"Of course, it's their loss if the partnership doesn't work, not mine."

"Evelyn."

"We've been through three rounds of preliminary talks, Zara. If AS Tech wants to partner with LUXE, they will accept our terms. If they don't accept our terms, there are six other offers on the table."

"I know. I'm just saying, the CEO personally coming to Milan is not a standard acquisition move. Whoever this man is, he wants the meeting to happen."

Evelyn paused briefly. "Yeah, whoever he is. Ok just set it up. Wednesday, here. And make sure the conference room has good lighting. I want them to see every stitch on the new autumn line before we talk numbers."

Zara made a note, satisfied. She was halfway to the door when she stopped. "Daniel called too. He wants to know if you're free for dinner Friday."

Something in Evelyn's expression softened and complicated itself at the same time.

Daniel Marsh had appeared in her life three years ago through a mutual friend, and had eventually become quietly and consistently present in her life. Even she found it alarming at first but , ended up being comfortable. He was a good man.

He was kind to Leon which mattered more than anything else. But she did not love him the way he wanted to be loved.

She had been honest with herself about this for a long time.

"Tell him yes," she said. "I have time on Friday. And Zara, please back to work, we have the Valentino fitting running late."

"Okay, Eve. Already planned," Zara said, and left.

Leon came running back in with a paper airplane flying from his tiny hand. He let in fly and it crashed into a mannequin.

"Oh no." he said.

Leon hurried over, carefully picked it up and looked around like he'd committed a serious crime.

Evelyn watched from her desk. "Baby, you've just attacked my newest collection."

Leon gasped dramatically.

"I didn't mean to." He pouted.

"It's ok, baby. It's just a paper, nothing happened."

He smiled.

"Whew." He ran towards her, opening the paper and handing it over to her. It was a drawing of both of them, holding hands.

Above them was a large building with the words LUXE Fashion House written at the top.

"It's beautiful," she said gently.

Leon beamed. "You," she said, "are going to be a very good designer."

"Just like mommy?"

"Maybe better." she booped his nose.

He smiled, satisfied and ran away, leaving Evelyn to go back to work.

Leon had grown up in this fashion house. He knew every corner of it, every person in it and every new staff even. LUXE was as much his as it was hers.

That was something nobody could take from them, at least

Zara returned soon. " Ma'am, AS Tech is in Paris, the whole team."

Evelyn raised her brows, surprised. "So soon? The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. That's in two days" she said.

Leon overheard this since he was nearby. "What's AS Tech, mommy?"

"Some technology company," Evelyn said.

"What kind?"

"The kind that makes other things work."

"Like zippers?"

"Zippers?"

"Yeah. Dresses don't work properly without them."

Evelyn laughed.

"Something like that."

Leon nodded and went back to his book.

Zara watched this exchange with a warm, slightly amused expression. She continued, "One more thing,"

"Ok?" Evelyn listened.

"Their CEO insisted on coming himself."

Evelyn was taken aback a bit. "Thats new. What's his name?"

Zara looked down at her tablet.

"...Aidan Smith."

Aidan Smith had not planned to come to Milan himself.

That was what teams were for. He had an entire acquisitions department; smart, capable people who got paid very well to walk into buildings and figure out if partnering with them made sense.

He trusted his team. He had given three separate people the job of closing the LUXE deal and all three had come back saying the founder was polite, professional, and impossible to pin down. He arrived two days ago in Milan for this too.

So here he was, on a Wednesday morning.

His driver pulled up to the LUXE building at eight forty-five. Aidan stepped out, straightened his jacket, and looked at the building.

It was clean. He was impressed.

"The advance team is already inside," his assistant, Priya, said, falling into step beside him.

"We're set for nine, boss"

"Good." Aidan's phone vibrated. Jane.

He considered ignoring it.

Then answered.

"Yes, Jane?"

Her voice was sharp, impatient. "Did you land already?"

"Yes, about two days ago too."

"Oh- But you said the meeting was yesterday."

Aidan sighed. "No Jane, it's today."

A pause. Then Jane sighed. "Baby, you should have sent someone else. You hate Italy."

"It's business."

Another pause followed,

"Fine," she said. "Call me when the deal is done."

"Jane-"

But the line had already gone dead.

Aidan lowered the phone slowly.

Six years of whatever they had , and their conversations rarely lasted longer than a minute.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket.

"Uh-, The founder's team has been very organized. They sent over a revised agenda this morning." His assistant spoke.

"What's the founder's name again?" He asked.

Priya looked down at her tablet. "Evelyn Cole. She founded the brand six years ago out of Milan. She's been -"

"I'll read the file later," Aidan said, pushing through the glass doors.

He walked into the lobby and immediately felt the quality of the space. Pale stone floors, clean lines.

The kind of space that said we take our work seriously and so should you.

He smiled. His advance team was at the reception.

Aidan stopped in the center of the lobby and looked around.

That was when he heard the voice.

"Is that a Patek or a fake?" He turned.

A small boy was sitting in a reading corner to his left– a low shelf of books, two soft chairs, clearly a space someone had made on purpose. The boy was wearing a blue well designed shirt and looked at Aidan with the focused attention of someone conducting an evaluation.

Aidan blinked. Then he looked down at his watch. Then back at the boy.

"What do you know about Patek Philippe?" he asked, surprised.

"My mum has one," the boy said. "She says you can never actually own a Patek Philippe. You jusr look after it for the next generation."" He tilted his head. "So what type of Patek is it and who gave you yours?"

Behind Aidan, Priya made a small choking sound.

Aidan crouched down to the boy's level. He could not help it.

"The Calatrava. You can tell by the case shape and the crown."

The boy leaned forward and looked very closely. "And it is second hand. It's old. I can tell."

"My father's." Aidan smiled.

"Oh." The boy sat back. like he had just received important information. "I"m Leon." He brought out his little hands for a handshake.

"Aidan."

Aidan shook his hand.

"What do you do, Mr Aidan?"

Aidan turned to Priya, clearly enjoying this little boy. "Well, I run a technology company."

"Ou, What kind of technology?"

"Communications, mostly. Infrastructure. Well...systems that make other systems work."

Leon thought about this with complete seriousness. "Like zips in dresses," he said.

Aidan stared at him and chuckled.

"Uhm, yes," he said. "Exactly like that."

Leon nodded like this confirmed something. "I want to be a designer. Like my mommy. But maybe also an astronaut."

"That's quite a combination." Aidan laughed.

"Yes, but my mum says there are more problems to solve on earth to become an astronaut." He considered. "She is probably right. She usually is."

Aidan laughed. He could not remember the last time something had made him laugh before a morning meeting without any effort at all.

Leon was watching him with quiet curiosity, and there was something about those eyes; dark brown, it felt familiar to Aidan in a way he could not place.

"Your mommy sounds smart," Aidan said.

"She is the smartest person I know." Leon smiled. "She built LUXE by herself. She always says if someone throws you away, you build yourself something better than what they had."

Aidan went very still.

Something about that sentence landed oddly. He could not explain why.

"She sounds like someone worth meeting, huh" he said carefully.

"Are you here to meet her?" Leon asked, like this was obvious. "You are from AS Tech, aren't you? I heard Mom talk about your company"

"...Yes." Aidan glanced and Priya then back at Leon.

Leon looked around before whispering in Aidan's ear. "She likes your company but she won't say yes." Leon looked at him very directly. "She doesn't say yes easily."

Aidan laughed and opened his mouth to respond.

He heard heels coming from the direction of the elevators.

He turned around.

She was crossing the lobby with a folder under her arm and a coffee in her hand, wearing an expensive tailored black dress and her hairdo up with small diamond earrings.

Then her face. She saw him at the exact same moment too. Aidan's breath caught.

For a long, frozen heartbeat, neither of them moved.

"Evelyn," he whispered to himself.

Six years. Six years since he had treated her like a piece of nothing. It felt like yesterday. He couldn't hide the guilt he felt instantly.

He hadn't expected her. He had prepared for presentations, charts, negotiations, but definetely not her.

She owned this place too?

The effortless authority in the way she walked. She was no longer the same Evelyn he had dismissed.

Evelyn Smith to Evelyn Cole, the name on every fashion magazine, a billionaire in her own right, commanding respect simply by existing in a room. How did he not catch this earlier?

Evelyn's face flickered just for a second before her mask of professionalism fell back into place.

He wanted to say a lot of things at that moment-anything-but he couldn't. Because he had no right to and now she stood there, whole and formidable, and he felt so small.

"Leon." Her voice was calm. "Go upstairs to Zara. Mommy has to take care of business now."

"Mommy, I was talking to-"

"Now, sweetheart. Please." she begged slightly.

As soon as he was gone, Evelyn looked at Aidan.

It was a look with nothing in it. Not a single trace of friendliness , just a clean, professional blankness, like he was any man who had shown up early for a meeting she had agreed to for business reasons only.

"Mr. Smith," she said. "The conference room will be ready at nine. My assistant will bring your team up."

She walked past him to the reception desk.

She did not look back.

Aidan stood there, shocked. As much as he thought about her as she left, another thing was on his mind.

Her son. What was the probability that child....was his?