"His data?" Nina laughed, though the sound rang hollow, breathless with shock. She pressed her fingertips against her temples and paced a short line across the polished floorboards of the study, her heels clicking an anxious rhythm. The absurdity of it all threatened to overwhelm her… the clinical detachment with which he discussed his own son, as if Ethan were a problem to be solved rather than a child to be loved. "He's a five-year-old child, Lucas, not a corporate portfolio. You don't just run the numbers and print out a mother."
"The numbers don't lie, Nina," Lucas said, his voice entirely level as he tracked her movements with the precision of a man accustomed to reading every shift in a negotiation. She could feel his gaze following her like a weight.
