But Nathan barely heard her.

His eyes stayed on the boys.

The realization wasn’t arriving slowly.

It was crashing.

These were not just children.

They were his.

Emma noticed his expression change.

And for the first time, something flickered in her face—fear.

Not for herself.

For them.

“You need to leave,” she said firmly.

Nathan didn’t move.

“I can fix this,” he said quietly. “Everything. Medical debt, your job, their future—anything.”

Emma’s voice sharpened.

“You think that’s what I want?”

“I’m their father,” he insisted.

That word cracked something in the room.

Emma stepped closer.

“No, Nathan,” she said. “You are their biological accident.”

A long silence.

Then she added:

“And you don’t get to enter their world just because you finally noticed it exists.”

Nathan’s voice lowered. “Then what do I do?”

Emma looked at him for a long time.

Then said:

“Leave them alone.”

That night, Nathan didn’t sleep.

He sat in his penthouse staring at a city he once thought he owned.

But all he saw was a bakery counter.

Coins being counted.

A child refusing bread so his mother wouldn’t suffer.

And two boys who had his eyes.

The next morning, something changed.

Nathan canceled three major deals.

Then another.

His board panicked.

“Are you insane?” his CFO shouted. “This Shanghai project alone—”

“I’m done,” Nathan said simply.

That was the first time in his life anyone heard him say it.

But the real shock came two days later.

Emma received a legal notice.

Not from Nathan.

From his own company board.

They were preparing to remove him.

Because a man who abandons billion-dollar negotiations for “personal instability” cannot lead a global empire.

Emma read the letter twice.

Then looked at Nathan when he arrived uninvited again.

“You’re losing your kingdom,” she said.

Nathan nodded.

“I don’t care anymore.”

That was the moment Emma realized something terrifying.

He meant it.

PART 3
The storm broke over Chicago the night everything collapsed.

Nathan’s company stock fell 18% in one day.

Rumors spread—mental breakdown, hidden scandal, internal coup.

But Nathan wasn’t in any boardroom.

He was outside Emma’s building.

Waiting.

When she came down, she didn’t look surprised anymore.

Only tired.

“You’re destroying your life,” she said.

“I already did that years ago,” Nathan replied.

Rain started falling.

Then he said it.

“I want them to know me.”