Shattered Glass and Old Wounds
The travel from Blackwood International – executive boardroom to Nova’s cubicle at Blackthorn Architecture & Design consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The fluorescent lights of Blackthorn Architecture & Design hummed at a frequency that drilled into Nova’s skull. She sat in her cubicle—a glass-walled box that offered the illusion of transparency while trapping her in plain sight. The monitors glowed with the latest façade renderings for the Meridian Tower, her mouse cursor frozen over a steel joint she’d been examining for the past seven minutes without really seeing it.
The building was emptying. She’d watched the clock crawl toward eight p.m., seen her colleagues gather their bags and murmur about dinner plans and bedtime routines. Normal people. People who went home to lives that didn’t feel like holding patterns.
Nova’s fingers rested on the keyboard, unmoving. She’d spent the last four hours avoiding the obvious: Alexander Blackwood had seen her face, and he had not forgotten it.
“You’re still here.”
She looked up. June stood at the entrance to the cubicle, a paper bag in one hand and a set of keys in the other. Her friend’s brow was furrowed in that particular way Nova had come to recognize—concern dressed up as casual observation.
“I’m finishing the load calculations,” Nova said.
“You’ve been ‘finishing load calculations’ for three days, Nova. You’re the best structural engineer in this firm, which means you finished those in about forty minutes.” June stepped inside and set the paper bag on the corner of the desk. A takeout container slid out, the scent of ginger and scallion cutting through the recycled air. “You’re hiding. And you’re burning your dinner hour.”
Nova looked at the container. At the condensation beading on the lid. At the way her hands looked pale and small against the dark surface of her desk. “I’m not hiding.”
June pulled the guest chair out and sat, the scrape of its legs against the floor louder than it should have been in the quiet office. “Alexander has been in the archives for the last four hours. Beckett told me.”
Nova’s throat tightened. “Beckett tells you too much.”
“Beckett tells me what I need to know because he knows I’ll find out anyway.” June leaned forward, her voice dropping below the hum of the ventilation system. “He’s been digging into your personnel file, Nova. Your references. Your employment history. The gap between when you left Seattle and when you started here.”
“There’s nothing in that gap.”
“I know.” June’s eyes were steady, unblinking. “That’s exactly what worries him.”
The silence stretched between them, fragile as the glass walls that surrounded them. Nova could feel the shape of the truth pressing against her ribs, demanding release. She’d carried it for six years. She’d built her entire life around the weight of it. And now, in a cubicle with her best friend watching her with those patient, knowing eyes, she felt the seams begin to split.
“He asked me a question yesterday,” Nova said. Her voice came out thin. “When he saw me in the parking garage. He asked if I’d brought his child.”
June’s expression flickered. Not surprise—she was too sharp for that—but the confirmation of something she’d suspected and hoped was wrong. “And what did you tell him?”
“I left.”
“Nova.”
The name hung between them. June said it the way a doctor says a diagnosis: with professional distance that barely masked personal investment.
Nova pressed the heels of her palms against her eye sockets until she saw stars. “He’s Alexander Blackwood. He’s the heir to the Blackthorn name. And I—” She dropped her hands. “I didn’t tell him. I couldn’t. You don’t understand what that family is capable of.”
“Then explain it to me.”
The invitation was simple, direct. June had never pushed, never pried. She’d been there at the edges of Nova’s life for the last two years, offering coffee and patience and the kind of loyalty that didn’t demand reciprocity. And now, with the weight of Alexander’s discovery pressing down on her, Nova finally let the words come.
“I met him six years ago. In Seattle. I was doing a temporary contract for a smaller firm, and he was finishing a project that overlapped with one of mine. We worked together for three months. We were—” She paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t cheapen it. “We were something. I didn’t know who he was. Not really. I knew he had money, but I didn’t know the name. And then I found out I was pregnant.”
June’s hand moved across the desk, settling over Nova’s. “And you didn’t tell him.”
“I tried. I came to the Blackthorn estate. I waited in the lobby for two hours while they made me fill out forms and sit in a waiting room like I was applying for a loan.” Nova’s jaw set firmly, a muscle jumping beneath her skin. “His father came down instead. Cole Blackthorn. He sat across from me in that marble foyer, and he told me that if I tried to contact Alexander again, if I tried to make any claim against the family, they would destroy me. He said it like he was reading a weather report. No heat. No anger. Just absolute certainty.”
“He threatened you.”
“He offered me money. A lot of it, actually. A settlement with a non-disclosure agreement that would have tied my tongue to the grave.” Nova shook her head. “I refused. I told him I didn’t want his money. I just wanted Alexander to know. And Cole—” She swallowed. “Cole told me that if I ever contacted his son, he would make sure I lost everything. My job. My reputation. My ability to work in this industry at all. And then he showed me a file. A folder full of things he’d dug up on me. My mother’s medical history. My student loan debt. My landlord’s phone number. He knew everything, and he made sure I knew that he knew.”
June’s hand tightened over hers. “So you ran.”
“I ran. I changed my name. I moved to a different state. I found work at a firm that doesn’t look too closely at your past as long as your numbers check out. I raised my son in a one-bedroom apartment, and I told myself that I had done the right thing. That keeping him away from the Blackthorns was the only way to keep him safe.” Nova’s voice cracked, a hairline fracture in the armor she’d worn for so long. “And now Alexander is here. And he knows.”
“He knows you have a child,” June said carefully. “He doesn’t know that child is his.”
“He’s not stupid, June. He’s going to connect the dots. And when he does, Cole Blackthorn is going to find out that I didn’t stay gone.” Nova pulled her hand free and stood, pacing to the glass wall that overlooked the darkening city. The lights of midtown flickered against the glass, each one a distant star in a grid of concrete and ambition. “I don’t know what’s worse. The thought of Alexander finding out and hating me, or the thought of Cole finding out and taking Jace from me.”
“They can’t take him. You’re his mother.”
“Cole Blackthorn doesn’t play by the same rules as the rest of us. He has lawyers. He has politicians in his pocket. He has a reputation built on crushing anyone who stands between him and what he wants.” Nova turned back to face her friend. “And what he wants is control. Complete, absolute control over his legacy. A grandchild he can shape and mold into the next generation of Blackthorn power is exactly the kind of asset he would kill to secure.”
June stood as well, her posture straightening. “Then we fight. We find a lawyer who isn’t afraid of the Blackthorn name. We document everything. We make sure that if they try to take Jace, they have to go through every legal channel and every public record to do it.”
“You’re talking about a war.”
“I’m talking about protecting your son.” June’s voice was firm, unyielding. “You’ve been running for six years, Nova. Maybe it’s time to stop.”
The words hit like a shock of cold water. Nova stood in the sterile light of her cubicle, surrounded by blueprints and renderings of buildings she would never live in, and felt the ground shift beneath her feet.
“I need to think,” she said. “I need to figure out what to do.”
“Then think.” June gathered her bag and moved toward the door. “But don’t take too long. Alexander isn’t going to wait for you to find your footing.”
She left, and the silence of the empty office settled back around Nova like a shroud. She stood at the glass, watching her reflection hover against the dark sky beyond, and tried to find the woman who had once been brave enough to walk into the Blackthorn estate with nothing but the truth in her hands.
She wasn’t sure that woman still existed.
The hours bled together. Nova worked through the motions of closing out her files, saving her progress, powering down her monitors. She packed her bag with deliberate slowness, stalling against the moment when she would have to leave the sanctuary of the office and face the world outside.
The elevator dinged at seven forty-eight.
She stepped into the parking garage, the concrete echoing with the distant sound of traffic. Her car sat in its usual spot, a modest sedan that had carried her and Jace through three moves and countless late-night pharmacy runs. She reached for the door handle.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Alexander’s voice came from behind her, low and measured. She turned slowly, her keys clutched in her hand, the metal teeth pressing into her palm.
He stood beside a dark sedan, arms crossed, his face unreadable in the dim light of the garage. He wore a tailored suit, the jacket unbuttoned, his tie loosened at the collar. He looked like a man who had spent the day wrestling with something he couldn’t quite pin down.
“Mr. Blackwood,” she said, the name cold on her tongue.
“Alexander,” he corrected. “I think we’re past formalities, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what we’re past.”
He took a step forward, and she forced herself to hold her ground. He was taller than her by half a foot, broad-shouldered, with the kind of presence that filled spaces without trying. His eyes—those sharp, intelligent eyes that had once looked at her with warmth—now studied her like she was a blueprint he couldn’t quite read.
“I pulled your file,” he said. “Your personnel file, your references, your employment history. I ran a background check through a private firm. Do you know what they found?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I know what’s in my file.”
“Exactly. Nothing.” He stopped three feet from her, close enough that she could smell his cologne—something clean and expensive that brought back memories she had buried deep. “A woman with your credentials, your experience, should have a trail. A paper trail, a digital trail, a trail of recommendations and connections. You have none. It’s like you appeared out of thin air two years ago.”
“I value my privacy.”
“You value concealment.” His voice sharpened. “And concealment implies something to conceal.”
The air in the garage thickened. Nova could feel the weight of the moment pressing down on her shoulders, the inevitable collision of two paths that had been set in motion six years ago.
“You asked me yesterday if I brought your child,” she said quietly. “I’m going to ask you a question now, and I need you to answer me honestly.”
He watched her, a flicker of something—surprise, perhaps—crossing his features. “Go ahead.”
“If I told you the truth,” she said, each word measured, precise, “what would you do with it?”
The silence that followed was absolute. A car passed somewhere in the distance, the sound muffled by concrete and steel. Alexander’s gaze never wavered.
“I would verify it,” he said. “And then I would act accordingly.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I can give you.” He took another step closer, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his irises, the lines of tension around his mouth. “I don’t know you anymore, Nova. I don’t know what you’ve become, or why you left the way you did, or why you’ve been hiding in plain sight for the last two years. But I know that you were mine once. And I know that when I look at you, I see the ghost of something I never got to finish.”
Her breath caught. The raw honesty in his voice disarmed her in a way that anger or accusation never could.
“I need to know if there’s a child,” he said, softer now. “I need to know if he’s mine. And I need you to give me the DNA test that will prove it.”
“No.”
The word came out before she could stop it, sharp and defensive. She saw the shift in his expression—the hardening of resolve, the tightening of the lines around his eyes.
“No?”
“I can’t.” She stepped back, her spine hitting the cold metal of her car door. “You don’t understand what’s at stake. Your father—”
“My father is not part of this conversation.”
“Your father is part of every conversation where the Blackthorn name is involved.” Nova’s voice rose, the dam breaking. “He threatened me, Alexander. Six years ago, when I came to tell you about the pregnancy, he threatened me. He told me that if I ever tried to contact you, he would destroy me. And I believed him. I still believe him.”
Alexander’s face went still, a mask of controlled fury. “He never told me.”
“Of course he didn’t. He wanted you to think I abandoned you. That I was just another woman looking for a payout.” Nova’s throat burned. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I left because I had no choice.”
He stood motionless for a long moment, the weight of her confession settling between them. Then he moved, not toward her, but to the side, his hand reaching for something in his pocket.
A phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice sharp.
“Calling my lawyer.” His thumb hovered over the screen. “If you won’t give me the test voluntarily, I’ll get a court order. I’ll petition for paternity. I’ll use every resource at my disposal to force the issue.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I can.” His eyes met hers, dark and unyielding. “And I will.”
The garage fell silent again, but this time it was the silence before a storm. Nova’s pulse hammered in her ears, drowning out the distant hum of the city above them. She could see the path unfolding before her—the legal battles, the media attention, the inevitable moment when Cole Blackthorn would learn that his son had found her.
She thought of Jace. Of his small hands and his bright eyes and the way he laughed when she tickled his feet. She thought of the life she had built for him, fragile as spun glass, and the weight of what she would do to protect it.
“If you do this,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “you will set things in motion that you cannot stop. Your father will find out. And when he does, he will come for my son.”
“Then we have a problem,” Alexander said, “because I will not let you disappear again. I will not let you take whatever this is—whatever we might have been—and bury it in another lie.”
He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. His hand reached out, grasping her wrist—not hard, but firm, his thumb pressing against the pulse point where her heart hammered against her skin.
His thumb pressed against her racing pulse. “You will give me that test, Nova—or I will tear down every wall you’ve built, including the one around that little boy.”