Chapter 10 - THE CONFRONTATIONTen minutes later, Adrien was standing on the front porch of 114 Willow Lane.
He didn't wait for permission. He knocked twice, firm and steady, on the heavy oak door he had hung himself.
When Nora opened the door, her hair was damp from the snow, wearing her worn flour-stained apron. She looked exhausted, her eyes red-rimmed. She began to close the door instantly, but Adrien reached out, setting his palm flat against the wood.
"Don't," he said softly.
"Adrien, I told you—"
"I don't care what you told me," he said, his voice raw, stripped of all wealth, all posture, all pride. He reached into his coat pocket and held up the small cardboard airplane. "Toby dropped this off at my door."
Nora froze, looking down at the toy in his hand. Her chest heaved. "He... he snuck out this morning while I was cleaning the oven."
"Nora," Adrien said, stepping past the doorway into the small warm foyer. "You were right about everything. I lied to you. I hid behind my money because I was terrified that if you saw the real me—a man who spent his life building a golden cage with no one inside it—you wouldn't want me."
Nora stood back against the wall, her eyes searching his face.
"My father died when I was twelve," Adrien whispered, his eyes dark with old, buried pain. "He left my mother with millions of dollars, but he never sat with me for five minutes. He never held a piece of wood for me while the glue dried. I thought money was the only thing that made a man worth staying for. So I made billions of it."
He took a step closer, stopping inches from her, setting the cardboard plane gently on the small entryway table.
"I don't care about Cole Capital," he said, his voice trembling. "I don't care about New York, or Tokyo, or the house with twelve staff. I bought this cottage because for the first time in thirty-eight years, I felt like I was actually home. And if you want me to leave, I'll go. But don't tell me I didn't love you. Because loving you and Toby is the only real thing I've ever done in my life."
Nora stared at him, her breath hitching in her throat. The cold, impenetrable wall around her heart cracked—not from his money, not from his legal power, but from the sight of a twelve-billion-dollar man standing in her hallway, wet with snow, begging for a second chance to hold a piece of cardboard.
From the doorway of the kitchen, a tiny voice spoke up into the heavy silence.
"Adrien?" Toby whispered, holding a fresh bottle of glue. "The tower fell down again."
Adrien looked down at the boy, then up at Nora.
May you like
Nora looked at the man who had stayed in the rain for three hours, then down at her son. She let out a long, shuddering breath, her shoulders finally dropping their weight.
"Well?" Nora murmured, a faint, tiny smile touching the corner of her lips through her tears. "What are you waiting for? Go hold the tower."
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