The heir they threw away

Ethan Cole tightened his tie in the bathroom mirror and repeated the lie he told himself every morning: Today is different.

He had said it on the morning of the Drexler pitch, and the morning of the Sentinel Media callback, and a dozen other mornings that had stacked up over three years like bricks in a wall he couldn’t climb.

But today actually felt different. He was usually tired each morning, but he felt somewhat spirited today.

He had the Calloway contract securely in his folder. A twelve-million-dollar city project. He has used four months to build a proposal so perfect that it didn't have a single loose thread. He’d drafted the entire thing in the corner of his kitchen on a laptop with a cracked hinge, drinking cold coffee and checking every digit until his eyes burned.

This wasn’t the usual near-miss, it was the conrtract that'll change his life.

He straightened his tie, checking the line of his suit. It was three years old, but he’d pressed it until it looked sharp enough to look presentable.

The apartment was quiet when he stepped out. Simone, his wife, was at the kitchen island, already dressed for the day. She was scrolling through her phone, with a bored expression. She was still beautiful, but that sharp, composed beauty now felt like a wall he penetrate. There was a distance behind her eyes he had learned, the hard way, not to try and reach.

"Big day," he said, softly.

She looked up, a bored flick of her eyes. "Mm."

"Calloway meeting's at ten. If this goes the way I think it goes—"

"Ethan." She set her phone down and rolled her eyes with no enthusiasm, "You’ve said that before."

"I know," he said, his voice dropping slightly.

"I’m just saying, Ethan. Don't build it up too much...for your own sake." She warned and looked away.

He looked at her, searching for the girl who used to drive three hours just to surprise him at weddings, the one who had cried with such beautiful, raw joy at their daughter's birth. That woman felt like a ghost now.

"I’m not building it up," he said, turning toward the door. "I’m telling you it’s real." He said flatly and without waiting for her to answer, he grabbed his proposal folder and headed for Lily’s room.

His daughter was five, and she had her mother’s eyes. Unfortunately she also had her mother’s habit of looking right through him. She sat on her bed in her school uniform, staring at a drawing impassively.

"Daddy’s got a big meeting today, bug," he said, hovering in the doorway.

Lily didn't look up. "Jordan says meetings don't matter if you don't have leverage."

Ethan froze instantly and the breath left his lungs. He cleared his throat slightly, his voice quaking as he asked, "W-Where did you hear that?"

"Jordan said it at dinner." She finally looked at him, her expression bland. "Jordan has a really nice car too."

He stood there for a moment, utterly stunned. Jordan was the same man whom Simoene had been hanging out with for business purposes, the same one she told him not to worry about.

The city was grey and loud, biting against his skin with the October wind. He had forty minutes to get to Calloway, and it was a twenty-minute walk. He put his head down, clutching the folder to his chest, and started moving.

At 9:41 a.m., his phone rang. To his surprise, he saw that it was his wife, Simone. "I'm almost there—" he started.

"Ethan!" Her terrified voice cackled over the line and he froze with panic in the middle of the street. "It’s Lily-she’s sick! She collapsed at school suddenly and they're saying get to Mercy General right now, Ethan, please—"

Ethan's mind went blank for a few seconds. He stared at the folder in his hand, the same one that could change all of their lives and his heart clenched in his chest with fear.

"Fuck," he cussed under his breath and shook his head, "I'm coming right now."

He hung up with a devastated sigh and looked north, toward the Calloway offices, six blocks away. Then he looked south, toward the hospital, twelve blocks away.

He didn't hesitate for too long, then he turned south and ran.

He ran until his lungs burned, his only good shoes slapping hard against the wet pavement, while his tie whipped over his shoulder. He ran because she was his, and she was five, and there was nothing else in the universe that mattered more. Not the contract, not the three years of constant failure. And not even his cold, distant wife waiting back at home.

He burst into the emergency entrance of Mercy General, struggling to catch his breath as his hands slammed onto the reception desk.

"My daughter," he choked out. "Lily Cole, she...she collapsed and school! My wife called me—"

The receptionist didn't even look moved. She checked her screen, then looked back at him with bored eyes. "Sir, there’s no Lily Cole admitted here today."

He froze, then frowned at her, "That can't be! Or could she be under a different name? A different hospital?"

She just shook her head and looked away.

He pulled out his phone, his thumb shaking as he dialed Simone. It rang but she didn't pick, forcing him to call again and again but with no response. He sat in a plastic chair in the waiting area, surrounded by the smell of antiseptic and the muted noise of a television, calling her number until his hands went numb.

Nothing still.

Twenty-three minutes later, he walked back out into the cold and hailed a cab. He didn't know why he felt sick, but a cold, heavy feeling had settled in his stomach.

He heard a loud music before he even touched the door. He froze for a moment and listened. He heard laughter first of all. Then the clinking of expensive glass. It was the bright, high-pitched buzz of a party in full swing.

He unlocked the door slowly, frowning in confusion and stepped inside. For a split second, his brain refused to process what he saw. There were a dozen people and also wine glasses. Someone had even brought lilies. Simone was in the center of it all, wearing a dress he had never seen, her face flushed and vibrant, alive in a way he hadn't seen in years.

Beside her, with one arm curled possessively around his wife's waist and a champagne flute in his other hand, was Jordan Marsh. Ethan scoffed in disbelief, his heart sinking to his stomach.

Lily bolted from the kitchen, running straight to Jordan and grabbing his sleeve, her face lit with a delighted, painful joy.

"Daddy!" she shouted, pointing at the man who had stolen her mother’s attention and his own future. "Daddy, look! Jordan got the Calloway contract!"

Ethan's brain stopped working and a cold chill sent goosebumps over his skin.